My Very Best Friend

by Cathy Lamb

Genres: Family Life; Sagas; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

From a childhood friendship sustained over years and distance, to a journey of discovery, Cathy Lamb’s poignant novel tells of two women whose paths converge with unforeseen results—and reveals the gift of connection, and the challenges that can change everything for the better… Charlotte Mackintosh is an internationally known bestselling romance writer who has no romance, and remains a mystery to her fans. In fact, she has little in her life besides her work, her pampered cats, and her secluded home off the coast of Washington. And then there is her very best friend, Bridget, who lives in Scotland, where Charlotte lived until she was fifteen. Bridget, whom Charlotte hasn’t seen in twenty years, but continues to write to—though the replies have stopped. Hurt by the silence, an opportunity arises to find answers—and maybe much more. Charlotte must finally return to Scotland to sell her late father’s cottage. It was his tragic death when Charlotte was fifteen that began her growing isolation, and the task is fraught with memories. But her plans are slowed when she’s confronted with the beautiful but neglected house, the irresistible garden—and Toran, Bridget’s brother. Capable and kind, Toran has the answers Charlotte seeks. And as she is drawn deeper into the community she thought she’d left behind, Charlotte learns not only more about her dear friend, but about herself—and discovers a new and unexpected path.

Release date: July 28, 2015

Publisher: Kensington

Print pages: 480

Sample

My name is Charlotte Mackintosh. I am thirty-five. I love science. I have degrees in physics and biology. One would think I would work in a lab or teach at a university. I don’t. I write time travel romance novels. My ninth book was released four months ago.

My pen name is Georgia Chandler. My mother was from Georgia, a southern belle, and Chandler was her maiden name.

For me to be a romance writer is a perplexing joke. What romance? I don’t have any in my life, haven’t for years, since The Unfortunate Marriage. I have named my vibrator Dan The Vibrator. That should tell you about the sexual action I get. Which is, so we’re all clear, none.

My late father, Quinn, was Scottish, hence my last name, and his mother had the Scottish Second Sight. She saw the future, all mottled up, but she saw it. Sometimes she didn’t understand it herself. I remember her predictions, one in particular when I was seven and we were making an apple butterscotch pie with a dash of cinnamon.

“You will travel through many time periods, Charlotte,” my grandma said, rolling out the pie dough with a heavy rolling pin, her gray curls escaping her bun like springs. “All over the world.”

“What do you mean?” I rolled out my dough, too. We were bringing the pies to the Scottish games up in the highlands the next day, where my father was competing in the athletic contests and playing his bagpipes.

“I don’t know, luv. Damn this seeing into the future business. Cockamamie drivel. It will drive me to an early grave.”

“I want to travel to other planets and inspect them for aliens.”

She placed her pie crust into the buttered glass baking dish. “You will live different lives, child. You will love deeply. And yet . . .” She paused, her brow furrowed. “It’s not you.”

“I don’t think so, Grandma. I love science. Specifically our cells. Mutations. Sick cells, healthy cells. Toran and I pricked our fingers yesterday so we could study our blood under my microscope.”

She eyed me through her glasses. “You are an odd child.”

“Yes,” I told her, gravely, “I am.”

My grandma was right about time travel. She simply dove into the fictional realm of my life without realizing it. McKenzie Rae Dean, my heroine, travels through time, lives different lives, and loves deeply. But McKenzie Rae is not me. See how my grandma got things jumbled up and yet dead right, too?

Many of her other second sight predictions have come true, too. A few haven’t yet. I’m a little worried about the few that haven’t. Several in particular, as they’re decidedly alarming.

I live on a quiet island, called Whale Island, off the coast of Washington. I have a long white house on five acres. I rarely ever have to leave my view of the ocean and various whales, my books, garden, and cats. I have had enough of the world and of people. Some people call me a recluse. I call them annoying.

My publisher wants me to travel to promote my books. I went on book tours with the first book, hated it, and have refused to go again. They whine. I ignore them. What do they know? I stay home.

