The B Girls - By Cari Cole Page 0,19

what I should be."

"If you're sure?"

Lucy nodded. "I need some time."

Mae rousted Jane and they went up to bed.

Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. Giving and receiving feelings wasn't her best thing on a good day. The past couple of days hadn't been good days and she needed to be alone to think without all sorts of messy emotions beating at her.

Maybe that was part of the problem with her marriage. She'd always thought Gary appreciated the fact that she didn't need a lot of cuddling and love talk. But maybe he just thought she'd become cold. And maybe he never thought about it at all.

How could he when he'd obviously been spending a great deal of time thinking about and planning their divorce?

Her heart pounded double-time at the thought of the "D" word.

She tried to push back the natural mental question about what else could go wrong, but with Gary leaving her and Belle disappearing in a single weekend it was hard not to feel a little fatalistic.

She shuddered. God or fate had a way of showing what else could go wrong.

Lucy knew that only too well. A lesson she'd learned when she was ten years old, trapped in an abandoned sewer during a severe summer thunderstorm praying her friends would give away the secret of the "magic maze" and bring help before the water covered her and took her breath.

First she'd fallen in a hole. Next her friends left with the promise they'd bring a rope to get her out. Then the thunder, loud and frightening. Last came the water rising toward her face. She remembered thinking each step of the way "what else could go wrong?" and each time the universe provided a frightening answer.

Of course help had arrived but Lucy and her friends never again enjoyed the same sense of freedom they'd had in those few heady days before the grownups discovered their secret playground.

That was the day Lucy learned dreams could be dangerous. Looking back, she realized she'd begun taking the safe roads in her life after that day.

Spending summer days reading in her room instead of creating her own make-believe with her friends.

Going to yoga class with her mother instead of taking gymnastics lessons.

Staying home instead of traveling to Cancun with her fellow seniors after graduation.

Commuting to college instead of moving into the dorm.

Marrying Gary instead of digging up history.

Even those decisions hadn't kept her safe.

This time Gary had shoved her into a hole and fate seemed to be determined to pour water in after her.

This time she'd have to rescue herself.

This time she'd take some chances.

Lucy finally fell into a fitful, jittery doze in an armchair about four in the morning and dreamed about standing on the balcony of her beach condo watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico--alone.

Theories

Chimes. Loud. Insistent.

Lucy didn't recognize the sound. She opened her eyes trying to orient herself.

The chiming sounded again.

Lucy bolted upright on the couch. The doorbell. Maybe someone had news about Aunt Belle.

She glanced at the clock on the mantle. Seven AM.

People don't knock on doors at seven AM with good news.

On her way to the door she scrubbed her face with her hands in an attempt to get the blood flowing.

She thumbed the deadbolt and threw open the door without checking to see who was on the other side.

A man of about thirty with a bad haircut, dressed in threadbare jeans and a wrinkled button down, stood clutching a battered, soft-sided leather briefcase overflowing with paper in his right hand. The index finger of his left hand was poised over the doorbell button prepared to ring again.

He didn't look like a cop of any sort so maybe it wasn't bad news after all.

She scowled at him. If he was some sort of religious do-gooder she was going to say something sure to send her straight to hell. "What?"

A series of expressions crossed his face, startled, confused and finally smiling. "Lucy Deen?"

His smiling mouth didn't match something a little desperate and edgy in his eyes and Lucy wasn't sure she wanted to answer. "Who are you?"

His smile got bigger, showing more teeth. "Perry Thiel. I'm here to see Belle."

Lucy stared for several seconds while her sleep deprived brain tried to dredge up information matching the name or the face. The man clearly expected her to know him.

Nothing.

"Do I know you?"

His face fell. "Belle didn't tell you?"

Lucy frowned. "Belle isn't here."

"Not here?"

Lucy wasn't big on patience this morning but she bit back an urge to