The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,96
our daughter’s life there.”
Secretive was the word her roommates had used too.
“So you don’t know if she was seeing anyone at school?”
“There were times when she didn’t call for a while. I told Martin that I thought she was having some sort of romance. You know how it is when you’re young and exploring. You don’t think you need anyone else when you’re involved. I had the feeling she was going from one relationship to another very quickly.”
I slid a picture of Charlie Ramsey across the table. “Have you ever seen this man?”
“No.”
“How about friends here on the island? Anyone who would have kept in touch with her while she was at school?”
“She was only here for one year and she wasn’t very happy. Anne couldn’t seem to connect with the kids here. There was Old Emma, though. My daughter seemed fascinated with her, but then half the island finds Emma fascinating. Anne walked down there in the mornings sometimes with breakfast for her and a thermos full of coffee. Barefoot.” She hesitated. Her smile flickered. “After dinner, she always gathered the leftovers and put them in the refrigerator until morning for Emma’s cats. Now we do it.”
“So Emma still lives here?”
“Oh yes. I think she’s been here her whole life, her and about a hundred and fifty cats. The road washed out some time ago, though. You’ll have to walk if you want to see her.” She handed Charlie’s photo back to me. “You’re not anything like they made you out to be on television. I’m sorry to bring that up, but I recognized you. We get all the Atlanta stations down here, you know.”
“Thank you for saying that. It’s not who I am now, but I was a functioning addict for years.”
“I’ve been sober since we found out I was pregnant with Anne. Thirty-five years. That pregnancy was a blessing to us in so many ways.”
I nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Chambers. I’ll make sure Anne’s things get back to you safely.… I’m sorry about Anne. I’m sorry to come here and stir all this up again. If there’s ever anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to call.” I handed her my card. She took it, and then, to my surprise, her fingers closed painfully around mine.
“Find this monster,” she urged me. “That’s what you can do for me, Miss Street.”
I followed the beach a quarter mile until it narrowed at a cluster of moss-draped oaks and a sandy path strewn with driftwood. As I walked, I imagined sixteen-year-old Anne Chambers coming here in the mornings, bare feet sinking into the sand, a foil-wrapped breakfast and a coffee thermos in her hands.
Emma knew I was there before I realized she was watching me. I was fascinated by her home—part folk art gallery, part salvage yard. Sinks and car seats, bumpers, bicycles, old windows, doors, high chairs—anything you can think of that might have once been abandoned—were piled, hung, or welded into elaborate sculptures in Emma’s little patch of sandy front yard.
It was beautiful … and hideous, and must have taken thirty years to collect and construct. From every cool, flat surface, languid cats lounged and stretched and watched me steadily with cautious feral eyes. The air was warm and sticky and the mosquitoes clearly had not been given their breakfast. The house was decades past due for a paint job. Salt air and time had stripped it down to raw wood. When I reached out to knock on the screen door, something moved just on the other side.
“What you wont?” She slurred a little—a backwoods Ozzy Osbourne. She had startled me, but I tried hard not to show it.
“I only see about twenty cats,” I said, and smiled. “I heard you had at least a hundred and fifty.”
A stained backwater grin glimmered faintly through the screen. “You comin’ for a readin’ or you wanna stand out there countin’ cats?”
“Oh, so you’re a psychic?”
The screen door was pushed open. Emma, I noticed at once, looked something like the bad witch after she’d started to melt. She was perhaps five feet tall, but you got the feeling she hadn’t started out that small. She gave me the once-over, pale eyes sharp and narrow and opportunistic, sized me up for what I was worth, from my shoes to my earrings and the watch on my wrist. She was curious about how much she could get out of me. I knew the look. I’d seen it in the city on