I walk my four cats in a specially designed pink cat stroller twice every day. They each have their own compartment with their name on a label in front.

I read gardening books for entertainment, but they are only second to my love of all things physics and biology. I have a pile of exciting books and articles in my house on both subjects, including astrophysics, string theory, the human genome project, and cellular and molecular biology. Seeing them waiting for me, like friends filled with enthralling knowledge, flutters my heart.

I might drink a tad too much alcohol. Wine is my vice. I drink only the finest wine, but that is a poor excuse for the nights the wine makes me skinny-dip in a calm bay by my house and belt out the Scottish drinking songs my father taught me while cartwheeling.

I am going to Scotland because I must. My mother asked me to go and check on our cottage, fix it up, and sell it. “I can finally close the door to the past,” she told me. “Without cracking down the middle, but I need you to go and do this, because if I go, I’ll crack.”

I told her, “That doesn’t make sense, Ms. Feminist.”

She waved a hand, “I know. Go anyhow. My burning bra and I can’t do it.”

I have not been back to Scotland in twenty years, partly because I am petrified of flying and partly because it’s too painful, which is why my mother, usually a ball breaker, refuses to go.

I’m nervous to leave my cats, Teddy J, Daffodil, Dr. Jekyll, and Princess Marie. Teddy J, in particular, suffers from anxiety, and Dr. Jekyll has a mood disorder, I’m sure of it. Princess Marie is snippy.

But it must be done.

My best friend, Bridget Ramsay, is still living there. Or, she was living there. We write letters all the time to each other; we have for twenty years.

Until last year, that is. I haven’t heard from her in months.

I don’t know what’s going on.

I have an idea, but I don’t like the idea.

It scares me to death.

Truth often does that to us.

Bridget’s older brother is Toran Ramsay. I often send my letters to Bridget to his home.

I would see him again. Soon.

I shivered. It was a delectable sort of shiver, not at all based in science.

That evening I called my agent, Maybelle Courten, from my white deck. A whale blew water into the air through its blowhole as a hummingbird zoomed past my tulips and daffodils.

“You’re going where, Charlotte?”

“Scotland.” I adjusted Dr. Jekyll on my lap and he glared and tried to scratch me.

“For damn and hell’s sakes, are you kidding me?” Maybelle almost jumped through the phone to strangle me.

“This is not a joke.” Maybelle’s house is always noisy. She is a single mother with five kids. They are twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, and eighteen. Her husband died of a heart attack five years ago. They dated from the time they were sixteen. He was a reporter. When he died she found out he’d left a life insurance policy worth a half a million and a love note in the safe deposit box saying the best thing in his life was her.

She’s temperamental, loves whiskey, and calls her kids “My hellions” or “My white hair instigators.” They adore her.

“You don’t travel, Charlotte. You hardly leave your island. You rarely speak to people. You don’t like people. You told me that flying on an airplane gives you panic attacks.”

“I have panic attacks unless I’m slightly drunk. I don’t like heights.”

“You’re going to get drunk on the plane to Scotland?”

“That is correct.”

“Hang on a second.” Maybelle covered the phone with her hand, but I could hear her yelling, “Jamie, you take your sister’s underwear off your head right now. Sheryl, that is not a skirt. That is a scarf. You may not leave the house wearing that scarf around your hips, and put your boobs inside your shirt or I will send you to a Catholic school for girls and let the nuns straighten you out. That’s right, smart one. A Catholic school for girls means no boys. You’d better believe I’d do it. Charlotte. Sorry. What in the blasted world are you going to do in Scotland?”

“I’m going to sell our cottage and find my friend.”

“Where is your friend?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I need to find her.”

“When will you find her?”

“When she’s not lost anymore.” I heard glass clink against glass, and I knew she was pouring herself a whiskey.

“I didn’t know you had friends,” Maybelle said.

