“I’m sorry for their son.” Although Tony’s wife wasn’t part of Vivian’s book group, that was where she’d learned about Mrs. Garvey’s affair with her chiropractor. The gossip in Pineview was usually pretty reliable, but Vivian didn’t like that aspect of the community, so she tried to ignore the rumors. She certainly hadn’t wanted anyone talking about her. She’d had far too much to hide.
“I feel bad that they’ve had trouble. No matter what happened, I’ve always liked them both,” Claire said.
The smell of cigarette smoke permeated the carpet, the vinyl booth, the dark paneling. Smoking hadn’t been allowed inside, even in taverns, for some time, but George Johnson, the owner of the Chowhound, was a heavy smoker and probably smoked as much as he wanted before and after business hours.
“Afternoon, ladies. Can I get you a drink?”
George himself had come to wait on them.
“Just water for me,” Claire said.
Considering the state of her nerves, Vivian thought she might want something stronger, but it wasn’t a good idea to consume alcohol while toting a gun. Besides, alcohol upset her ulcer.
“So…what do you have to tell me?” Claire asked the minute he walked away.
Vivian had kept her in suspense long enough, but she didn’t know how to begin. Baring her soul would relieve her of the burden she’d been carrying, the need to pretend and lie and evade, but it would also be a terrible risk. What if Claire couldn’t forgive her? What if she stayed in Pineview but lost the relationships that were important to her? “It’s something you’re going to find…unpleasantly surprising.”
Claire’s curious smile faded when she realized Vivian wasn’t fooling around. “How upset will I be?”
“Pretty upset.”
“At you? Or someone else?”
“Me.”
“What’s the worst it could be?” she said with a doubtful laugh.
Vivian reached across the table to take her hand. “Claire, everything I’ve ever told you is a lie.”
Again, Claire seemed tempted to make light of it, until the intensity on Vivian’s face convinced her that this really wasn’t a joke. Then her eyebrows knitted together and the worry Vivian had glimpsed earlier reappeared. “Maybe you should be more specific.”
“I’m not who you think I am. I’m not Vivian Stewart.”
How often did someone hear that from her best friend?
She seemed to gulp before grabbing the table. “What are you talking about?”
Vivian didn’t want this to hurt their friendship, but she didn’t see how it wouldn’t. “That’s an assumed name, one I picked myself. I don’t have a mother who suffers from diabetes and my parents aren’t retired schoolteachers. I don’t have a sister, pregnant or otherwise. I have one brother who’s married and has one and a half children, and that’s it. They’re all I have in the world, besides my own kids. And I can’t even see them. We’ve been on the run and had to split up for safety.”
Letting go of the table, Claire sat back. “You don’t mean you’re wanted by the police.”
“No.” Vivian struggled to decide what to tell her next. Now that she’d started, she wanted to get it all out as fast as possible. “There are some…men. They—they tried to kill me once. In Colorado. They’re coming after me again. It’s really my brother they want, or at least that’s how it began. Now…they hate me as much as they do him.”
“They tried to kill you?”
“Yes. They murdered the U.S. marshal who was guarding me and then they came for me.”
“Wow.” Other than in the movies, Claire had probably never heard of anything like this. It wasn’t the kind of thing that happened in Pineview. Neither did murder, yet Pat was dead. Neither did kidnapping, yet Claire’s mother was missing. Was that what she was thinking? That maybe nothing was what it seemed?
Vivian did her best to explain about Ellen and her uncle and her murdered stepfather and what’d happened to Virgil and how he came to be associated with The Crew. The more she talked, the more unbelievable it sounded, even to her ears. Did Claire think she’d lost her mind?
She didn’t act as skeptical as Vivian had thought she would. When Vivian finished and looked up at her helplessly, waiting to see how her friend would take the news, Claire glanced around them, then leaned in close. “What do these men look like?”
That wasn’t the response Vivian had been expecting. “Ink has tattoos everywhere, but he broke out of prison with a guy I’ve never seen before. He’s likely got plenty of gang tattoos, too.” She thought of Pretty Boy and revised that statement. “Then again, Ink’s partner in crime could look as clean-cut as a Mormon missionary.”
Claire’s face drained of color, but the question that came out of her mouth wasn’t, “How could you do that to me?” or “Why couldn’t you trust me?” There was no recrimination, no accusation or anger that she’d been misled. Instead, her voice urgent, she asked, “What was your name before?”
“That depends,” Vivian replied. “I’ve had to assume two different identities over the past four years.”
“The name these people would have. What is it?”
“My real name. Laurel Hodges.”
Her jaw dropped and she brought a hand to her chest. “Oh, God. I saw them at Mailboxes Plus not more than an hour ago. Two guys. One sat outside in a white truck. I couldn’t see him too well. But the other guy approached me. He said he was looking for his sister, who was adopted out at birth. That she was supposed to live in this area. And he told me her name was Laurel Hodges.”
Vivian’s blood ran cold. She’d been afraid The Crew had come to Pineview.
Now she knew for sure.
20
“This is it? You’re sure?” Myles stood with Ned in front of Allen Biddle’s house east of town. It wasn’t a likely place to drop off a couple of hitchhikers. There was no bus stop, no pay phone, no café and no gas station, just one residence—the lodgelike home of a middle-aged bachelor who split his time between Montana and Alaska, and hired out as a hunting guide.
“Positive, Sheriff. I knew they wouldn’t want to continue on with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t going all the way into town.” About forty years old, Ned had lived in Pineview most of his life and, when he wasn’t on the ball diamond, dressed like an old cowboy. He hitched his Wranglers a little higher as he talked but couldn’t fasten them around the big belly that hung well over his belt. “I came from Libby, had to pick up a few things there,” he said. “Saw them when I was coming back and stopped, but explained I wasn’t going all the way to Pineview.”