Page 36 of The Woman By the Lake

Now, she was the closest thing to family I had left.

So, of course, she was the one who was most worried about me after all that happened with my mother, and my until-recently-unknown father. This after I still really hadn’t gotten over losing Trevor and the way that happened.

She was also the one who was being the pushiest about getting an invite out to Misted Pines…ASAP.

This had exacerbated in the last couple of days, with her sending now five texts, all of them saying a version of, Nothing’s wrong. But call me. We need to talk.

I hadn’t ignored them (or, not all of them), but I’d let them sit and then given some excuse about being busy (when I was not).

I just didn’t want to talk, because I was painfully aware I was not doing what I’d sworn to her I was going to do when I moved all the way across the country and out from under her watchful eye.

Heal.

In other words, if anyone could see through my faking-it selfie malarky, it was Maribeth.

And I was deducing she wasn’t falling for it.

Though, now, I did have something to do.

Because Riggs’s wild party and subsequent peace offering had broken my rut.

And that morning, I’d jumped out of bed, determined to keep it that way.

Not to mention, what he’d said about living the best life you could being the best revenge stuck with me.

It was wise.

Although I wasn’t ready to take it there, at the very least, I could stop moping around, drinking too much wine, eating too much food and watching too much television.

I might not start exploring my mental state, but I was going to start by exploring my environs.

I also had plans. Plans to pack a bag sometime soon, maybe around the time Riggs left town again (but after the way he’d firmly put us in the Friend Zone last night, for my mental health, I wasn’t thinking about why that hurt so much, and instead was telling myself I felt safer when he was around). I was going to take a commuter flight back to Seattle and spend a few days there.

I’d only ever spent a night in Seattle, that being before I came to Misted Pines. Since I was this close, it would be a shame I didn’t take the opportunity to look around.

I’d also cracked open my computer and looked up local spas, and apparently, there was an award-winning one in a place called the Pinetop Lodge.

So I was also going to set up a spa day.

With all of this on my horizon, I felt invigorated. Even though this wasn’t about sorting out my head, it made me feel lighter than I’d felt in over four months.

I hit town, which I’d only driven through to get to the market, not paying much mind to it.

This time, I paid mind.

And I saw what I’d distractedly seen in the pictures from the minimal research I’d done about the place and while driving through it.

Taking it in, honestly, it looked like an army of Hollywood set designers had swarmed the place and built an image of smalltown Americana.

There were some discrepancies, of course, since it wasn’t a movie location.

The huge mural on the side of what appeared to be the local coffeehouse, called Aromacobana, an obvious indictment about climate change, being one. Another was the local cinema that had one of those old-fashioned lit overhangs above it. But there wasn’t a new release on that sign. It sported a double bill of “Walking Tall,” with the letters JDB next to it, and “Walking Tall,” with the letters DJ beside that.

But underneath those, it said, Only Mrdrs in the Bldg Fest with next weekend’s dates.

So, bizarrely, they were going to do an Only Murders in the Building festival next weekend.

Fantastic show.

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