“I have this one friend. And my mother.”

“Ah. Right. The Scottish pen pal. And I’m your friend.”

“Now I have three friends,” I drawled. “Bridget’s more than a pen pal.”

“Uh huh. Sure. Hang on . . . Eric! Put your sister down. I said put Sandy down right now. No, she is not your hat. You got a D on your last science test, now study. You don’t have a pencil? You have a balloon for a brain if you can’t find a pencil.” I heard more yelling, then back to me. “You know that you have only two months to get a novel to me? You are aware of your deadline?”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s going to be late. Have another whiskey.”

“How do you know I’m drinking whiskey? Never mind. I am. How far along are you?”

“Did you hear me when I told you to have another whiskey?” I pulled my dark brown sweater around me. It was almost the same color as my hair. I noticed my beige blouse had stains along the hem. Blueberries? Ketchup?

“Yes. How far along?”

“I wrote a sentence.” I heard a brief intake of breath, then she swore. She is so inventive.

“That’s it? Still? One sentence.”

“Yes.” Dr. Jekyll hissed at me, tried to scratch. I caught his paw.

“What was it about?”

“Peanut butter and how it makes me feel like I’m choking and how McKenzie Rae Dean does not eat sausages because they’re too phallic. Makes her feel nauseated. Two sentences.”

She swore again. So creative! “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Charlotte, but you’re giving me heartburn. Bad. Bad heartburn.”

“I’ll get it done.” I caught Dr. Jekyll’s scratching paw again. “Probably.”

“Damn. I’m going to lie down.”

“Me too.”

“No,” she snapped. “You don’t lie down. You go work. Now.”

“I don’t have anything to say. I have writer’s block. I told you. Everything I write is stupid.”

“Stupid . . . tear my hair out and eat it . . . knock my knuckles together and split them open . . . bang me with nunchucks . . . handcuff me to Antarctica . . .”

“Bye, Maybelle.” She makes up silly stuff when she’s stressed.

“You’re killin’ me. Write that book. Hang on. Can you help Eric with his science homework? I don’t understand it.”

I could. Eric and I talked for over an hour, and we got two weeks’ worth of work done. I was pleased with his enthusiasm. “Randy wants to sing you his latest song. Hang on, Ms. Mackintosh.”

I listened to Randy sing and play four songs on his guitar. We worked on the lyrics together. “Thanks, Ms. Mackintosh. You’re groovin’.”

“I endeavor to always groove.”

Dr. Jekyll gently bit my hand. I tapped his head. He blinked a few times, then stood and licked my face. Mood disorders have serious effects on personality, even with cats.

I’m not sure if my female readers like the adventures McKenzie Rae Dean has as she’s popping in and out of different time periods in the past or the fact that they get to live vicariously with her popping in and out of bed with new and luscious men in each book.

Variety is healthy for the female mind.

It does not, however, demolish writer’s block.

That’s a problem.

At least for me.

I detest flying. You could correctly call it “pathologically afraid.” I cannot breathe on planes. I know that I am going to die a fiery death as we plunge into the ocean.

I have studied planes, their engines, and why they stay in the air in depth. My studies took two years. I understand mathematical aerodynamics description, thrust, lift, Newton, and Bernoulli’s principle. I even had three tours at Boeing. I have talked to pilots and engineers and examined blueprints for planes. Yet the sensible part of me knows that the plane will crash at any moment because nothing this large, heavy, and rigid was ever meant to be in the sky.

This knowledge is in direct contrast to my physics studies. I acknowledge this dichotomy.

I sat down in my first-class seat. I need room if I fly. I don’t want to be sandwiched next to strangers who will be intruding upon my personal space by body part or by air. I prefer to die within my own confines.

Inside my carry-on bag I had these things: Travel-sized bottles of Scotch. My list folder. A handkerchief. Travel-sized bottles of whiskey. My own tea bags—chamomile, peppermint, and for my adventurous side, Bengal Tiger. Three journals to write in if my writer’s block dissolves. Pictures of my cats. Travel-sized bottles of tequila. Two books on gravitational physics and evolutionary biology.

