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“I just find it funny that your husband drops you for a younger version and my Amanda disappears at the same time. Like someone needed her out of the way, like they thought you and your husband were splitting.”
As offended as I was by the absolutebullshitshe was insinuating, I couldn’t help noticing the increasing drag on her words, as if she couldn’t open her mouth completely. My heart sank a little as I remembered, just before she was gone, Amanda telling me about Sheila’s increasing dependence on painkillers, after an accident at work.
Maybe that’s why she’s talking crazy.
“Ms. Sheila, I have no idea where this is coming from, but I assure you – there has never been anything except friendship between me and AsherorAmanda. I had nothing to do with any problems they were having, and I don’t know anything about whatever it is you’re trying to say.”
Sheila chuckled, but it came through as muffled, like she was laying with the phone against her face. “You might now. But they knew. I knew. Your little secret. I know.”
“What secret?”
“I… know it. You can’t hide it forever. Folks… always trying to hide babies. Giving babies away. Paying people off and…. Sending them away.”
Those words made me swallow hard. “What? What are you talking about?”
No answer ever came.
Whatever pills she had taken consumed her, and all I could hear on the other end of the line was her faint snores. I pushed out a sigh, then hung up the phone.
Part of me regretted calling. Questions without answers were becoming a running theme that only served to add to my perpetual frustration. Amanda was missing, Kim was in the hospital, Kellen was dead, and I was in someone else’s home, recovering there from being attacked in my office because I couldn’t go to my own.
I was tired.
That exhaustion was what led me out of my seat and down the hall to Wick’s office. I peeked in when I didn’t get a response to my knock on the door, but he wasn’t there.
I found him down in the kitchen, sitting at the counter with a plate of food. He’d asked me earlier if I was hungry, and at the time I’d turned him down. Now though, the smell of Thai basil and the sight of those noodles had my stomach growling – which reminded me I’d turned down breakfast too.
“Hey,” he said, looking up when I stepped in. “You changed your mind about lunch? Grab a plate, there’s plenty.”
I gave him a sheepish smile. “Well, that’s not exactly why I came looking for you, but um… are those drunken noodles?”
“Ourfavorite,” he replied with a grin. “Yes, they are.”
Following his urging, I sat down across from his place at the counter while he stood, grabbing a plate and fork for me. A few minutes later, I was digging into the spicy sweet goodness, unconcerned with how it might look.
I was hungry.
“So why were you looking for me?” he asked, once he’d handed me a glass of water and returned to his own plate. “Everything okay?”
I nodded, swallowing a mouthful of food before I spoke. “Yes, everything is fine. I just… I called Amanda’s aunt, hoping that maybe she’d heard from her, but I ended up with more questions than answers. It was such an odd conversation… about halfway through, she completely switched up on me.”
Wick stopped eating to look at me. “What kind of questions?”
I thought about it for a few moments first, as I twirled a forkful of noodles on my plate. “Questions like… why didn’t she tell me that she and Asher were planning to move here, before she disappeared? Especially since according to Asher, they were broken up. Or, why does her aunt think thatIhad something to do with problems between Amanda and Asher?”
He scoffed. “Well, you already know my answer to that.”
“Yeah, I do,” I told him, rolling my eyes over his insistence that Asher was secretly in love with me. “And you already knowmythoughts aboutthat.” I was quiet for a few seconds before I continued. “She thinks Asher… did something to Amanda. Something to get rid of her, I guess so he could be with me. But there was never anything romantic between us. We went to college together, he was my husband’s best friend. And, he’smyfriend. Even if I could buy that Asher secretly had a thing for me… murder?Really?”
Wick shrugged. “Well… maybe it’s not as much of a stretch as you think?”
“You’re only saying that because you didn’t like him coming to see me at the hospital.”
“No, I’m saying that because I didn’t like him coming to see you at the hospital, and because Kim’s “boyfriend” has the same initials as him, and the shit is suspicious.”
“You think everything is suspicious.”
“Because it is. Including that Kim.”
