Chapter 16: Chapter Fifteen
Early the next morning, the hiss and clomp of the snowplow woke Patrick from his furied dreams. The world otherwise was always so quiet after a blizzard, even the animals stilled by the frosty precipitation. He pressed his arm over his eyes and groaned.
Sleeping down the hall from Anita was not a good way to get a full night’s sleep.
The tang of coffee wafted up the stairs. Thank God for Marina. He pulled Dr. Goodman’s worn sweatpants over the black boxer shorts he had worn to bed. He stretched, yawning, then performed his morning round of sit-ups and push-ups to get the blood flowing. Nothing like a little exercise to push the possibility of his best friend being poisoned out of his head. Or the way she had looked at him last night.
Possibilities and wasted time.
He pulled the navy-blue polo over his head as he walked downstairs. Marina was already dressed for the day in a dark-green cabled sweater and jeans. “Patrick!” She smiled as he entered. “Thank goodness the power didn’t go out.”
He nodded and yawned. “These March blizzards are the worst. Hopefully the roads won’t be too bad. Is Dr. Goodman okay?”
She waved a hand at him. “That man, he is too much. Told me he and his friend Dr. Stearns drank Japanese whiskey and played Scrabble until they both passed out. Honestly, you would think they were old enough to know better.”
Patrick gratefully accepted the coffee she poured into a thick ceramic souvenir mug from Rehoboth Beach. “I hope I am never old enough to know better.”
She shot him an arch look. “Now, Patrick, what do you like for breakfast? It is so long I get to cook breakfast for someone. Bill and I usually have something small, but on a snow day?” She clapped her hands enthusiastically. “Best day for a long, lazy breakfast.”
“I’m fine with anything, Marina.” He had stuffed himself the night before. Might as well continue the feast. It would be smoothies and poached eggs on toast for the next few days. “You are a wonderful chef.”
“Bah.” She blushed prettily, the gesture eerily reminiscent of her daughter. “If only my Anita would learn. Now, you go make yourself at home. I will make you something good.”
Taking out his phone, Patrick moved into the living room with his coffee. He opened his photo app first. Distractions definitely helped. Anything to dull the memory of Anita curled up against his chest, her heat rushing through him.
Focus, Patrick.
No untoward messages today. Maybe his stalker’s power had gone out in the storm last night. Small favors.
He hummed to himself as he gazed out the window, the carpet of white snow covering the front lawn, broken only by the small lumps of the snow-covered hydrangea bushes. He posed in front of the large front bay window, angling his phone for the perfect selfie. That would do. He typed, winter wonderland? He added the appropriate hashtags and hit Post.
Anita slumped into the room with a groan and flopped onto the sofa, clutching a throw pillow to her stomach.
The grin crept across his face, but he wrapped it in concern. “You look like shit,” he said, mostly to make her smile and to distract himself from the way her pink-and-purple-striped pretzel pajamas clung to the curves of her legs, and especially from how her soft gray T-shirt was falling off her shoulder. Was she wearing a bra? He tugged at his collar. Maybe he should give himself a snow facial to cool off.
She did not smile. “Puke green is not my color. I just don’t know what happened.”
“I do.” He shoved the niggling suspicion aside. “Clearly, I think you are allergic to me.”
“Don’t make me roll my eyes. It makes my headache worse.”
“Breakfast is ready!” Marina trilled from the kitchen. Anita paled and shot up from the couch, her hand over her mouth.
“Was it something I said?” Marina asked, drying her hands on the skirt of her apron.
He kept his eyes focused on the path of Anita’s retreat. It couldn’t be. No. It had to be just food poisoning. Didn’t it? “Might just be the two of us for breakfast.”
****
She sat at her kitchen table, testily tapping her fingers against the marble counter. Of all the days for a blizzard and power outage. And she had forgotten to charge her phone. Foolish. Foolish.
Not as foolish as that blonde bitch. Never trust a drink that’s given to you. She would be out of commission at the least, dead at best. Though she did not want the bitch dead yet. Make her lose everything she thought she had. Then. Only then.
Finally, finally, the buzz of electricity. The clock above the microwave started flickering twelve o’clock over and over. She reached quickly for her phone, dead in the night while the snow had blanketed her home. She shouldn’t have neglected to pay the plow guy, but it was fucking March. So she couldn’t get out of her driveway today. There were other ways to check on him. What if he was stuck in the snow, too? She could walk to his house with hot Irish coffee, fresh cookies. He would like that. She was a good baker.
She opened her photo app and checked his posts first thing, as she always did.
Her eyes widened, and she loosed a guttural scream so loud and vibrant it shook snow from the bushes outside her window.
Winter wonderland??
She had been reconnoitering that house for the better part of a month. How dare he?? She hissed through her teeth. What had happened? Had the drug not worked?
She screamed a string of a thousand obscenities into the void of her kitchen.
That bitch would pay.