I adjusted my glasses. If we’re going to crash, I want them to be sturdily placed on my nose so I can see our doomed descent. My glasses have brown rims. I affixed clear tape on the left arm, as it’s cracked. I’ve been meaning to go to the eye doctor to get it fixed, but the tape seems to be functioning well. It does make my glasses tilt to the left, though. Not much of a problem, except if one is worried about appearance, which I am not.

I rechecked the top button on my beige blouse to make sure it was still fastened. I had been able to get most of the blueberry and ketchup stains out of it. If I end up in the ocean, I want to be covered. No need to show my ragged, but sturdy, bra.

My underwear is always beige or white, and cotton. When there are more than two holes, I throw them out. High risers, you could call them. I like to be properly covered, no tiny, lacy, itchy tidbits for me, even though I put McKenzie Rae, the heroine in all of my time travel romance novels, in tiny lacy tidbits that do not itch her.

If we crash, I can assure you that my underwear will stand up far better to the fire and flying debris than a tidbit would.

I situated my brown corduroy skirt and took off my brown, five-year-old sturdy shoes and put on my blue slippers with pink rabbit ears that Bridget sent me. I took out a tiny bottle of Scotch, as my hands were already shaking.

My seatmate, a man who appeared to be about my age, was white faced. “I hate flying,” he muttered. I heard the Texan drawl.

“Me too. Here. Have a drink.” I pulled out another bottle.

“Thank you, ma’am, I am much obliged.”

We clinked our tiny bottles together. His hands were shaking, too.

We both breathed shallowly. “Close your eyes, inhale,” I said. “Find your damn serenity. Think of your sunflowers . . . bells of Ireland . . . catnip . . . sweet Annies . . . wild tea roses . . .”

“Think of your ranch . . .” he said, barely above a whisper. “Think of your cows. Your tractors. The bulls. Castration day.”

The vision of castration day was unpleasant. I closed my eyes again.

We inhaled.

We drank.

We shook.

We took off. I started to sweat. So did he.

“My turn,” he said when we were done with the first bottle. He handed me a tiny bottle of Scotch out of his briefcase.

“Cheers to aerodynamics, thrust, lift, and Bernoulli’s principle.”

“Cheers to your green eyes, darlin’. Those are bright twinklers. Brighter than the stars in Texas, may she reign forever.”

“Thank you. May Newton’s laws reign forever.”

Third round on me.

Fourth on him, ordered from the flight attendant, who said cheerily, annoyingly, “Nervous flyers?”

The fourth round did the trick. We decided to sing the National Anthem together, then “Frosty the Snowman” and two songs by Neil Diamond. One was “Cracklin’ Rosie,” which made him cry, so I cried, too, in solidarity. The annoying flight attendant asked us to be quiet. We sang “The Ants Go Marching Down” in whispery voices, then I taught him a Scottish drinking song about a milkmaid. We woke up in Amsterdam, his head on my shoulder.

I wriggled him awake. “It was a pleasure getting drunk with you.”

“The pleasure was all mine, green eyes,” he drawled in his Texan drawl. “It seems we have arrived alive.”

“We did our part. Praise to Newton.”

We stumbled off the plane, shook hands, and I caught the next flight to Edinburgh. I forgot to change out of my blue slippers with pink rabbit ears before I walked through the airport. No matter. The top button on my beige blouse was still buttoned and I was in one piece.

I put my hand to my head. Lord. I hate flying and I hate airplane hangovers.

The green hills of Scotland hugged both sides of the road, smooth and endless. The sun shone down like gold streamers, lambs ambled along, the ocean sparkled.

The sky seems closer here than the sky off the coast of Washington, as if you could climb an extremely tall ladder and scoop the blue up in your hands and take it with you.

