Page 4 of Smoky Lake

Should she track down this Gil and find out what he knew about Victor Canseco and if he was in any trouble?

It wasn’t really her business. But the poor man had been so sick, and she’d been able to help him. In all the misery of the past few months—maybe years—that encounter with him had stood out, and not only for its strangeness. An angel, he’d called her. For one brief moment, she’d felt like herself again. Competent, compassionate, worthy.

She really hoped Victor Canseco was okay.

The next morning, she checked on all her patients, then went down to the lounge where breakfast was served to all Fire Peak Lodge guests. A fire crackled in the Jotul woodstove to take the morning chill off. Everyone was still buzzing about the crazy events of the past few days. She tuned all that out and poured herself a cup of coffee from the urn set up on a weathered desk painted sage-green.

Just looking at the rich brew gave her a thrill. She’d given up coffee in her quest to get pregnant. At the time, it had seemed like one more cruel trick of the fertility gods that she’d have to forgo her favorite beverage as well as inject herself with hormones, test her FsH levels, schedule intercourse and all the other indignities of a struggle with infertility. It was especially difficult for a doctor; she’d lived on coffee ever since med school.

Of course it was worth it to up her chances of conceiving. But none of that had worked, and she was now officially divorced and down to zero percent chance of pregnancy, so she deserved some damn coffee.

“You okay?” Lila asked gently. She hovered next to Ani, waiting her turn at the urn.

Oops, she must have said that last part out loud. “I’m fine. Crazy night,” she murmured as she made space for Lila. She dosed her coffee with cream and sugar. God, she’d missed it.

“I’ll say. Charlie said a state trooper flew here in a helicopter just to talk to you. What was all that about?”

Carrying their coffee mugs with them, they made their way out through sliding glass doors onto the terrace, with its breathtaking view of valley below and slopes above.

At a table by the railing Molly and Charlie were already tucking into plates full of scrambled eggs and bacon. The bright morning sunshine turned Charlie’s hair into a river of gold, and made Molly’s blaze like fire. Ani’s heart warmed at the sight of them—her very best friends. The four of them—Ani, Charlie, Lila and Molly—had been high school misfits together. They’d cheered each other on through one trauma after another, and that didn’t seem to be changing now that they were all adults.

When Ani’s marriage had finally given up the ghost, of course she’d turned to her friends. She knew they hadn’t liked John, at least not with his behavior over the last few years. But they didn’t know him the way she did—or so she’d told herself.

Now she was rethinking everything, wondering how she’d managed to live in a fantasy world for so long, and if she could ever trust her judgment again. She found herself second-guessing every little move she made, even down to what chair she should choose at the table where her friends sat.

Telling herself to stop being an idiot, she sat down next to Molly, who gave her a quick side-hug followed by a stern frown. “You could have told me a cop wanted to talk to you. Legal representation right here, you know.” She tapped her own chest. “Never talk to the police without a lawyer.”

“I was fine, but thanks. Rain check in case I rob a bank?”

They all smiled at that.

“What did he want?” Across the table, Charlie’s brown eyes blazed with curiosity. “He wouldn’t tell me and Nick anything.”

Ani took note of the cozy way Charlie said “me and Nick.” Her friend was madly in love, at long last. She couldn’t be happier for her, though it was ironic that for most of their adult lives, she’d been married and Charlie had been single. The tables were now turned.

“It was strange. He asked a lot of questions about some random stranger I talked to at the Blackbear Airport.”

“There are no random strangers,” Lila said wisely. “Just strangers we don’t yet know how we’re connected to.”

“Sunshine bomb,” the other three friends all said simultaneously, then burst out laughing. Charlie, sitting next to Lila, flung an arm around her for an affectionate hug. “And we love you for it.”

Lila shrugged, unconcerned by their teasing. Her hair was white, had been ever since her eighteenth birthday, but she loved to add color to it. Today it was a marigold yellow that made her violet eyes even more vibrant. “You’ll eventually see that I’m right.”

“Okay, I’ll accept that challenge. Do you happen to know—” Ani was interrupted by the server, who gave her a choice between waffles and scrambled eggs. “Waffles,” she said firmly.

Under the curious gazes of her friends, she explained, “Not on the menu during my fertility drama. By the way, it annoys me that the word ‘fertility’ sounds so much like ‘futility,’ did you ever notice that?”

Lila reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry it’s been so hard.”

“Don’t you have any optimistic glimpses of the future for me?”

Lila had demonstrated her intuitive abilities over and over again; in fact, one of her premonitions had saved all of their lives in high school. “Sorry, I wish I did. But you know Firelight Ridge dampens all that for me. Such a relief. Anywhere else, I’d never be able to live in the house of a murder victim.”

Lila lived in one of the original frontier town buildings, the old hardware store. It still held some of the possessions of a woman who had been killed in a notorious murder spree back in the eighties. But Lila didn’t seem to mind. She called it “Frontier Gothic.”

“But in general,” Lila added cheerily, “I’m very optimistic for your future.”

Ani rolled her eyes as she picked up her coffee mug. Her bangles clinked with the motion, a reassuring sound that connected her with her mother and grandmother, who’d gifted her a new bangle every year on her birthday.

---