Tab Bennett and the Inbetween (18 page)

“Who was that man?” Trudy asked.

I could feel a faint blush spreading across my face already.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Nina warned.

“Alexander. He’s an old friend of the family.”

Even Allison looked interested.

“Really? Is that the best you can do? You might as well tell me what I want to know. You know I can make you talk.”

Trudy giggled. “Let me explain,” she said turning to our guest, “Tab’s sister Rivers died recently. And there was a… scene on the porch after the funeral. Tab kissed someone – someone who was not her fiancé.”

“I know,” Allison said quietly before taking a sip of water. She cleared her throat and said it again, “I was there.”

 “You were?” I asked.

“Rivers and I were friends. I knew her when she ran away. After high school.” She took another long sip of water and then tucked her hair behind her ears. She looked a little perkier than she had a minute before. “Rivers and I hung out in the same places and then we lived together for a while. I was the one who brought her home when she came back to Bennett Falls.”

Rivers left abruptly and without warning, which is, I guess, a crucial part of running away. If you plan it and tell everyone you’re going to do it, that’s just called moving. When she came back, she brushed aside my questions about where she went and why she went and what made her come home. She wouldn’t say why. She couldn’t say where. She was back but she was different. I must have been different too.

You know how sometimes you feel a pebble in your shoe and you take the shoe off and shake it but nothing falls out but when you put the shoe back on, you still feel the pebble? The tension between us was kind of like that—just sort of invisible but definitely there and always causing discomfort. It got better with time, we got used to it, but it was never the same.

“I didn’t see you there,” I said.

“Well, you were busy,” Allison replied, a big smile brightening her face.

“You did have your hands full,” Nina joked.

“Nina means because it was such a big crowd.” Trudy offered helpfully. “She meant that it’s not really surprising that you didn’t see Allison because of the big crowd because everyone loved Rivers.”

Allison, who was suddenly radiant, fairly beaming, said “Not everyone loved her.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Allison shrugged. “She could be abrasive and sometimes she rubbed people the wrong way,” Allison said between bites of her PB&J. “Especially when she was away from Witchwood Manor. Out of her element and afraid, she sometimes turned to sarcasm to protect herself. She made some enemies during her travels. Some serious enemies.”

Nina looked at Allison with narrowed eyes. “Are you suggesting one of those enemies might have been responsible for her death?”

“How did Mr. Bennett say she died?”

“She fell down the stairs,” I said, instinctively supplying the story Pop had told the police.

“Then that’s how she died,” Allison said. Her sandwich was gone and she was eyeing mine. “Bay Bennett would never lie.”

“Of course not,” Trudy said in her best no-nonsense mom voice, putting that conversation to an end so we could move on to lighter topics.

 “How did you even know she was dead?”  I mean, who was this girl anyway? She just happened to come to town right at the same time as Rivers was murdered? It seemed too convenient.

Allison’s eyes looked bright and glassy and there were two red circles in the center of her cheeks. “Matthew got word to me.”

“Really? He never mentioned you,” I said, suddenly all suspicious. “Rivers never mentioned you either.”

“No, she wouldn’t have,” Allison said before she slurped up the last bit of water in her glass. “I know you two were like, best friends, but I’ll bet she didn’t like to talk about what happened when she was away. She probably didn’t talk about any of the people she met while she was away either. It was a different life and she wanted it separate.”

*********

Matt looked surprised to find me standing at his door. He didn’t invite me in but he didn’t slam the door either.

“Can we talk for a minute?” I asked.

He shrugged and went back to his seat by the window where he sat balancing a book on his lap. Looking at him there it was easy to see how Rivers could have fallen in love with him. He was the most beautiful thing in the room; his soft blonde curls were strikingly pale against his black sweater and the gray walls.

I thought of all the times I’d come by and found him sitting in that very chair with Rivers on the floor in front of him, folded into the posture of story hour and hanging on his every word; both leaning forward, towards each other, ever so slightly.

“What do you want?” he asked.

I perched on the edge of his twin size bed. “How are you?” I asked, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“Well, thanks. You?”

“I went back to work today.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything.

“I saw Nina.” His cheek pulled up a little on one side, showing less than half a smile. “She told me about you two and I wanted to tell you that I’m happy for you. Nina is…great. She’s really great.”

“Thanks for your permission,” he said.

“I just wanted to tell you that I knew. Nina seemed to think I’d be angry about it or upset but I’m not. OK?”

“OK,” he said in a soft and neutral voice.

I almost left then. I should have.

“Do you know what else she said? It’s so funny. She was talking about how Rivers and I had the ‘no cousins’ rule with all our friends in high school? She thinks Rivers made it up to keep girls away from you. She thinks Rivers had a crush on you. She said Rivers almost beat her up for looking at your butt once.” Nerves turned everything I said into a question. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“Crazy,” he agreed, nodding his head.

