Close Neighbors

“Can I help?”

“Sure. You’ll know what everyone would like. Not that I have much to choose from yet, but…” She shrugged and smiled again, then turned toward the house.

Julie followed along inside, not letting herself look back at Rachel.

“A mess, isn’t it.” Anne gestured toward a stack of cartons.

“Kind of. But that’s okay when you just moved in.”

“I guess. Orange juice, iced tea or water,” she added, checking the fridge.

“Ah…juice for me. And iced tea for Dad and Rachel. Please,” she added, remembering her manners.

“Coming right up.” Anne took the two pitchers from the fridge and set them on the counter. “Now, if I can just find some glasses…”

“Anne?”

“Yes?” She looked up from the carton she’d stooped to open.

“You’re gonna be able to help Rachel, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Promise?”

Anne sat back on her haunches and met Julie’s gaze. “Didn’t I promise earlier?”

“I thought you might have forgotten.”

“No, I take promises very seriously. Rachel hasn’t finished telling me the whole story, though, so I’m still not sure she really needs my help. But whether she does or not, I’ll bet everything’s going to be just fine.”

Julie nodded, thinking “everything’s going to be just fine” were the exact same words her father had used this morning. But what if both he and Anne were wrong?

That possibility made her eyes sting and her throat hurt. She didn’t know what she’d do if the police put Rachel in jail.

Looking at Anne again, she reminded herself that Penelope Snow didn’t really solve all the mysteries in her books. Anne did. So maybe everything would be fine.

“You know what?” she said.

“No, what?”

“Rachel always says that if something’s scary to think about, you should just not let yourself think about it.”

“You mean like noises in the night?”

Even though it wasn’t exactly what she meant, she nodded.

Anne smiled. “Well, that sounds like pretty good advice to me. But here, I haven’t got a clue where to find a tray, so you take a couple of these glasses, okay?”

“Sure.”

She followed Anne back outside, feeling way better. For the whole rest of the day, if even one single thought about anything awful happening to Rachel snuck into her head, she was just going to chase it straight back out.

CHASE DRAINED THE LAST of his iced tea and glanced at his daughter. The sooner Rachel told Anne the rest of the details, the sooner they’d find out just how bad she thought things were. But they certainly couldn’t pick up where they’d left off in front of Julie.

She popped the final bite of sandwich into her mouth, gazed longingly at the pool for a moment, then focused on Anne. “Are we still going swimming?”

“Sure. But we have to wait for a while, don’t we?” she added, glancing at Chase.

He nodded. “For an hour.”

“D-a-a-d, that’s only when it’s a big lake.”

“Really? You mean they changed the rules without telling me?”

Julie grinned. “I guess.”

“I don’t think so,” Rachel told her. “But by the time you go home and change…”

“I hear you’ve got a friend who lives right next door,” Anne said.

“Uh-huh. My best friend. Her name’s Becky.”

“Well, why don’t you see if she’d like a swim, too.”

Way to go, Anne, Chase thought. Every minute longer that Julie was gone gave them another minute to finish talking.

“Take the plate home, hon,” Rachel said as Julie pushed back her chair.

“Aren’t you and Dad coming, too? Aren’t you going to change?”

“Later,” Chase told her.

He waited until she’d disappeared behind the gate, then looked at his sister. “Let’s see how fast we can finish filling Anne in.”

“You’re feeling up to talking again?” she asked Rachel.

“Uh-huh, the sugar hit from that jelly helped a lot. So what else should I tell you?”

“Well…let’s hear exactly what the detectives asked you about Graham’s gun. Chase said they wanted to know whether he had it with him.”

“Yes, and I told them I didn’t think so. That if he did, I wasn’t aware of it. But I’m not sure they believed me.”

“Why not?”

“Because the next thing they asked was if I knew how to use it. That was just before they asked me if I’d killed him,” she added, staring at a patio stone.

Anne glanced at Chase.