First Thrills - Lee Child [26]
“I’m sorry, William. I love you, too.”
“There might be thunderstorms tonight. I just wanted to tell you that. Oh, and Maty, remember not to mix your meds with too much wine. Okay? I don’t mean to be a nag but I saw that you packed several bottles.”
Her face flushed. Embarrassment. A bit of anger. Calm. She needed to stay calm. He was concerned about her. That’s all. Don’t shove everyone out of your life, she told herself.
“Maty?”
“I’ll remember.”
“Promise?”
More and more of their conversations sounded like doctor and patient. No, that wasn’t true. They sounded like parent and child.
“I promise, William.”
“Good girl. Now you go out to your cabin retreat and get some rest. Relax, take it easy. I’ll see you in three days.”
Now if that didn’t sound like a prescription. And patronizing.
Stop it!
She needed to stop sabotaging everything with her paranoia and her negative attitude. “You get what you sow.” That’s what her mother always said. “If you think good thoughts good things will come to you.” The power of positive thinking. What a bunch of crap. Maty Kramer knew that everything she had gotten in life was because she had fought for it, not because she focused on positive thinking. Okay, so she hadn’t been much of a fighter lately. Deep down the instinct must still exist, didn’t it?
She found a hole in the traffic and gunned the engine. Traffic was moving again. She could relax, and yet a familiar throbbing began at the base of her neck and tightened the tension in her shoulders. It would take more than some peace and quiet to get rid of all this.
She took her exit off the interstate and drove onto the two-lane highway that would take her far away from the city. She needed this vacation. She glanced at the marketing proposal. The shoulder pain eased its way down into her chest, following its regular path.
“God,” she thought out loud, “I’m only thirty-five. A thirty-five-year-old woman shouldn’t be having chest pains.”
She pressed the button, rolling the window down and grabbed a handful of pages. She stretched her arm out the window and listened to the pages flapping in the wind, slapping each other and licking her wrist. She held her breath and told herself to let go. Just let go. Suddenly, she jerked her arm back into the car, holding the papers tightly in her lap.
“Am I going completely mad?”
She shook her head and placed the pages safely back on the seat, before she had time to reconsider.
It was after seven when she pulled up to the park office. The sun disappeared behind the massive cottonwoods and river maples. Maty had spoken to a woman in the park’s office earlier in the day. She had assured Maty her late arrival wouldn’t be a problem.
“I’ll just leave your cabin key in an envelope and tape it to the door. You’re in Owen, number two, dear. Remember that, because the key doesn’t have any markings on it.”
It sounded odd at the time, to leave something as valuable as a key on an office door for anyone to grab, but now looking at the place Maty understood. The small brick building sat in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. Shadows had already started to swallow what sunlight was left. One lonely lamppost glowed at the edge of the parking lot. There was a bare lightbulb above the office door. There were no other cars in the lot and no sign of anyone.
The woman had warned her. “It’s the off-season, dear. You’ll be the only one here. The park superintendent has a conference in the Omaha. And I’m only here Friday through Monday. Are you sure you’ll be okay, dear?”
“I’ll be fine,” she told the woman. It seemed even strangers didn’t believe she could handle being on her own.
Now as she got out of the car she realized how good it felt to stretch and breath in the crisp, fresh air. Then she closed the car door and its thud echoed. There was something unsettling about the silence.