Hidden prey

Chapter 19

Trey put her new apartment together in two long days. The apartment was off Cretin Avenue, in St. Paul, not far from St. Thomas University, in a well-kept gray-stucco building; two bedrooms, one of which she could use for an office. The rent was twelve hundred dollars a month, which was a lot, but the place felt right.

She bought used furniture for it-good used furniture, most of it from low-end antique shops-and a new bed from Sears. She squandered another two thousand dollars at four different Target stores, buying bathroom and kitchen equipment and a small but nice-looking stereo and twenty CDs, and a television. She went to a used-book store and picked up thirty paperbacks, the best books she remembered from high school and college; To Kill a Mockingbird, like that.

When she was done, the place looked almost like a home. All it needed was some living-in, some accumulation of detritus. Where do you buy a clamshell full of pennies and nickels? She would get it, she thought.

The day after that, at six in the evening, when she'd gotten her guts up, she drove down Summit Avenue to the brown-brick four-square house where she'd spent her teen years. There were lights on, and she drove on past, then two more times around the block. This was necessary, she thought. But what if they kicked her out without giving her a chance?

She'd dressed up a little bit; a nice skirt and blouse, a navy blue jacket. Her face still looked a little wild-the kind of weathering she'd had, you didn't get rid of in two weeks. Still: she was about a million percent different from the Trey of two weeks past.

She finally parked, walked through a pattern of falling leaves up the sidewalk to the screened porch, through the outer door, crossed the porch-there was an oaken porch swing, but it looked as though it hadn't been used in years. She swallowed, and rang the doorbell; rang it quickly, so she wouldn't have a chance to run.

When she heard the footsteps, she knew her father was coming. That was better: her mother was more skeptical, less given to romantic hope. She had her back to the door as he came up, and she turned just as he opened it.

"Hi, Dad," she said. "I need to talk with you."

"Annabelle…" He was a tall man, much balder than she remembered, older, and a little heavier. He seemed shocked.

"I don't need any money," she said. "I'm looking more for… information, I guess."

"Annabelle," he said again. He turned, still holding on to the doorknob. "Lucy-Annabelle is here."

After a moment, she heard her mother coming, and her father looked her over again and said, "Well, you better come in."

Her mother came out of the dining room and into the parlor. Her mother had always colored her hair, and still did-expensive coloring, the kind where they give you the touch of gray that looks almost natural. Her hair looked great, but her face no longer did: she had gotten much older, quickly. She said, "Annabelle. I… you look a lot better than last time."

"I've given up all that other stuff," she said. "I finally burned out. I've been working-and as I told Dad, I don't need money. I just need a little information. A little push in the right direction."

"Well, come in," her father said. "What exactly are we talking about?"

They moved into the parlor, and Annabelle perched on an easy chair while her parents faced her from a couch. "I need… a place to start. You know I got in trouble with the county attorneys office, but I was never brought up on any charges, I was never arrested for anything. Never had any sanctions from the bar. I've been working around, saving my money… I've got an apartment here and I'd like to find a job. Clerking, doing pro bono. Anything like that. I don't need much money."

Her father said, "You're really off the dope."

She nodded: "I'm absolutely clean. No dope, no alcohol. All I want is a little quiet. I want to work."

They both stared at her for a long time, and then her mother said, "It's very hard to trust you, after what you've put us through."

"I know that," Annabelle said. "I'm not asking you for money, and I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to tell me where I can go and get an office and start working. I'll go there, rent the office, or apply for the job, but I want to shortcut it. I don't want to be running around for six weeks. I want to get going."

They looked at her again, long, measuring stares, then her father said to her mother, "We need to talk somewhere." To Annabelle: "You wait here, we're going in the kitchen."

They were gone for ten minutes, and might have been arguing, Annabelle thought. She sat perched on the chair, looked at all the stuff-the detritus-that the Ramfords had accumulated in forty years of mar-riage. Knickknacks, paintings, pottery, photographs. Seashells full of nickels and pennies, and the odd pair of fingernail clippers.

Ten minutes, and they came back out of the kitchen. Her father sat down, her mother moved behind the couch.

"You know our suite in the Foster Building," her father said. He cleared his throat. "At the end of the fourth floor annex, that's one up from where I am, there's an empty office. One big room. We could put a desk in there, some office equipment, and a couple of chairs. You'd have access to our library and Lexis. You would not be an employee of the firm, but… we'd give you all our pro bono. Nobody wants to do it, and it's all over the place, and I'll pay you out of my pocket. But: you screw up just once, and I'll lock the office and I'll tell the security people to keep you out of the building."

She thought about it: not exactly what she wanted. Better in some ways, but the idea of her father looking over her shoulder every minute…

But then, she could handle her father, now, she thought. Because way deep down in her heart, she no longer really gave a shit what he thought. She needed the break, and as soon as she'd worked it, as soon as she was on her feet, she could move out.

"I'll take it," she said. "You won't be sorry. All I want to do is work."

Not everything was sweetness and light. They were still wary of her, still waiting for the monster to jump out of her eyes. When she left, her father said, "I'll see you tomorrow?" and it really was a question.

"I'll be waiting for you," she said.

She stopped at a supermarket on Grand, got enough food for a week, including some easy microwave one-dish stuff. As she was lying on her used couch, eating chicken-and-rice, it occurred to her that she was about six blocks from the first place she'd ever sampled crack.

Watching herself, she was amazed to find not even the slightest whisper of desire. Two weeks ago, a bottle of cheap wine was home. Now, she thought, she might be a teetotaler. Maybe. Maybe the stress of trying to get a job going would bring back all the bad stuff.

She doubted it: it seemed now, at this time and place, that all that had been scorched right out of her.

Later that evening, before she went to bed, she again felt the barrenness of the apartment. Not an emotional thing, but a simple, physical emptiness. She needed pottery, bird feathers, milkweed hulls, pinecones, a cup full of dried-up ballpoint pens and eraserless pencils, a file cabinet full of paper about one thing or another. She needed insurance, she needed a retirement program, she needed to open an account at Fidelity. She needed quarterly reports.

Standing in her new Target nightgown, she dumped her new pack on the floor, and looked at the few pieces that fell out. All that was left of her old life. She picked up her knife. Ought to throw it, she thought. This was not a good vibe…

But still, a girl should have a knife.

She opened the blade and noticed the brown crusty stuff… "What?"

Blood? She held it next to a new Target lamp. Dried blood. She cut the guy up there in Duluth, the killer guy.

And she thought: DMA. Serious evidence against somebody, right there in her hand.

What to do? She was afraid of that cop, Davenport. He'd sounded so damn mean…

She closed the blade on the knife.

Tomorrow, an office.

The knife, she'd think about.