The Rascal Read Free Page B

probably won’t want to know her. I wouldn’t.”
    Cautiously, Chloe and Jeff looked at one another, then got out of the car and walked up the hill toward the woman. She had not moved. She was pale, but still held an aging beauty. Chloe recognized the woman from the photographs she had found. She would have recognized her without them. While Chloe did not love cinema, she knew enough people who did, and Lana Pruitt was one of the great modern recluses, having retired years ago in her prime. Donna Tharp had not said Lana Pruitt was the cottage’s previous owner.
    The breeze played with Lana’s blonde and silver curls as if on cue. A film effect.
    “I saw you from the telescope on the widow’s walk,” the woman said. Her voice was a recognizable shade of its former glory, deepened by age.
    Chloe glanced to the top of the big house. The widow’s walk was like a perch for a caged bird. Lana still had not moved even as Chloe stood in front of her, smiling and giving introductions. Lana’s gaze rested on Jeff, who stood farther back, near the Jeep. The gulf that existed between Jeff and Chloe was shockingly evident at times.
    “So why do they stay together?” Lana whispered.
    “Excuse me?” Chloe had been telling the retired actress—lying to her—about how lovely she thought the big house was.
    Lana reversed her gaze back to Chloe. “I’ve set some tea for us on the porch. I thought you might like some after your long trip.”
    “That would be nice. Thank you.”
    “Let’s not let it get cold, then.” Lana turned, movement at last, and slowly made her way up stone-and-wood steps to the porch. Chloe followed. Jeff came last, hands in pockets.
    The wind was growing stronger now. There was no humidity in it. It slapped at their faces. The treeless heights on which the big house sat did nothing to keep the abuse from them. The woods only began near the cottage.
    “It’s very quiet here,” Chloe said as they climbed.
    “Disturbingly so sometimes. I refuse to hang chimes of any kind. The wind would shake them useless, I’m afraid, and keep me wide awake.”
    As they climbed, Chloe noticed the house looked less foreboding with each step. Instead, it became desolate and pleading. Paint chipped from its sides like leaves from a tree. The wind shook the windows in their frames so that the house seemed to shake and sigh in despair. To one side of the house was what, at one time, must have been a stunning piece of garden and yard. It was now grown over, though. Thick vines and an army of weeds would not give back the statuary and walkway. There was a fatigued beauty to the scene. It expressed a rotted class. Above it, as was the case all around, the sky was a blighted white, and where it met the sea, there was an indifferent fusion.
    The place settings at the table were meticulous and lovely. They were like ornaments from a different, wealthier dollhouse. The china gleamed as Lana Pruitt poured Chloe and Jeff each a cup of tea, then one for herself. There was a tray of sugar cookies in the center of the table. They would not be touched, however. And there were no napkins. The wind that circled the big house forbade them.
    Chloe saw a rifle leaning against the house by the door.
    “Don’t worry,” Lana said. “That’s not for you. It’s for all the damn nuisances that crawl up the hill.”
    “Nuisances?”
    “Pests.” Lana said no more about it. She took a sip of her tea.
    After a few moments of dangerous silence, but for the wind and the water down below as it crashed on the rocks, Chloe couldn’t take it anymore. Silence was intent on driving her mad today. “It’s a lovely day… a lovely place.”
    “Don’t invite me to the cottage,” Lana said. It was blunt, but not mean.
    “What? I didn’t mean—”
    “I won’t come. I haven’t been past the tree line on the hill in years. I’ve never set foot in the cottage and I don’t intend to.”
    Chloe looked at Jeff. He seemed undisturbed by the