Page 43 of Murder Road

Reluctantly, I closed my eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Rose had a part-time job at a grocery store as a checkout clerk. Eddie and I followed her to work the next morning. We filled a cart full of groceries: frozen hamburgers, tuna, canned peaches. SnackWell’s cookies and SlimFast bars for Rose and me. Hot dogs and soft white buns. Cans of Diet Pepsi. Bologna, bags of frozen peas and corn, Raisin Bran, Frosted Flakes, ice cream bars, packets of Kool-Aid, bricks of bacon. Rose checked us out, using her employee discount. Her glasses reflected in the fluorescent light, and the green apron made her skin look yellow.

“This is nice of you, I guess,” she said, the words coming out reluctantly.

“It’s the least we can do.” I gave her one of my big smiles. “I think we’ll be staying for a few days. We may as well finish our honeymoon.”

Rose gave me a narrow-eyed look. We hadn’t told her why we’d come back last night, or why we’d decided to stay in Coldlake Falls instead of going home. We weren’t sure ourselves why we were here. Eddie and I needed to regroup.

We drove the groceries back to Rose’s and put them away. Then, unable to look at her knickknacks or Princess Diana any longer, we drove to downtown Coldlake Falls, in search of somewhere to eat. Eddie didn’t talk much, but I was used to that. Still, I knew he was tense, and both of us were tired after a restless sleep.

Now that I wasn’t in the back of a police car, I took a better look at the town. Coldlake Falls was busy on a weekday in July, the pharmacies and grocery stores bustling, sweaty parents and sunburned kids roaming the sidewalks. It was a town big enough for exactly one Blockbuster—the parking lot full—and a movie theater with Apollo 13 and First Knight on the marquee. It was the place you went to stock up on cold beer or buy sunscreen before you moved on to your campsite or motel. The people here were just passing through. There were a couple of teenagers with backpacks at the bus station, waiting for a bus, but we didn’t recognize them. They were likely coming from Hunter Beach.

We found a diner and slid into a booth, the skin on the backs of my thighs sticking to the vinyl seat. It was a small place, packed with people coming and going, smelling of coffee and french fries. A TV on the wall above the front cash register was showing a news story about Tonya Harding. I ordered a Coke and a salad. Eddie ordered a turkey sandwich and made no comment when I stole fries from his plate.

“So,” he said after a minute. “We’re going to find her, right?”

I paused with a fry halfway to my mouth. Eddie’s face had its usual serious expression, but something in the way he looked at me was careful, as if he wasn’t sure I’d agree.

“I suppose we are,” I replied, keeping my voice light and neutral. Like it didn’t matter to me.

I was trying to relax him, but instead he got even more serious. “April, do you want to go home?”

I raised my gaze to his. Though most people couldn’t read Eddie’s stoic expressions, I could. I’d studied him in depth; he was my favorite topic. So I knew that right now, Eddie didn’t want to go back to our apartment in Ann Arbor. But if I asked him to, he would do it.

There was something deeper in his expression, something troubled. Something that hadn’t been there before last night. But I couldn’t worry about that right now.

“I don’t want to go home,” I said. There was nothing for me at home. My job was pointless and our apartment was the cheapest one we could afford. I only wanted to be where Eddie was. “I want to find her.”

His brow smoothed a little, but he shook his head. “So do I, but I’m not sure why.”

“Because it would be meaningful,” I said. “We’d be doing something that matters, at least a little. More meaningful than our jobs. More meaningful than playing Yahtzee and taking naps.”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

“We’ve had terrible ideas before. At least, I have.”

“Like marrying me?”

The question was a surprise. I’d never given him an inkling that I didn’t want to marry him. Had he wondered about this without telling me? “No,” I said. “Like the time I drank vodka before going to the fall fair and eating a funnel cake. I’ll never eat a funnel cake again.”

His shoulders relaxed. This was how it worked: I eased him down, and in return I got to watch some of the pain leave his body and his face. He’d never met a girl who was willing to put the work in. Well, he’d met her now.

“I guess we need a plan,” he said, his voice easier now.

“A ghost plan,” I said.

“I don’t know how to make one of those.”

“It will be hauntingly difficult.”

Eddie paused with the ketchup bottle in his hand and smiled a little.

“One would even say vanishingly hard,” I tried again.

“April, your puns are terrible.” He paused. “It will be fine as long as we don’t get spooked.”

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