The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,109
in the cabin,” Pat told me. Her accent was anything but southern. The twang was distinctive, with that odd, almost Canadian rhythm. I guessed her for Minnesota. “You’re in that little one-bedroom loft over there. It’s small but it’s got a nice deck over the pond. Coffee beans are in the freezer and there’s a grinder on the counter. You need anything else just let us know. Chris made some apple bread this afternoon and put it over there for you, and we just got Dish, so you can watch movies if you want.”
“Wow, thanks.” Mmm, apple bread.
“Need help with your bags?”
I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks. All I need is the key and a phone.”
“Door’s unlocked. Key’s on the table. Don’t have phones up here. Sorry,” Pat said, and took Chris’s hand.
No phones?
I watched them disappear back into their cabin. Lesbians in rural Georgia? Who knew?
An hour later I was balancing carefully on the deck railing, leaning as far forward as possible, the flat of one hand using the tin overhang on the tiny deck of my cabin as a brace, the other hand holding my cell phone toward the sky. I was trying not to look down. It was a thirty-foot drop to a slimy pond.
“Keye?”
I wobbled and nearly lost my footing. Pat and Chris Smelly were standing behind me with concerned looks on their faces.
“Jesus, wear a bell or something. You scared me.”
Pat gave an aw shucks shrug. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be up there like that. I don’t think that’s safe.” Chris nodded her agreement.
“I can’t get a signal anywhere else. Do you always just walk in?”
“We knocked, but you couldn’t hear us.” They looked at each other. Chris giggled, then covered her mouth. Pat held out a hand. “We saw you from our place and thought maybe you were in some trouble up here. You can get a signal from our roof. And we got some lawn furniture up there.”
“Really?” I took her hand and climbed off the railing.
“We made it flat so we could enjoy the view of the mountains.”
“It’s like having an extra room.” It was the first time Chris had formed a complete sentence in my presence, and it was deeply southern. “It’s our little terrace in the pines.”
“I don’t want to be a lot of trouble,” I said as we walked through the cabin and toward the front door. “Apple bread is really good,” I told Chris. I was embarrassed that I’d eaten half of it already. It was on the kitchen table, and since the cabin consisted only of two rooms downstairs, we had to walk right past it. I wondered if they had noticed.
“Bread’s my specialty,” Chris said, which came as no great surprise to me given the size of her ass.
The cabin I’d been assigned was furnished with gnarled-up raw wood chairs, an ancient futon, and lots of folksy chicken art. But the Smelly cabin had slate floors and a vaulted ceiling, stark modern furniture in a bright wide-open space, linen and leather, a towering A-frame glass wall that looked out at the Blue Ridge Mountains—Architectural Digest in the sticks. A basset hound and a tuxedo cat lay in front of the glass on a zebra rug. They paid me no attention at all.
“We did all the work ourselves. Bought the land about ten years ago, when you could still get it for a song,” Pat told me. “Pretty much pays for itself now and we just hang out.”
She opened a door and we climbed a narrow pine staircase, then went through another door that opened onto a rooftop crammed with plants and a gas grill, Japanese lanterns and two chaise longues, an outdoor daybed, all in a deep espresso. Somebody has a West Elm catalog, I thought.
“We’ll give you some privacy,” Chris said, and they left me standing on their roof with my cell phone.
Rauser answered on the second ring. “Hey, you. Get my message?”
“No. I can’t get a signal up here.”
“Where’s up here?”
“Ellijay. Um. A missing-cow case,” I said, and laughed. “My first, by the way. My mother is so proud. I’m on the Smellys’ roof right now, which might take some explaining.”
“You know, I really want to ask,” Rauser said with a grin in his voice.
“I’ll fill you in when I get home. How’s it going?” I almost didn’t want to know. Atlanta, the murders, at least for this one afternoon, seemed far away.