Odd Partners by Allison Brennan & Jeffery Deaver & William Kent Krueger

Author:Allison Brennan & Jeffery Deaver & William Kent Krueger [Brennan, Allison]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

“You remember me, don’t you?”

A strange man was sitting at her kitchen table and smiling at her. Not a doctor. She was home and it was dark outside, and doctors didn’t make house calls anymore. “Where’s Grace?” She remembered how sad Grace had been when Minnie told her Priscilla was right. She did need to go to a home. Her memory was only getting worse. She didn’t care anymore. It didn’t matter. What made her feel sad was the possibility she’d never see Grace again.

Then she remembered the man sitting across from her. Something about his face looked familiar. She looked down, away from the colorless eyes. The table was littered with notes, dozens scattered about, all in her handwriting. “Where’s Grace? Don’t hurt her. She doesn’t know anything.”

“And what do you know?” the man asked genially, as though they were friends.

“How did you get in?”

“You let me in. Don’t you remember?” He smiled, and she could almost believe she had invited him inside. Offered him coffee or tea, and he’d said not to bother. Young people always worried about how clean an older person kept their home. She remembered her grandmother’s house. Her father wouldn’t have eaten a cracker off any of her grandmother’s dishes.

She looked up and met his smile. Nice teeth. But no, she hadn’t let him in. She’d found him sitting at the kitchen table when she’d gotten up from her nap. It was dinnertime and Grace should have been warming up a can of soup or making a ham sandwich. Where was Grace? She should tell the man to get out, but he frightened her.

“Who are you, and why are you here?” And then she felt the blood drain slowly from her face as she remembered.

“You do remember. I can see it in your face,” he said, his voice still pleasant, but somehow not human.

“At the convenience store today. You startled me.” Yesterday. She’d been staring outside, wondering why the draperies stayed closed at number eleven when Frank liked them open, even at night when she could see him plain as day, dozing in front of his big screen television with a can of beer.

She’d meant to tell Grace. She’d written it down somewhere. “I want to call Grace,” she said. To find out that she was okay and to warn her to stay away.

“Be my guest. Do you remember her number?”

She didn’t and stared at him blankly.

“Didn’t think so. Ever since smartphones came along, we don’t have to remember a thing, do we?”

“I don’t have a smartphone. I don’t think I do anyway.” She did have a flip phone but she could never find it. And it was always off. She needed it, according to Priscilla, for emergencies. This was an emergency! Where was it, and where was Grace?

“What’s this supposed to mean?” He held out the scrap of paper printed with “NO 11 SQUATTER.” The sight of his hairy hand sheathed in a latex glove sent a geyser of adrenaline through Minnie and brought back the memory in living color.

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