Free Notoriously Neat by SUZANNE PRICE

her door, poked my head in. “Knock, knock.”
    “Sky.” Chloe turned from over by the kitchen range and yawned. “Hello, dear.”
    I paused in the entry to the front parlor. Chloe’s voice sounded kind of flat to me. And though she obviously had her face on, I felt she looked tired and bleary-eyed.
    There you have it, class . . . I said my sense of comfort didn’t last long, didn’t I? Might as well scratch the word “balance” too.
    Chloe never looked tired or bleary. Ever. And she usually singsonged her “hello” to me. Good days, bad days, blah days. It always came out as, “ Hel-loooo-oooooo! ”
    I went through the parlor to the dining room, doing my best to hide my befuddled scrutiny. Chloe had on a ribbed black V-neck sweater with a flowery cooking apron over it, and a pair of black athletic running pants with a pale pink double stripe up the outside of each leg. A cell phone case hung from a cord around her neck, its floral pattern matching the apron. Coiled toward the top of her head, her light brown hair was twisted into a low ponytail. It had been secured with a tortoiseshell claw clip.
    I supposed things were normal in one respect, then. Chloe was so consistent about putting together nice outfits for herself that a part of me always imagined she did it by snapping her fingers like Samantha in the old television show Bewitched . No matter how stressed she was, or what sort of craziness was going on around her, she was always nicely dressed.
    I joined her in the kitchen, poured our coffees, added some one percent milk to Chloe’s cup, and carried them back to the dining room table. Then I pulled up a chair and sat as she arranged some goodies on her tray with an oven-mitted hand and carried it over from the kitchen.
    “Yum,” I said. “What have we here?”
    “A Gloucester blueberry bread.” Chloe smiled and set the tray down in front of me.
    “Ah-hah.” I picked up a slice and tasted it. “Chloe, this is fantastic.”
    “Thank you, Sky. Dig in. It’s a simple, old-fashioned recipe. Pastry flour, two cups of blueberries, a tablespoon of softened butter, a couple of eggs . . . I add a little grated lemon rind to give it some snap.”
    “ Definitely very snappy,” I said, chewing.
    Chloe took the chair opposite me, her smile broadening. As I sat there eating and sipping coffee, I was almost fooled into thinking I’d let my suspicions get the better of me. Maybe I was reading too much into things.
    Then Chloe had to go and yawn again, making me focus on the puffiness under her eyes, and blowing any illusions that she was her normal, positive-vibe-radiating self to smithereens.
    There wasn’t any avoiding it. I had to ask about her mysterious night ride.
    “Chloe, I need you to help me understand something,” I said. “Last night when I went upstairs—right before I went up, that is—didn’t you say you were going straight to bed?”
    She nodded in the affirmative. “I was exhausted. It must have been the news about Gail Pilsner.”
    “So I’m not mistaken. You did go to bed. With Oscar. In your bedroom.”
    “Of course. Where else would we have slept?” She gave me a funny look. “What’s bothering you, Sky?”
    A moment passed. And I’d thought I was putting her on the spot.
    “Sky?” Chloe urged.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    That drew another glance.
    “Well, maybe I do know,” I said, exhaling. “I wasn’t sleepy after I left here. I mean, I was at first. But then I wasn’t. Skiball seemed under the weather and it made me a little worried. So I took a shower and decided to get some stuff done on my computer. Catch up with my e-mail, work on my cleaning-tips blog, and so forth.” I shrugged. “After a while I heard a car outside and—”
    “That must have been me pulling my Beetle out of the garage.”
    “Huh? What do you mean?”
    “I had to drive down to Gloucester.”
    I looked at her in disbelief. The car I’d seen her get into was no Beetle. Nor had she