Page 5 of These Cold Strangers

Coming back was a mistake.

CHAPTER SIX

Anod to nostalgia, I stop at the McDonald’s by the highway to grab a cup of coffee for the road, and who should walk in as I’m leaving but Simone Denton. All I can think isdon’t recognize me.But she does. Of course, she does.

“Oh my Gawd, Addison Blake! Where the hell have you been hiding? Come here and let me hug your neck.”

Simone has a French name (it’s Dahn-tawn, not Dent-un), perfect skin, and an incongruously broad south Virginia accent. Her long, silver-blonde hair shines in the sunlight pouring through the plate glass windows. She has always been ethereally beautiful. Before the murder, she had no idea I existed. Well, she knew I went to the same school—it’s a small town, after all—but we did not run in the same crowd. After the murders, though, she was one of the first to reach out a hand. She offered me a place to stay, she gave me some clothes when I couldn’t go back inside the house because the police were still investigating. She offered up her fancy father to defend me when the police decided I had arranged to have my parents and sister murdered.

I returned her kindness by leaving town and never returning. I still have a pair of her jeans—half a size too small—that I try to get into every once in a while, to prove I can.

“Hi, Simone.” I accept the hug. I sometimes forget how generous southern women are with their physicality. There isn’t as much hugging and petting and touching in DC.

“What are you doing home? Did something happen with your family’s case?”

Case. Not murders. Another gentleness. Like the woman in that ’80s college movie who whispers the bad words so as not to give them voice aloud. “You heard how they died.Murder.”

“No, I was ... I’m ... doing a story about southern towns,” I finish lamely. It seems essential, at least for the moment, not to explain the real reason I’m here.

“You’re a writer? That’s amazing. You always were the best in our class.”

How does she remember this? She hardly even knew me.

“Journalist. I ... do some op-ed.”

“Do you have a blog or anything? I’d love to read your work.” When I don’t reply, she soldiers on, in that polite southern way. “It’s so good to see you, Addie. You look great.”

Still unfailingly kind, Simone.

“Do you have time for coffee?” she asks, looking pointedly at my hand, and I can’t help myself.

“Sure.”

Am I craving punishment? Probably. She grabs a biscuit and a large cup, doctors it, then we sit near the window on the barstools. This place has been renovated since I was last here; it’s like a hip coffee shop instead of a burger joint. Strangely, I like looking at the ghost of myself in its corners.

“So what’s happening in your life?” she asks, and I laugh and turn it around on her.

“No, you tell me. Married, I see. Do you work?”

She glances down at the massive diamond sparkling from her ring finger with a sly smile. “Four years, now. I met himduring my senior year of college. We’re talking about trying to have a baby. I’ve been reluctant, it feels so ... I don’t know, permanent. But I’m not getting any younger, and my parents are all over me for a grandchild.” She pales, a hand to her throat. “God, Addie, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Really. I can hear the word. It was a long time ago.”

“Still.” She fiddles with the plastic lid on her cup. “Yes, I work. I’m a paralegal at my dad’s firm. Once I start hatching children, I’ll stay at home. Give garden parties.”

She sounds ... trapped, which shocks me. I think it scares her, too, saying it aloud. It reinforces my own emotions about Marchburg. We all think we’ll like the romantic small-town life until we’re stuck in it, and I have escaped.

“Anyway.” She cheers up. “Tell me about your southern-towns story. What’s the focus? Garden parties? Crime?”

“Um ... sort of. You could say that.”

“You should write about Julia Harding’s disappearance. Maybe get some attention for her.”

Ignoring the spike of annoyance I feel whenever I say I’m a writer and am told what I should write, I lean forward. “Julia Harding, from our class? I didn’t know she was missing.”

“For a month, now. She went for a run by the river and never came back. The police have been all over her husband—do you remember Eddie Gores? Played baseball? But he was having an affair and was down in Roanoke that day in a hotel with his girlfriend, so the idea was he’d hired someone to kill her, but that didn’t pan out either. And you know Eddie, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Physically, at least. It’s weird; a few women have gone missing over the years since you left. I don’t know the others, only Julia, but we all think they’re related. The police, not so much.” Her Apple watch chimesfrom her wrist, and she jumps up with a smothered curse. “I am so, so sorry. I must run. I have a meeting, and I totally forgot. What’s your number? I’m going to text you. I’d love to talk again. Catch up properly.” Before I can think, demur, I dutifully recite my digits, and seconds later, a ding tells me she’s made good on her promise.

She hugs me again, smelling of coffee and a perfume I don’t recognize, and hustles out the door with a final little wave as she climbs into her silver Infinity SUV.

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