The air was different here, too. Lighter, would be the way I would describe it, although that made no scientific sense. It was saltier than the air on my island, and it had the tiniest hint of cool mint tea, I don’t know why.

I breathed in, held it. Can you miss air? I had missed Scottish air. I took a swipe at my eyes, which were tearing up. I prefer my emotions controlled, so this brought on some consternation.

Our stone cottage was fifteen minutes, by car, outside of the charming old village of St. Ambrose, which was situated on the eastern side of Scotland on the North Sea. The village had cobblestone streets, at least three ancient stone churches with soaring ceilings and stained glass, and short doors for the short people who had built the buildings hundreds of years ago. I sniffled again. I had loved living near the village as a girl.

I had taken a taxi from the airport, then rented a car. I was starving and stopped by a bar called Her Lady’s Treats. There was a full wall of liquor, a stuffed goat on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, and a steel reindeer head attached to the wall above my table. The reindeer had a furry moustache.

I ordered one of my favorites, fish roulades with a side order of kailkenny, then picked up the paper.

I put down my fork. I had heard of Father Angus Cruickshank. Bridget had mentioned him in her letters when she was sixteen and went off to St. Cecilia’s on scholarship, as her fanatically religious father was so involved in the church and had befriended the priest. She hadn’t liked him, at all. Said he was creepy. Scary. I shivered as I folded the newspaper.

I wondered if someone had killed the priest. Maybe. Maybe not.

I thought of Bridget and felt my stomach lurch again.

Something was wrong.

Later, after three cups of coffee and Scottish macaroon snowballs with coconut and chocolate, and when I felt like a human again instead of a lab specimen, I climbed back in my car and drove through St. Ambrose.

I slowed at the ruins of the castle with its drawbridge, then the ruins of the nine-hundred-year-old crumbling cathedral and graveyard, where Bridget and I had often played as children. We had active imaginations, and those two ruins were perfect places for princesses and knights, ghosts and goblins.

I drove by the renowned golf course, stone homes built hundreds of years ago with double wood doors for carriages, the fountain in the middle of an intersection, university housing, and the village stores, including Laddy’s Café, Molly Cockles Scottish Dancing Pub, Sandra’s Scones and Treats Bakery, Estelle’s Chocolate Room, and antique and furniture shops.

I drove out of town when the road ended at the blue gray ocean, then turned a corner and headed down the winding street our family cottage was on, built by my great-grandfather, and passed on to my granddad to my father, then to my mother and me, and now we were going to sell it.

I felt an ache in my gut. As if someone had taken bagpipes and slugged me with them in the face.

Sell it? Sell my family’s home? I drove past one farm, then the next, cottages and red barns, cattle and sheep, lambs and horses, rows of orchards, and fields that would soon be flourishing with fruits and vegetables.

I stopped when I came to a fork in the road.

I had gone too far. I hadn’t seen our house. I turned around, drove back, and when I hit the main road going toward the village again, I realized I had driven too far, once again.

What in the world? How could I have missed my own home? I was only fifteen when I left, but surely I should know how to do this.

I drove slowly this time, then braked.

It couldn’t be.

I gaped at our cottage.

Our home was now a sloping, slipping, bungled, overgrown disaster. I climbed out of the car, then leaned against it, shocked, my knees weak.

The roof of the cottage had partially cratered on one side. The white shutters, downstairs and on the dormer windows upstairs, were filthy and askew. The door was hanging on its hinges, the stone walls weathered and dirty. There was an old green car missing a door where my mother used to have an herb garden and another car, without an engine, parked sideways where there used to be a fountain of a little girl in galoshes holding an umbrella.

The purple clematis was blooming, a purple wave, as Ben Harris said. It sprawled over the tilting white arch over the pathway into our property, and all along the white picket fence, which now looked more gray than white.

I gritted my teeth when I saw the trumpet vine with the orange flowers near our red barn. That vine had to go as soon as possible. Immediately. I would get the ax and cut it to pieces, then dig out the root and trash the whole thing. It was the time of the bees when all that happened, and I didn’t need the reminder.