I tried to remember seeing him and Rivers touch – just casually – but I couldn’t. Even when she finally came home, the prodigal daughter, and George and Francis lifted her up and spun her around and hugged her so hard I’d thought they’d crack her spine, Matthew waved at her from the stairs and then went back up to his room, leaving the rest of us to plague her with questions she wouldn’t answer.

“Crazy,” I repeated, distracted from my purpose by the images of Rivers flashing through his mind. There she was on a stool in the kitchen with her hair falling across her eyes, now lying on her stomach on a rock in the woods with her feet waving in the air, then slipping into his bed late on a moonlit night. I heard her voice, clear and high, whispering his name, laughing in his ear. I felt the rush of love and lust he felt for her. The grief.

So Nina was right, half right anyway. But it wasn’t one sided, Rivers didn’t have an inappropriate crush on her cousin; they were in love.

 “Crazy,” he said again, so quietly I wasn’t sure he’d actually said it out loud.

With effort, he pushed her out of his mind. My mind cleared too, making room for my own thoughts to crowd back in. I was shaken by what I’d just seen and felt, by the terrible ache of his loss. No wonder he hated me for being alive. At that moment I sort of hated myself.

“Was there something else you wanted?”

I swallowed back the lump of tears that were collecting in my eyes and in my throat and carried on with the real reason I’d come to see him.

“I met Allison today. She said you called her, to tell her about Rivers.”

He nodded. “So?”

It was like pulling teeth, getting him to talk. I knew he wouldn’t volunteer one piece of information. I should have asked about Allison first, before he remembered that he didn’t like me anymore.

“She said she and Rivers were friends but I’ve never heard of her before today. I mean Rivers never mentioned her.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

Yank, yank.

It was exasperating but I was determined not to be put off by his stoic routine. I could wait there as long as necessary. “So, who is she Matthew?”

He braided his hair, doing his best to seem calm. I could see the crack in his composure though; the slight tensing up of his jaw gave him away. I knew him well enough to see this little tell. He could be mad at me, he could keep me away, but he couldn’t change that. I knew him and I could see him where he didn’t want to be seen.

“She was a friend to Rivers while she was away. I called her because I thought she’d want to know what happened. I didn’t expect her to the funeral.”

“Well, she did. And now she’s working at the bank.”

His eyebrows drew up in mock surprise. “I wonder why.”

“Do you know anything about her? Who is she?”

His voice was tinged with anger when he said, “If Rivers didn’t tell you about Allison when she was alive, why should I tell you now?”

He had a point. There was no real reason to tell me anything. Rivers never did. But I needed to know.

“I want to know what she did for Rivers so I can find out what she wants now in return. Something about her isn’t right Matt.... She’s trouble. I just know she is.”

He laughed. “Allison isn’t here to hurt anyone or make trouble. I don’t know what she’s doing here, but I know that for certain. Just leave her alone and let her do her work.” He picked up his book and turned away from me. “Thanks for stopping by. Could you close the door when you go?”

**********

Later that night Robbin reminded me that under Elvish law I could order Matt to tell me what he knew about Allison and he’d have no choice but to comply. Under that same law, I could order him to eat dog food or jump off a cliff or kick a kitten and he’d have to do that too. I guess that was supposed to be one of the perks of being Queen, but it seemed horribly invasive to me.

“I don’t want to have to make him tell me. I want him to tell me because he believes me when I say I need to know, which he would probably if he didn’t hate me.”

 “He can’t stay mad at you forever.”

“Of course he can,” I said. “And for an Elf forever is like what? A million years?”

He looked at me and smiled. “Not quite a million.”

“But close.” I sighed.

I heard him say, “Maybe George knows something about her?” just before the glass I was holding slipped from my hand and shattered against the floor.

“Tab?” he asked. “Are you ok?”

My vision clouded and I closed my eyes, reaching out to steady myself against the counter. I could feel myself being yanked away, pulled out of my body toward the place where someone I loved was dying.

When I opened my eyes I was lying in a field of sunflowers under a cloudless blue sky. I looked around slowly, taking in the beauty around me in small sips so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed. I knew where I was even though I’d never seen it before. Even though the descriptions I’d been given did it no justice at all. You’re Home, the enchantment whispered. With Alex – exactly where you belong.

The colors were intense, saturated. The petals on the sunflowers were the most perfect yellow; the grass was an unreal green. The mountains in the distance were capped with dazzling white snow that glittered and shimmered in the golden light. Across the meadow, trees danced gracefully in the breeze.

When I turned, he was next to me. My heart swelled at the sight of him, so still and beautiful cradled by the sweet green grass. The longing I always felt for him was even more intense, irresistible. I reached out to touch him, resting my hand on his chest.

He smiled at my touch. “I was hoping you’d come,” he whispered.

 I bent to kiss him and his lips felt cold. There was blood on my hand when I lifted it. There was blood everywhere – nothing but sunflowers and blood all around.