Tidal Kin by Lee Doty

Author:Lee Doty [Doty, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Headline Books
Published: 2018-02-08T05:00:00+00:00

25

Anne confirmed for one of the Tarleton Twins, as Norma had called them, it was Laney’s sandal found on Route 136. The officer jotted the information in his pad and was preparing to leave when Gin arrived. Her long-simmering anger at her mother had been stoked to full conflagration during breakfast with Norma and she revived the flames with an attack against Anne for failing to protect Laney. The charge of negligent supervision was well-trodden ground between the women. Their raging battle allowed the officer to slip out, but without an audience their argument soon lost heat.

Anne left the living room to lie down and returned a half-hour later ready to call a truce. “You want something to eat? We need to keep up our strength.”

“No. I’m getting a drink.”

“God, Gin. Can you just stop?” Anne gave up. An argument required energy and she’d run out.

Standing in the center of the room, unsure what to do next, she stared at a strand of Laney’s hair on the floor, caught by a stream of sunlight. She bent to pick it up. “Now how does it go? I won’t let them harm a hair on your head?” She tried to shut out the clatter in the kitchen where Gin was making her drink and wandered over to the piano. She ran her hand along its sleek ebony casing, a habit before starting to play. Gordon always said the gesture made him think of a young girl patting the flank of her beloved black stallion. She sat down and without conscious thought began playing a Brahms sonata. It was one Laney liked. Anne put her heart into the dynamics of the piece, hoping that if she played the notes just right, her precious granddaughter would hear and follow them home.

Gin slammed a door upstairs and caused Anne to lose concentration. She pulled the cover down over the keys. If she did not occupy her mind, she’d go mad. She considered sleeping pills or other anesthetics so she could stop thinking, but she could never do such a thing while Laney was still—what? Away? Yes, that was a safe word. While Laney was away.

In addition to playing piano, Anne often controlled anxiety by organizing things, her jewelry box or chest of drawers or music collection. She thought now of the most daunting of messes requiring a clean-out and her large, cluttered cloak room came to mind.

She surveyed the litter of stray boots, gloves, drum sticks, tennis rackets and vacuum parts. Beneath it all was the same wide-planked pine flooring that ran through the rest of the cottage, only some prior owner, an artist, had painted this floor white with large black diamonds. The diamonds were pretty well worn away by years of families and guests dropping things off or burrowing through the wide coat rack for the light-blue windbreaker or the full-length parka.

Overwhelmed with fatigue, she was unsure whether or not to take on the task and turned back toward the cloakroom entrance. Laney’s backpack hung on a hook and Anne realized it had been there since the discovery of the beach murder.

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