I ran a shaking hand over my hair. It became caught in a tangle, and I yanked it out, hurting my head. I turned my back on that terrible orange trumpet vine and focused my attention on the willow, oak, and birch trees, which seemed to have grown three times in size.

I didn’t understand. Mr. Greer wrote a check each month, which was deposited into an account here at a local bank. My mother withdrew the money from there.

Once a year I wrote to Mr. Greer and asked him if he needed anything repaired or replaced. He always wrote back that he didn’t, that he had handled the minor repairs that came up. This was positively wrong. He had not handled minor or major repairs.

“Charlotte,” I told myself. “You’re a fool.” Of course the roof would need replacing. It had been twenty years. Of course the walkway would need to be fixed, the bricks all tumbled about and uneven. Of course it would need to be repainted.

Why hadn’t I thought of those things?

But I knew why. I tried not to think of this house, and my father, and his death, ever, for several jagged-edge reasons. I was assailed by memories, as if they were charging in on the Scottish wind, over the highlands, across the North Sea, and back to me.

I took a deep, cleansing breath and thought of a complicated math problem to regain my sense of calm.

Something furry ran by my leg and I flinched, my mind still in the dilapidated mess of my childhood home. A silver cat with light green eyes peered up at me and meowed. I automatically meowed back, then settled down on my haunches and petted her. “How are you, Silver Cat? My home is falling down.”

She meowed again.

“Meow back at you.” I briefly thought about the silver cat that bit the priest in the newspaper article. “Do you have a home?”

I had hoped that I could stay the night here. I don’t know why I thought that was realistic. Perhaps my fear of flying blotted out all rational thought.

The two-story stone cottage I remembered had been clean and well tended, my mother’s garden flowing, creative, a picture of landscape art.

My dad was a farmer and grew lettuce: Lolla Rossa, Red Salad Bowl, Little Gem, and the Marvel of Four Seasons. The Lolla Rossa was purple and pink, the Red Salad Bowl lettuce burgundy and crimson, Little Gem was green and tight, and the Marvel of Four Seasons was red to green and gold.

He grew strawberries, too: Rosie, Judibell, and Symphony, which he said he grew to be “fancy.”

It was like looking at an organic rainbow.

All of that was gone.

I saw my father’s face, smiling, red hair, red beard, twirling me around in his arms. I heard him say, “You’re my Scottish butterfly, Charlotte. Eyes like emeralds, hair like a mermaid’s.” I heard his bagpipes, blaring, melodious, as he played “Scotland the Brave,” our red, blue, and green Clan Mackintosh tartan over his shoulder.

Then I saw my mother’s face, as she is today, her straight, brown bobbed hair, her exquisite clothing and high heels, her lips, painted with red lipstick. I heard her voice in my head.

I groaned.

“Charlotte, must you wear a clip on top of your head to keep your hair back? Why don’t you let me take you to a beauty parlor? It’s been what, two years, since you’ve had it cut? Do you want to resemble a human shepherd? Is that tape on your glasses? They tilt. I feel like I have to tilt my head to see you. Oh God. Don’t tell me you’re wearing all brown again. Brown is the color of blah. Boring. And is that . . . you are still wearing the brown monstrosities on your feet, aren’t you? A feminist can be stylish.”

Finally she told me that I was “wasting your life living alone on an island buying sweaters for your cats and you need to get laid. A feminist can get laid. She can fall in love. You have to say hello to a man without aggression before either of those things can happen. Say hello. Attempt to be polite.”

My eyes misted. Sometimes I missed my mother.

If she were with me, she would cry or, more likely, throw broken pieces of brick at one of the cars, stuck in her garden like a curse.

The silver cat meowed again and I meowed back. I lifted her under one arm, put my shoulders back, told myself to buck up, and walked down the crooked brick pathway. I was glad I wore my sturdy brown shoes with the thick heels. I fiddled with my glasses, on the taped part, and gingerly opened the door to our cottage.

