“Are you looking for Aiden?” Shannon, the receptionist, asked when Harriet entered the waiting area.
“Yes, and I wanted to check on Scooter one last time, if that’s okay.”
“Sure,” the young woman said. “I think he’d like that. We’re closing down early so we can all get home before the winds pick up.” The plate glass front window rattled hard in its frame. “Well, before they get worse.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Do you want to go ahead and go back to the socialization area?”
Harriet followed her to the converted storage room and sat in one of the rocking chairs, shrugging out of her coat as she lowered herself to the seat. Shannon brought Scooter and set him in her lap.
“The vet techs all took off already,” she explained as she draped a soft blanket square over him. “I told Aiden you’re here. I’m going to be leaving, so he’ll have to let you out.”
Scooter shivered in that way little dogs do, more a nervous reaction than from a lack of warmth. Harriet carefully settled him closer to her chest.
“Don’t worry about all the noise outside,” she told the little dog. “It will all be over before you know it. You’ll be all set. Aiden said they have a generator here so you’ll have all the heat and lights you need. Don’t expect that when you come to live at my house. We’ll be using oil lamps and wearing sweaters.”
“Did Carla go home?” Aiden asked without preamble as he came into the room.
“Yes, Tom drove her and Wendy home a little while ago.”
“What’s he doing hanging around here in this weather?”
“He’s hardly ‘hanging around.’ He was visiting friends of his mother and got trapped by the slide.”
“And he just happened to take Carla home?”
“If you must know, he and a number of other people helped us move Marjory’s fabric up to her attic. The weather people are predicting the Muckleshoot will jump its banks within the next twenty-four hours and that could flood Marjory’s store.”
“Convenient.”
“What is wrong with you? Everything was fine, and then all of a sudden you’ve got an excuse every time I want to see you, and now you pull this jealous routine? You’re giving me whiplash.”
“I’ve been busy. You know how my job is.”
“It’s never caused you to freeze me out in the past. Something else is going on. I can feel it. This isn’t you.”
“You don’t know me. You may think you do, but you don’t. I’m not who you think I am.”
“Where is this coming from? Is it your sister? What has she done to you?”
“Are you done with Scooter? I need to lock up and get out of here.”
“That’s it? We’ve spent almost every day together for nine months, and now I don’t know you?”
The muscle in Aiden’s jaw pulsed with tension. He picked Scooter from her lap and was out the door almost before his intention registered. She waited a few minutes, but he didn’t reappear. She knew employees left by the back door when the clinic was closed.
She put her coat back on and went into a hallway, through the employee locker room and out into the storm again.
Harriet drove around to her garage and pressed the button on her automatic door opener. She was surprised to find two cars already in the large space. She carefully guided her car into the remaining spot.
Fred meowed loudly when she entered the kitchen.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” Mavis said. “We were starting to worry about you. A big branch fell onto my car as I was driving home. It like to scared me to death.”
“I hope you don’t mind, but we told Lauren she could park in the garage, too,” Beth said.
Lauren was at the kitchen bar, talking on the house phone.
“With all the trees around this place, we didn’t want anyone’s car getting damaged,” Beth continued. “There are branches and debris all over the road between here and Mavis’s.” She pulled her sweater more closely around her ample body and shivered.
Mavis rifled through the junk drawer in the kitchen then triumphantly held up a box of wooden matches.
“I want these to be easy to find,” she said.
“Jorge says he’s coming by with more food,” Lauren said and hung up the phone. “I should have asked him to bring nachos.”
Harriet went to the closet and hung up her coat. She could tell already this was going to be a long night.
The phone rang, and Lauren answered it.
“Yeah, hang on. It’s Carla. She wants to talk to Harriet.”
Harriet crossed the room and took the phone, turning her back on her audience. She listened for a moment.
“Sounds like you did the right thing,” she said. She listened again for an extended period then recounted her visit to the vet clinic and Aiden’s failure to reappear to say goodbye. She listened again. “I’m sure he’s fine and will be home soon. He’s probably just making sure the dogs are taken care of…Okay…You, too.”
She hung up.
“Okay,” Lauren demanded. “What was that all about?”
“Lauren…” Mavis scolded.
“I take it Michelle is causing problems,” Aunt Beth guessed.
“She doesn’t know anything for sure, but that’s what she thinks. She says Aiden hasn’t been acting like himself. And he’s not arguing with Michelle like he usually does. She thinks he’s bought into whatever his sister is selling.”
“What do you think?” Mavis asked.
“I have to agree with Carla. Aiden is definitely not himself. He won’t talk to me. He just told me earlier he’s not who I think he is.”
“Lordy,” Mavis said. “What is that girl filling his head with?”
“Are you sure we know everything about him?” Lauren asked. “He was gone from here for a lot of years, first to vet school and then his jaunt to Africa.”
“We know everything we need to know. He’s Avanell’s son,” Beth said.
“She gave birth to Michelle, too,” Lauren reminded her.
Harriet ignored the comment.
“Carla also said she was getting worried people might try to go back to Marjory’s store to ‘raid the piggy bank,’ so to speak. She caught Duane eyeing the register, and she was afraid Marjory’s sister and her family might break in. It turns out Marjory just hides the money in a bag in the kitchen when the store is closed. Carla wanted to tell someone that when she went to check on Wendy, she moved the bag to her diaper bag and took it to Aiden’s with her.”
“I hope she didn’t tell Michelle about it,” Lauren said.
“As a matter of fact, she made a point of telling me she didn’t. It’s hidden in her room. She wanted us to know so nobody would think she was stealing.”
“It is surely an ill wind that has blown into this town,” Mavis said.
As if on cue, the kitchen lights flashed off and then on twice before steadying again.
“Anyone want a cup of tea?” Harriet offered.
“I say get it while we can,” Lauren said.
“I agree,” Mavis said.
“Me, too,” Beth agreed.
“What are we agreeing to?” Jorge said as he came into the kitchen from the studio. “I hope you don’t mind I came in,” he said. “I knocked on the door, but probably you couldn’t hear me over the storm. You need to lock your door, you know? You can’t be too careful.” He set bags of food on the counter.
“Would you like a cup of tea before you go?” Lauren asked.
Beth glared at her before turning to Jorge.
“Let me take your coat,” she said, and took Jorge’s wet jacket. She hung it on the back of a chair.
Harriet filled her teakettle and set it on the stove then filled her electric kettle and plugged it in as well.
“Grab those two thermal carafes from under the counter there,” Mavis directed her. “We might as well heat the kettles again and fill those up, just in case.”
Harriet did as instructed, and she and Mavis filled mugs with tea bags and water then filled the carafes before joining the rest of the group, who had moved to the big table in the formal dining room. A five-branch brass candelabrum sat ready in the middle of the table, flanked by two oil lamps.