Panic filled Annie’s voice. “You’re crazy!”
Myra moved on to page six. “How in the hell would you know if someone is crazy or not? You live in la-la land. If you don’t like going over the mountain, Charles can power up that yacht of yours that sits down there in the marina and we can push you overboard the way your family died. Yes, yes, that would be more fitting. I can see it now. The mountain isn’t a good idea. You’d be too broken up when they found you.”
Annie was still crying, wiping at her eyes with the hem of her long flowing gown. “What happened to you? You sound like a street person. I thought you were my friend and now you want to drown me. Oh, God! Why?”
Myra wasn’t sure but she suspected that Kathryn’s playbook was working. She pressed on and turned to page seven. “Because.” She shrugged. “Give me one thing you’ve done for someone else in the last fifteen years. Just one, Annie.”
“What business is it of yours what I do or don’t do?” Annie continued to cry.
“I want you to come back home, Annie. I want to help you. We’re coming down the home stretch now. I hate it that you’re here alone while Nellie and I are back in the States. We still have each other. I don’t want to see that slip away. I want to tell you something, and take it as gospel. After … after Barbara died, I went into a very deep depression. I didn’t care if I lived or died. What was there to live for? My daughter was gone, I couldn’t bring her back. When I came back to join the living—that’s how I thought of it at the time—and got involved … in … other things, Barbara started talking to me. I swear it, Annie. I can be having a cup of tea and she’ll start talking to me. I could be in a tizzy over something or other and there she is. I can’t see her, but I can talk to her. I want you to open yourself to the possibility that maybe your family will do the same thing for you. I’m not saying it will happen. I’m not crazy, Annie. I know it sounds far-fetched but it does happen. She comes to me when I need her the most. She said she’s proud of me. God, Annie, do you have any idea what that means to me? Well, do you?”
“I … I can’t imagine. I would give anything …”
Myra relented and tossed away Kathryn’s playbook. “Let me help you, Annie. Then if you want to help me, we’ll work on that. Let’s go for that walk, okay?”
“Will you tell me what she said to you? You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Myra?”
“I would never lie to an old friend. Yes, I will tell you everything my daughter said to me. It’s all part and parcel of me coming here to enlist your help. Do you want to change your clothes before we go for that walk?”
Annie looked down at the white gown. She frowned. “It’s so easy to pull it on in the morning. I think I have hiking boots.” She looked up at the shattered plasma TV and said, “I’m going to have to get a new television set.”
Myra shook her head. “That’s the one thing you are not going to buy. Hurry up, I’m not as patient as I used to be. Shake it, sister!”
Annie allowed herself a small smile. “Your vocabulary is certainly different these days. You must be leading a very interesting life back in the States.”
“Annie, you have no idea.”
Chapter 4
Myra did her best not to look shocked at Annie’s appearance when she walked through the doorway dressed in shorts and hiking boots. She looked like a broom handle draped in cloth. All Myra could think of to say was, “We need to fatten you up.” Then she asked, “Do you need a walking stick, a cane or something? You don’t look like you have much stamina.”
Annie looked off in the distance. “I’m fine, Myra. I don’t need a walking stick or a cane. Stop fretting over me. Let’s go. Do you need me to point out the perfect place to push me off the mountain or do you have a place in mind?”
Myra yanked page eight out of Kathryn’s playbook. “Cut the shit, Annie. I came here because I need your help. All I want is a yes or no. You want to go over the mountain, go ahead, I won’t stop you. Personally, I don’t think you have the guts to do something like that. My daughter would have called you a wuss. She’d say you’re trying to be a martyr. Martyrs are passé, you know.”
Annie dug her heels into the path. “Tell me what you want,” she said. “Spit it out, stop dancing around what you perceive to be my condition. That means cut the bullshit.”
Myra whirled around and blinked. She was delighted to see a spark of something in Annie’s eyes. Maybe this was going to work after all. “Miss Boudreau would put soap in both our mouths if she could hear us. I want you to give me the keys to your house in Manassas. I need to … we need to use your place to exact a revenge on some very nasty people. I want to pretend to be you. That means I will need access to your financial records, your signature on documents, that kind of thing. If you agree to help me, you are going to have to start answering your phone, reading your mail and learn how to use a computer so we can send emails. Will you do it? That means you have to join the world and stop watching it whirl by you. You have to become active again. Maybe you need to start taking vitamins.”
Annie started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “You don’t want much, do you, Myra?”
“Actually, Annie, I’m asking a lot and I know it. I came to you because I thought we could help each other. Let’s find a place to sit down so I can bring you up to date. God, you are bony. Do you eat anything?”
“I take a lot of vitamins. I eat when I’m hungry. Let’s sit on this log. I hope this story you’re about to tell me is interesting or you might be the one sliding down the mountain. After I push you.”
Myra turned around and sat down. She was almost giddy at the way Annie now focused on her. Her eyes appeared less glazed. She seemed to be completely aware of her surroundings and she also appeared to be interested in what Myra had to say.
Annie picked up a thick twig and started to dig in the dirt at her feet. “Well? I’m listening, Myra.”
“I hope you can handle this, Annie. Nellie always said you were the toughest of the three of us, but I’m not sure anymore. Before I tell you what I came here to say, I want you to promise you won’t ever breathe a word of this to anyone if you decide not to help. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can do that. Who would I tell? As you can see, I live here, cut off from the world. I’ve been an island unto myself for so long, I wouldn’t know how to … whatever it is you think I might do. That’s a yes,” she said firmly.
Myra talked for a long time. When she was finished, the hole at Annie’s feet was so deep she could have stuck both feet into it.
Annie turned sideways on the log to stare at her friend. “You did all that? You … you’re a criminal! Charles helped you! Amazing! And you never got caught! You of all people, Myra! This is so unbelievable! Why aren’t you a nervous wreck? Of course you can use my house in Manassas. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” Annie leaned forward, so close their noses almost touched. “Tell me again how you got even with the man who killed your daughter. I didn’t know you could skin a person alive. I know the Indians used to do it but I thought that was just in the movies.”
Annie’s eyes were completely focused now, bright and alert. Myra retold her story, embellishing it a little more for Annie’s
