Persistence. It wasn’t intelligence that got reporters The Story, but persistence. At least, that’s what Henry grimly told himself. It seemed you only heard people say such things after they scored the scoop or won the Pulitzer or otherwise achieved your dream. It was entirely possible that the gutters were littered with persistent reporters whose main trait hadn’t ever gotten them to the point where anyone listened to what they had to say.
Stay the course. He had to stay the course, and remind himself this was only day four, and stop second-guessing himself.
Maybe he should’ve booked a double cabin and risked it and gone in with a female reporter. He wouldn’t have sent her out on her own to steal the scoop, but they could’ve pulled together enough money and …
Well. And his imaginary female friend could join the others in their picnic lunches and whatever else they got up to. Except all his female friends seemed to be imaginary these days, whether he was at home or at Loon Lake. Henry didn’t even have anyone he’d trusted with his information or his true location. The safety deposit box was his only backup. The one person who knew how to get ahold of him was his brother, because Mom was dead, Dad was off with a new girlfriend, and he didn’t even have a pet rock. It was just Henry, trying to make his mark on the world.
By mining other people’s tragedies? Yeah, Mom was dead, but her voice was alive and well between his ears. The Gladieux tragedy had already been mined. How else would he have heard about it? Annabeth Deschain was guilty as sin, and he suspected Aaron Gladieux deserved some of the blame, too, so really, they brought this part on themselves.
Okay maybe there was something to be said for age gaps and power dynamics. Gladieux was fifty, and Annabeth Deschain wasn’t anywhere near that. She was less than half his age.
Annabeth Deschain was young enough to think that her employer, who might also be her secret boyfriend, would appreciate it if she killed his little daughter to free him from everything that was tying him down and keeping him from her. Young, but apparently savvy enough to have avoided a social media presence and kept her face out of the press.
Savvy enough to get away with murder and that, Mom, was the real tragedy. Dani Jay died in a horrible accident and Annabeth Deschain was free to kill again, wherever she was. Whichever one of these cabins she was in.
Henry sipped his coffee and looked at his notes, starting with Jane in the cabin next door. Small as she was, it was hard to really pin down an age. Her figure was boyish, her voice little girlish, but there was something about her eyes that made you reconsider that first assumption. And whether she was the sort of girl-woman who would murder a toddler.
She seemed quiet and reserved, not with a resting bitch face but a resting blank face. There weren’t any smile or laugh lines there, just perfectly pale skin, and her brown hair was always pulled back in a smooth mid-level ponytail. Henry hadn’t seen her in jeans yet. She wore yoga pants and track pants, so the whole impression was of a woman on her way to her workout, face free of makeup but clearly moisturized and cared for.
Emily, next to the lodge on the other side, didn’t just have smile lines. She had smiles. Her eyes were big and blue, always just a little wider than seemed natural, and her mouth was also wide for her face even when she wasn’t smiling. Her hair was blonde except for the roots, and it flowed down to her shoulder blades and put her in this glorious golden cloud.
She dressed like she was ready to walk a city street, maybe L.A. or New York, and she knew a lot of high-powered people would be looking at her. Henry didn’t know if those were stiletto heels on her strappy sandals, but they were at least heels, and it was only a matter of time until she tripped on a root and ripped off one of her painted toenails or fell and got a non-fashionable hole in her tight jeans. Her stride and her shoulders and her height all made her look older than Jane, but that didn’t mean she seemed to be a more likely candidate for Annabeth Deschain.
Agatha, the only other woman he’d seen, was a different type entirely. Her hair was darker than Jane’s, almost black, but generally indifferently pulled back in a sloppy bun that wasn’t stylish. She didn’t wear makeup, but her skin probably hadn’t been moisturized in a while, either. And Agatha’s clothes … Jane was a city woman on her way to sunrise yoga before hitting the office, but Agatha was heading for her favorite spot on the couch, bag of chips in hand.
Henry wanted to discount Agatha, because she never would’ve caught Gladieux’s eye, except for the fact that her own dark eyes seemed haunted. Emily’s were too wide and open to hold secrets, and Jane was guarded in an introverted kind of way, but Agatha was haunted. Out of all of them here this month, Agatha was the one deepest in hell.
But would Annabeth Deschain feel that way if Aaron Gladieux paid for her stay? That was his safety deposit box secret info, after all. Gladieux paid for a cabin and a single meal plan, so it would indeed be a boyfriend helping out his young bit on the side.
Although, to be fair, Annabeth Deschain wasn’t all that much younger than Dani Jay’s mom who, from the few photos Henry found, was one smoking hot young thing. She dolled herself up even above and beyond Emily, with giant sunglasses and the sort of body-hugging outfits iced with bling that made you think mob wife. Granted, Gladieux didn’t have to choose the same type for his side chick, but Agatha just couldn’t compete. It was time for him to go knit some more. At this rate, he’d have to start taking breaks so he didn’t get a repetitive stress injury. If any of the females came by alone, he’d go ahead and unabashedly start the conversation. God, he had to end the day with something more than knitting progress and another James Patterson book. He couldn’t go home empty-handed.
Rebecca Frost 
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