Читаем Six Years полностью

“Promise me, Jake. Promise me you’ll leave us alone.”

Those were the last words the love of my life said to me. The very last. And here I was, six years later, going back to where it all began, to break my word. I waited to find irony in that, but irony would not come.

As I hit the town center, the gentle aroma of fresh pastries made me pull up. The Kraftboro Bookstore Café. Natalie’s favorite scones. I thought about it and decided that it was worth a try.

When I opened the door, a little bell rang, but that sound was quickly forgotten. Elton John was singing that the child’s name was Levon, and he’d be a good man. I felt a rush and a shiver. Both tables were taken, including, of course, our old favorite. I stared at it, just standing there like a big goof, and for a moment I swore I could hear Natalie’s laugh. A man with a maroon baseball cap came in behind me. I was still blocking the door.

“Uh, excuse me,” he said.

I moved to the side to let him pass. My eyes found the coffee bar. A woman with wildly curly hair wearing, yep, a purple tie-dyed shirt had her back to me. No doubt about it. It was Cookie. My heart picked up a step. She turned, saw me, and smiled. “Can I get you something?”

“Hi, Cookie.”

“Hey.”

Silence.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.

She was wiping frosting off her hands with a hand towel. “I’m bad with faces, but even worse with names. What can I get you?”

“I used to come in here,” I said. “Six years ago. My girlfriend’s name was Natalie Avery. We used to sit at the corner table.”

She nodded but not like she remembered. She nodded like she wanted to appease the lunatic. “Lots of customers in and out. Coffee? Doughnut?”

“Natalie loved your scones.”

“A scone it is. Blueberry?”

“I’m Jake Fisher. I was writing my dissertation on the rule of law. You used to ask me about it. Natalie was an artist from the retreat. She’d break out her sketchpad right in that corner.” I gestured toward it, as though that mattered. “Six years ago. Over the summer. Heck, you were the one to point her out to me.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, her fingers toying with her necklace as though they were prayer beads. “See, that’s the good part of being called Cookie. You don’t forget a name like Cookie. It sticks in the mind. But the bad part is, since everyone remembers your name, they think you should do the same. You know what I mean?”

“I do,” I said. Then: “You really don’t remember?”

She didn’t bother replying. I looked around the café. People at the tables were starting to stare. The guy with the maroon baseball cap was over by the magazines, pretending he wasn’t hearing a thing. I turned back to Cookie.

“Small coffee, please.”

“No scones?”

“No thanks.”

She grabbed a cup and started to fill it.

“Are you still with Denise?” I asked.

Her body stiffened.

“She used to work at the retreat up the hill too,” I said. “That’s how I knew her.”

I saw Cookie swallow. “We never worked at the retreat.”

“Sure you did. The Creative Recharge, right up the path. Denise would bring in the coffee and your scones.”

She finished pouring the coffee and put it on the counter in front of me. “Look, mister, I have work to do.”

I leaned closer to her. “Natalie loved your scones.”

“So you said.”

“You two used to talk about them all the time.”

“I talk to a lot of people about my scones, okay? I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I probably should have been polite and faked it and been all, ‘Oh sure, you and your scone-loving girlfriend, how you guys doing?’ But I didn’t. Here’s your coffee. Can I get you something else?”

I took out my card with all my phone numbers on it. “If you remember anything . . .”

“Can I get you something else?” she asked, more bite in her voice now.

“No.”

“Then that’s a buck fifty. Have a nice day.”

Chapter 9

I now understand when someone says they feel as though they’re being followed.

How did I know? Intuition maybe. My lizard brain could sense it. I could feel it in almost a physical way. That, plus the same car—a gray Chevy van with a Vermont license plate—had been behind me since I left the town of Kraftboro.

I couldn’t swear to it, but I thought that maybe the driver was wearing a maroon baseball cap.

I wasn’t sure what to do about this. I tried to make out the license plate number, but it was too dark now. If I slowed down, he’d slow down. If I picked up speed, well, you get the drift. An idea came to me. I pulled over at a rest stop to see what the tail would do. I saw the van slow and then drive on. From that point on, I didn’t see the van again.

So maybe he wasn’t following me.

I was about ten minutes away from Lanford when my cell phone rang. I had the phone set up to go through the car Bluetooth—something it took me much too long to figure out—so I could see on the radio screen that it was Shanta Newlin. She had promised to get back to me by the end of the day with Natalie’s address. I answered the call with a press of a button on the steering wheel.

“It’s Shanta,” she said.