Free Cold Case by Kate Wilhelm Page B

work as long as it seemed the house was waiting for Robert to return.
    She was still sitting there without doing a thing when her phone rang, and in relief, she answered it. Her mother was on the line.
    â€œHow is everything?” Lucy asked.
    â€œNot very different,” Amy said. “The police aren’t telling us a thing, and Chloe is still like a zombie. About the same.”
    â€œAmy, I just read an article in the newspaper here saying that David Etheridge had been attacked. When? How badly is he hurt? Do they know who did it? Why?”
    Amy told her what little she knew. “It doesn’t seem to be connected to Robert’s death. They’re calling it a hate crime.”
    â€œDear, I’m coming home. I’ve boxed up some things to ship, and I’ll bring the rest with me. It’s time. More than time.”
    Amy protested, but not vigorously. “If you can relax down there, that’s the best thing for you. You know you couldn’t sleep here.”
    â€œNor here,” Lucy said. “No. I realized I belong there, in my own home. This has been like a time-out, an interlude, but it’s past time for me to settle a few things, make a few decisions. Besides, I realized when I got back here that I want to come home.”
    That evening when Amy told Chloe that Lucy was coming home the following day, after a long pause, Chloe said stiffly, “That’s good for you, isn’t it? I’ll call Lori Buchman and see if I can use her cottage over at Yachats. You and Lucy can figure out what to do with everything and I won’t be in the way. Lucy will want to decide about the house now.”
    She didn’t look at Amy as she spoke, and didn’t wait for a response, but walked from the room toward her own bedroom. It had been the master bedroom, Amy’s parents’ room. Amy watched Chloe’s back as she walked away and thought again, zombie. As stiff and unnatural as a zombie.

    Chloe left the following morning, saying only that she would be at Lori Buchman’s cottage for a few days. Minutes later, Amy entered Robert’s room and looked inside the closet. She didn’t know how long Robert had been using his boyhood room, but she realized she had known. No one had ever mentioned it. Chloe in the master bedroom, Robert in his old room or in Salem.
    She started with the suits, sport coats and slacks, jeans. She emptied the pockets of a few coins, ticket stubs, parking receipts. At first she had thought she would have someone from his church go through everything in the bedroom, but she reconsidered. No point in raising rumors and suspicions now, she decided. She found two boxes in the garage and took them back up with her and started emptying drawers. Laundered shirts, pajamas, a summer robe, miscellaneous items. One drawer seemed full of matched socks, and she simply pulled the whole drawer out and dumped the contents into one of the boxes. Then she stopped.
    Taped to the bottom of the drawer was a manila envelope. She pulled it free and replaced the drawer. Sitting on the side of the bed, she opened the envelope and brought out a smaller one. Inside it were five pictures of Chloe and a man. Amy gasped. Nick Aaronson. Chloe and Nick Aaronson. They were in bed, Chloe naked with a sheet around her lower legs, and Nick just as naked partly under the sheet in one, out from it in others.
    Amy walked across the hall to her own room and closed the door behind her. She sank onto her bed clutching the pictures, shaking as if with a deep chill.
    She sat for a long time while questions chased one another through her head. Why? Who took them? When? Why was Robert keeping them? Did Chloe know he had them? Did Nick Aaronson? She was jerked out of her immobility by the ring of her cell phone.
    Barbara Holloway was calling. She snatched up her phone as if it were a life jacket to rescue her from the sea of confusion she had fallen into.
    â€œMs. McCrutchen,