Close Neighbors. Dawn Stewardson

again and reached for the latch, she might get stung. But if she didn’t, the wasp was going to land. And she could never, ever, not in a zillion years, eat food a wasp had walked on.

      Deciding, she called, “Dad? Dad, come open the gate. Fast! But be careful ’cuz there’s a wasp.”

      A chair scraped across Anne’s patio; a second later she could see her father heading for the fence.

      “Careful,” she said again, as he neared it.

      He cautiously opened the gate, then slowly brushed at the air in front of the wasp. It was a trick she’d never dare try, but it sometimes made them back off. When it did this time, she stopped holding her breath.

      “I came home from Becky’s ’cuz it was getting near lunchtime,” she explained as he took the plate from her. “But when I looked out from the kitchen you were all sitting there talking. So I made sandwiches and was gonna call you. Then I thought that maybe Anne didn’t have any food in her house, so I made an extra one. That was okay, huh?”

      “Of course,” he said as they started toward the patio. “It was very thoughtful. Hope you like peanut butter and jelly,” he added to Anne.

      “One of my favorites.”

      “It’s grape jelly,” Julie told her, pretending not to notice the way Rachel was wiping her eyes. “And crunchy peanut butter.”

      “Mmm. That’s the best combination going.” Anne gave her a friendly smile, then pushed back her chair and said, “I’ll go get us something to drink.”

      “Can I help?”

      “Sure. You’ll know what everyone would like. Not that I have much to choose from yet, but…” She shrugged and smiled again, then turned toward the house.

      Julie followed along inside, not letting herself look back at Rachel.

      “A mess, isn’t it.” Anne gestured toward a stack of cartons.

      “Kind of. But that’s okay when you just moved in.”

      “I guess. Orange juice, iced tea or water,” she added, checking the fridge.

      “Ah…juice for me. And iced tea for Dad and Rachel. Please,” she added, remembering her manners.

      “Coming right up.” Anne took the two pitchers from the fridge and set them on the counter. “Now, if I can just find some glasses…”

      “Anne?”

      “Yes?” She looked up from the carton she’d stooped to open.

      “You’re gonna be able to help Rachel, aren’t you?”

      “Well, I’ll do whatever I can.”

      “Promise?”

      Anne sat back on her haunches and met Julie’s gaze. “Didn’t I promise earlier?”

      “I thought you might have forgotten.”

      “No, I take promises very seriously. Rachel hasn’t finished telling me the whole story, though, so I’m still not sure she really needs my help. But whether she does or not, I’ll bet everything’s going to be just fine.”

      Julie nodded, thinking “everything’s going to be just fine” were the exact same words her father had used this morning. But what if both he and Anne were wrong?

      That possibility made her eyes sting and her throat hurt. She didn’t know what she’d do if the police put Rachel in jail.

      Looking at Anne again, she reminded herself that Penelope Snow didn’t really solve all the mysteries in her books. Anne did. So maybe everything would be fine.

      “You know what?” she said.

      “No, what?”

      “Rachel always says that if something’s scary to think about, you should just not let yourself think about it.”

      “You mean like noises in the night?”

      Even though it wasn’t exactly what she meant, she nodded.

      Anne smiled. “Well, that sounds like pretty good advice to me. But here, I haven’t got a clue where to find a tray, so you take a couple of these glasses, okay?”

      “Sure.”

      She followed Anne back outside, feeling way better. For the whole rest of the day, if even one single thought about anything awful happening to Rachel snuck into her head, she was just going to chase it straight back out.

      CHASE DRAINED THE LAST of his iced tea and glanced at his daughter. The sooner Rachel told Anne the rest of the details, the sooner they’d find out just how bad she thought things were. But they certainly couldn’t pick up where they’d left off in front of Julie.

      She popped the final bite of sandwich into her mouth, gazed longingly at the pool for a moment, then focused on Anne. “Are we still going swimming?”

      “Sure. But we have to wait for a while, don’t we?” she added, glancing at Chase.

      He nodded. “For an hour.”

      “D-a-a-d, that’s only when it’s a big lake.”

      “Really? You mean they changed the rules without telling me?”

      Julie grinned. “I guess.”

      “I don’t think so,” Rachel told her. “But by the time you go home and change…”

      “I hear you’ve got a friend who lives right next door,” Anne said.

      “Uh-huh. My best friend. Her name’s Becky.”

      “Well, why don’t you see if she’d like a swim, too.”

      Way to go, Anne, Chase thought. Every minute longer that Julie was gone gave them another minute to finish talking.

      “Take the plate home, hon,” Rachel said as Julie pushed back her chair.

      “Aren’t you and Dad coming, too? Aren’t you going to change?”

      “Later,” Chase told her.

      He waited until she’d disappeared behind the gate, then looked at his sister. “Let’s see how fast we can finish filling Anne in.”

      “You’re feeling up to talking again?” she asked Rachel.

      “Uh-huh, the sugar hit from that jelly helped a lot. So what else should I tell you?”

      “Well…let’s hear exactly what the detectives asked you about Graham’s gun. Chase said they wanted to know whether he had it with him.”

      “Yes, and I told them I didn’t think so. That if he did, I wasn’t aware of it. But I’m not sure they believed me.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because the next thing they asked was if I knew how to use it. That was just before they asked me if I’d killed him,” she added, staring at a patio stone.

      Anne glanced at Chase.

      He nodded that she should continue. He doubted Rachel was as up to talking as she wanted them to think, but Anne couldn’t help unless she had the rest of the facts.

      “And do you know how to use a gun?” she asked quietly.

      “Uh-huh. Graham taught me to shoot. He used to take me to the police target range with him.”

      Chase couldn’t stop himself from checking Anne’s reaction to that.

      He’d already realized she wasn’t very good at concealing her thoughts—especially considering she’d been a P.I.—and at the moment he could tell precisely what she was thinking. Learning that Rachel knew how to handle a gun would only have made those detectives more convinced she was their killer.

      After a few seconds