She's Not There by P. J. Parrish Read Free Book Online Page B

town hadn’t come from some sudden, irrational urge. Sometime in the night on the bus, as she was drifting down into sleep, she had realized that going all the way to Charlotte was not a good idea. It was a big city—that much she could remember—and a city was a place where she could disappear and be safe from the man who haunted her dreams. But she could also get lost there. What she needed now was a place with boundaries and fences, a place where the streets had names instead of numbers, a place where she could feel real again instead of anonymous. She needed a place where she could heal and try to remember what had happened to her.
    She turned onto Union Street and walked down the block. The yellow house was there in front of her, a big shabby Victorian almost hidden by trees and vines. The front door was open, and as she climbed the steps, she could see beyond the screen door to a long narrow hallway and a staircase. There was no bell so she knocked on the screen door.
    She heard barking and, a moment later, a small white poodle appeared behind the screen door, still barking but wagging its tail so hard it almost fell over.
    “Angel, shut the hell up!”
    A tiny woman came to the door, hair as white and tightly curled as the dog’s, face lined and pale, and a mouth stained with bright red lipstick. She gently nudged the dog aside with her slipper and opened the screen.
    “What can I do for you, hon?”
    Amelia smiled. “I’m looking for Hannah.”
    “You found her.”
    “I was just at the Red Bone Café and the waitress said you had rooms for rent. I need a place—”
    “I know. Missy just called and said you’d be coming. Well, come on in then. Don’t mind the dog. She’s half-blind and full crazy.”
    Amelia followed the old woman down the hallway toward the back of the house. The poodle trailed behind, its toenails tapping on the wood floor. Amelia glimpsed small, high-ceilinged rooms stuffed with old furniture. The cross breeze made the thin curtains sway like ghosts in the shadows.
    In the kitchen, Hannah motioned for Amelia to sit at an oak pedestal table. The room was hot compared to the rest of the house, and Amelia caught the smell of cinnamon and baking apples. She saw three pies sitting near the window.
    Hannah came over to the table carrying a spiral notebook with a Hello Kitty emblem on the front. She saw Amelia looking at the pies.
    “I’d offer you a slice, but I make those for sale at the café,” she said. “I got some Little Debbie donuts if you’re hungry.”
    “No, I had breakfast, thank you.”
    Hannah sat down and flipped open the notebook. “So what’s your name?” she asked, pencil poised.
    “Amelia Brody.”
    “How long you staying?”
    She hesitated. “I’m not sure. Can I rent by the week?”
    Hannah’s eyes dipped to the Vuitton duffel on the floor and then came back up to Amelia’s face. “I used to take in a lot of boarders, mainly the shrimpers before that all dried up. Nowadays I’ve got to be careful who I rent to because I’m getting too old to worry about other people’s problems, and everybody seems to have problems these days.” She tapped the pencil on the pad. “I gotta ask you, hon. You got somebody after you?”
    Amelia hadn’t seen a mirror since the thrift shop. She could only imagine how disheveled she looked, how bad the bruises were by now.
    “No, I was in a car accident,” she said.
    Hannah was staring hard at her, and Amelia resisted the urge to touch the gauze on her chin.
    “My son Greg—he’s living in Atlanta now—he keeps telling me I should get a computer so he can send me e-mails instead of birthday cards,” Hannah said. “He says that if I had a computer I could check people out before I rent to them. You can find out anything about anybody with a computer, you know. I don’t trust the damn things, though.”
    Amelia nodded, barely listening. Her head was starting to pound again, and she suddenly felt very tired.