She filled him in on what Charlie, the running buddy, had said.
“What? Well, that’s pretty shitty.”
“I feel bad now because I’m the one who told Agnew, even though she’s no longer here. So he can’t even ask questions and vent or whatever. Of course he doesn’t want to think poorly of her. But how do you not think poorly of her, if that’s what happened?”
“And she didn’t tell him or apologize, so at no point in time was telling the truth and clearing it up an issue for her?”
“No,” she said, looking over at him.
“That bothers me too. But it does screw up the whole motive thing, right?”
“Exactly.” She shook her head. “And then, what’s with the other two, the dead couple afterward?”
“Yeah, I wondered about that,” Simon noted, looking over at her. “What about the other two?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem—absolutely nothing, and that makes me even more irritated. A really nice young couple, with absolutely nothing wrong with them, as far as anybody is willing to say. Nobody saw them there. Nobody looks even remotely good for it.”
Simon nodded. “Why don’t you park it for now, and let’s deal with dinner?”
“I can do that,” she agreed, as she hopped up and walked inside, around the dining table. She stopped when she saw a pad of paper in front of his laptop. “What’s this?”
He just looked over at it. “Oh, I was trying to get some work done before dinner.”
She tapped the pad of paper. “What work has my name written over and over again?” she asked curiously, as she looked up at him, with one eyebrow raised.
He frowned, didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
She nudged him. “Simon?”
He groaned. “I don’t know what to tell you about that.”
“Well, why don’t you just explain what it is?”
“It’s not that easy,” he replied.
She looked at the paper and over at him. “Okay.” She collected all of his material and moved it off to the side, so that they had room for dinner. When she was done, she sat down at the table. Then she asked, “Were you going to call me or were you wondering whether you should talk to me about something?”
And he realized that she was completely misreading the scenario. And in a way it made it worse on her because he didn’t know what she was thinking, but chances were, she would be wrong about it.
“No,” he stated. “I was basically trying to contact and control whatever messages I was getting.”
She looked at him in surprise and asked, “Messages about my name?”
“I’ll explain,” he promised, “but let me get dinner off first.”
He quickly finished serving up dinner, and, with large platters in hand, he sat down, then passed one over to her. She accepted the plate, inhaled the aroma, and grinned. “This smells divine. There’s something about steak, and there’s something even more about barbecued steak.”
“Well, I was always of the opinion that it should always be barbecued,” he murmured, “but one can’t always make that happen. However, today we did, and you’re right. It looks divine.”
He reached for a steak knife, but she reached over and touched his hand. “Please tell me.”
He looked up, caught the worried look in her gaze, and sighed. “Okay.… But just in case you don’t believe me, remember.Youasked.”
He told her about the psychic messages and how it just seemed like there was nothing but screaming on the other side, so he slammed the door and then tried to open it on his own time.
She looked at him and then reached for her own steak knife, dropping her gaze to the plate in front of her. “But there was nothing about my name necessarily?”
He shook his head. “No, and it’s frustrating. I know because I was just trying an exercise to see if I could get some control.”