Part 5 (1/2)
”The fire!” She struggled to a sitting position. ”You have to do something.”
Chloe crouched down next to her. ”There's no fire. Everything's fine.”
”I saw it,” Karen protested. ”The house was wrapped in flame.” She pointed toward Dinah, who was watching us from the windowsill. ”That cat's tail was on fire.”
Chloe and I exchanged looks.
”You pa.s.sed out twice,” Chloe said. ”I think you might still be a little off-kilter.”
”Is that a polite way of saying crazy?”
”No,” Chloe said patiently. ”It's a polite way of saying you were wrong.”
”Your house was on fire,” Karen said again. ”So was your cat. I didn't imagine it. I don't go around imagining flaming cats.”
Chloe spread her arms wide. ”If there was a fire, where's the damage?”
Karen's gaze swept the room. It lingered on Dinah, who was patiently grooming her right foreleg. ”I know what I saw.”
”I don't think you do.”
”You're telling me I'm hallucinating?”
”I'm telling you that if my cat's b.u.t.t was on fire, I think the cat might be the first to know.” She pointed toward Dinah, who had stopped grooming and was now entwining herself around Chloe's left ankle.
Chloe turned to me. ”Maybe she'll listen to you. I have to make a few calls. I'll be in the bedroom if you need me.”
”She thinks I'm crazy,” Karen said as Chloe's footsteps receded down the hallway.
”She didn't say that.”
”She didn't have to. She couldn't get away fast enough.” She buried her face in her hands, and the sound of choked laughter filtered through her fingers.
I felt like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for letting her believe she'd hallucinated the flames so I changed the subject.
”When was the last time you ate?”
She looked up at me. ”Yesterday. The day before.” She waved her hand in the air. ”One of those days.”
”There's your answer. Eat something and you'll quit seeing flaming cats.”
”Will I stop seeing Steffie?”
I felt like I'd been gut shot. ”What did you say?” Maybe it was my turn to hallucinate.
”Two weeks ago,” she said, stumbling over her words. ”In the park behind the old house. She was sitting on her favorite swing near the duck pond.” She dragged her sleeve across her eyes and kept going. ”She was wearing the red sweater I made for her that last Christmas and she-”
Her words crashed against the inside of my head and something in me snapped.
”Shut up.” My voice went harsh and ugly with emotion. ”Don't talk about her. Don't say her name.”
”She called me on the cell this morning.” She gestured toward her tote bag on the floor. ”I know that sounds crazy but-”
”Prove it.”
”I can't prove it.”
”Let me hear the message.”
”She didn't leave one.”
”Then show me the call-back number.”
”There wasn't one.”
”That's what I thought.”
”I'm telling the truth, Luke. Just because I can't explain it doesn't mean it isn't real.”
Which was a.n.a.logous to my stay in Sugar Maple, but anger trumped logic hands down.
”You don't understand. It had to be Steffie because of the ringtone,” she said. ”She used our special song.”
I whistled the first two bars from ”Good Morning Star-s.h.i.+ne.” ”Not that unusual, Karen.”
”That's not it. We made this one up.” She leaned closer and I could feel the heat of desperation rising off her. ”Steffie was the only other person who knew it.”
The look in her eyes scared the s.h.i.+t out of me. I'd seen that look before on people in locked cells and psych wards. This wasn't the woman I'd been married to for ten years. This was a stranger.
”You probably dreamed it.” I wondered if her friends back in Boston knew what was going on with her, because I sure as h.e.l.l didn't have a clue.
”I was wide-awake.”
”What do you want from me, Karen? You want me to say that I believe our daughter is making phone calls from the grave? Tell me what you want me to hear and I'll say it.”
”She asked me to find you. That's why I'm here.”
I muttered something ugly.
”Do you really think I wanted to see you? I'd like to forget you ever existed. If Steffie hadn't-”
”Who's Steffie?”
Chloe was standing in the doorway.
Karen turned to me. ”You didn't tell her about Steffie?”