I almost dropped the cat. She struggled and screeched.

The stench hit like an invisible wall, thrown at me by a giant, stinky hand. I could not be seeing what I was seeing. I was having an illusion. Or delusion. I had drunk too much on the plane. Surely I was having a Scotch Whiskey–I Hate Flying breakdown.

Our pretty Scottish cottage, the cottage my father had grown up in, that his grandfather had built, all under the proud Clan Mackintosh name, smelled like a dead corpse, which would be Mr. Greer. It also smelled like animal defecation. Dust. Years of decay, as if a graveyard had moved in, followed by a gang of pigs, and farts. A mouse sprinted on by.

Not only did the house smell like rotting dung, it was jammed. Jammed with junk.

I sat in that loaded emotional mess for a minute, then pulled on my underwear, as it had crept up over my right bottom cheek. I tried to open the windows. Two wouldn’t open, as they were broken, but I managed to open the rest of them on the ground floor before the stench killed me, then I turned and surveyed the damage.

The couch was clearly a mice home. I heard them scurrying, having a busy day. Two cushioned lounge chairs had dark brown spots in the middle. I didn’t want to know what the spots were from. There were two broken wood chairs, three kennels for dogs, but no dogs, fortunately. Inside the kennels were torn blankets and Styrofoam.

An algae-filled aquarium, half filled with water, held three dead fish, floating. There were broken lamps and three ice chests, empty beer cans inside. Boxes of junk, including old clothes that smelled like hell had rotted. There was another couch, gray this time, and spotted like chicken pox. Two beds had old mattresses I did not wish to touch. They looked diseased, same with the blankets and bedspreads on them.

I glanced down at what looked like years of porn magazines. “How does a woman walk with boobs like that, Silver Cat? It’s as if she’s got watermelons with nipples attached to her chest.”

I turned a page, disgustingly fascinated. The magazines appeared to be the only thing that didn’t have dust on them. “For the love of biology and physics!” I said. “That is perverted!” I shut the cover. I had never seen a porn magazine. That would be my last one. Another mouse sprinted on by.

“Silver Cat, do not look at this or it will rot your mind.”

Everything would have to be hauled out, along with all bugs, and all crawly creatures, including mice and rats.

I watched Silver Cat watching me. “You did a poor job of killing the mice and rats. Step it up next time. You’re a disgrace.” She meowed. I meowed back.

A wave of exhaustion hit on top of the head-banging airplane hangover I was already dealing with. I’d been up for way too long.

I would drive back into the village, find a place to stay, and get a huge bin out to the house so I could empty out all the junk. I’d also see whether I could hire some people to help me.

I hoped to see Bridget. I knew something was wrong, I knew it. My stomach flipped, twisted, and turned. Maybe something had been wrong for a long time. Her letters were always sporadic. Our calls sporadic, also. One number would be good for a year, then gone, disconnected. My stomach clenched again.

Yes, something was wrong.

The question was, How long had it been wrong? And what had happened?

Suddenly Silver Cat pounced.

“Well done.” She tilted her head up as if she wanted me to take the dead mouse from her mouth. “No, thank you. Take it outside.” I pointed at the door. She trotted on out. Cats usually obey me.

One less mouse to go.

I started hauling the trash out, one bacterial ridden thing at a time.

About an hour later, my glasses slipping off my sweating face, my butt in the air as I dragged out another box, I heard a truck rumbling down the road.

The truck slowed in front of my house, then turned into the long driveway. I watched, with some trepidation, as it kept coming.

I opened the door to my car, pulled the mace out of my purse, and stuck it into the waistband of my brown corduroy skirt. I was as prepared as I could be. I had also brought my pocketknife, ordered from Switzerland, and handcuffs, but they were in my suitcase.

The man opened the door to his truck and stepped out.

“Hel