LITMIR.BIZ

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he could get out.

      “Jessie!” he heard Cassie cry as she embraced her friend. “Despite the troubles, welcome home!”

       4

      Cassie Keenan had known Jessica Lockwood her whole life. Both only children, a rarity in the area, they had clung together like sisters, however different their personalities. Cassandra and Jessica—Cassie and Jessie—their lives had seemed to rhyme like their names, until Mariah sent Jessie away. If folks thought Mariah did that just because of Drew Webb, Cassie knew they were wrong, ‘cause Mariah had always wanted a different life for her child.

      Still, however distant their lives had become, Cassie treasured how they could pickup where they’d left off, just like they hadn’t been apart a long time. Though Jessie hadn’t visited Deep Down this August as usual, she’d been here last Christmas with all sorts of gifts for her and Pearl. But things might be different now with Mariah missing. Desperate to help her friend get through this, whatever befell, Cassie hugged Jessie hard, then led her inside while Drew followed with her suitcase and matching smaller bag.

      “I hope we won’t wake Pearl,” he said as Cassie sat Jessie down at the plank table, shoving potted herbs aside to make a spot for her. She’d meant to straighten up the little house a bit when she heard Jessie would spend the night, but there was nowhere to put her precious plants unless she carried them outside with the others. Herbs, both live and dried, covered the floor, walls and ceiling. It was like a grotto in here, Elinor Gering had said, when she’d come to record Cassie talking about life here in Deep Down.

      “Now don’t you all fret about making noise,” she told Drew. “Once that little angel’s out, she sleeps like the dead.”

      Cassie saw Jessie wince at that. She scolded herself for not thinking ahead of her mouth. “This here’s ginseng tea with a touch of chamomile,” she told her friend as she set a cup before her. “Gives you energy and yet makes you sleep. Drew, you want some coffee? Won’t take a minute.”

      “No, thanks. I’m coffeed out for the day and need to hit the sack myself for a couple of hours.”

      Looking beyond exhausted, Jessie wrapped her hands around the hot cup, then lifted it to her lips.

      “I’ll be going,” Drew said. “Jess, I’ll be here at eight sharp, though I know you need the sleep.”

      “What I need is my mother back,” she said, turning to face him. Then she added, “Sorry about the heavy bag. I didn’t repack at home, just got my car and headed out.”

      Cassie watched the two of them talk, both tipping their heads in the same direction and leaning slightly toward each other as if they were straining against a fence. She recognized the wild wind between them, the kind you couldn’t hold back. She’d figured both of them still had feelings for each other, and now she knew it. Tarnation, she understood that sort of pull, that turning toward the sun as if it were the source of life itself.

      “‘Night and thanks, Cassie,” Drew said as he started for the door.

      “Come a few minutes early for pancakes,” she told him. “I’m gonna put a good, hot meal in Jessie first thing tomorrow, so you come, too. Thanks for that bag of groceries you brought me back from Highboro the other day,” she added, hurrying after him to the door. “Me and Pearl’s beholden to you, ‘specially for standing up for my right to keep silent. I heard what you told Vern Tarver.”

      “You’re only beholden for a pancake breakfast,” he said. He stood at the door as if he hated to leave, then looked past her to Jessie again. “We’ll find her, Jess,” he said and went out into the night.

      “Whew-ee,” Cassie said as she went to sit across the narrow table from her friend. “I know you two will find Mariah. But for now, least you found each other.”

      “Except for the fact I need his professional help—” Jessie’s voice came real sharp “—our past has nothing to do with the present situation.”

      “Listen, my Deep Down sister, don’t you go lecturing ‘bout things of the heart, even if you are way smarter’n me,” Cassie scolded, shaking her finger at Jessie like she did at Pearl. “My girl’s daddy may be out of my life and hers, but she was a love child.” Afraid she’d say more, she pinched her lips tight.

      “Of course she is. I never said otherwise.”

      “So I know it when I see it, even if I don’t have it no more.” Cassie made herself sit back and calm down. No way did she want someone clever as Jessie catching on to who Pearl’s daddy was or what she had planned.

      “I don’t know which way’s up, that’s all,” her friend said, taking another big swig of the tea. “What you’re seeing and hearing is sheer exhaustion. I just feel so weak—helpless.”

      “I got some mushroom soup and corn bread, if you’re hungry for that kind of food ‘fore you go to bed.”

      “My system’s so screwed up from time zone changes and I have stomach cramps from being afraid and grieved—”

      “And on edge back with Drew again. Like most men, he may be dense as a wall on that, but you’re not. Anybody like you who can look in a microscope and find a way to stop killer cells can—”

      “Can find a killer?” Jessie blurted and, to Cassie’s dismay, burst into tears. She banged the cup down and covered her face with both hands. Her shoulders shook and the curly blond hair Cassie had always thought was way better than her own straight red hair bounced against her hands. “It’s just,” Jessie got out between big, choking sobs, “I think something awful—might have happened—to her. She knows the woods, she’s always safe in the woods …”

      Cassie jumped up and went around the table to hug her from behind. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to set you off, and I shouldn’t bring up Drew like that. I promise, I won’t say no more about it till you’re ready to admit it.”

      “You’re so damned annoying and stubborn, Cassandra Keenan.”

      “That’s me,” she said and went back to her place across the table as Jessie reached in her purse, looking kind of surprised to find it still over her shoulder, and took out a tissue. “‘Member how Elinor told us that Cassandra in some old Greek stories was a woman who always told the truth, even predicted the future, but no one believed her?” Cassie asked.

      “Elinor said a lot of things,” Jessie muttered and blew her nose. “She once made me read a book she loved called You Can’t Go Home Again, and here I am. And I hated the book.”

      “Jessie, anything I can do to help, I will.”

      Jessie reached across the table, past the plants, to put one hand on hers. “I’d better get to sleep. Morning and Drew will be here early.”

      “I’m gonna sleep with Pearl, and you take my bed. Want to wash up?”

      “In the morning. Right now, I just need a couple of things out of my carry-on bag and a bed.”

      Cassie rolled Jessie’s big suitcase into her bedroom, the one that had been her grandparents’ and parents’ room before it was hers. In truth, she was glad to give it up, ‘cause after watching the smothered desire between Jessie and Drew, she might be too het up and not sleep well in there tonight. Too often she didn’t, remembering her own sweeping passion in that bed and then how the midwife had helped her birth the result of that there.

      She’d buried that love and lust now, put it away and closed up all her wounds, though they still festered under the surface. Sure as rain, she was laying plans to make him pay for his betrayal of her and Pearl. She knew people whispered that she never spoke his name nor hinted who he was because she was too shattered over the desertion, still so much in love that she was giving him a pass, protecting him.

      Well, they were all dead wrong. As soon as she got her herbal potions mixed, no matter how important a man he was,

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