“I can see the joke,” Rafferty said, but he didn’t laugh. Turning to her, he said, “Hey, Mandy.”
Mandy had always enjoyed that Rafferty was a flirt. It felt nice to have him pay her attention. Knowing it would never go anywhere was what made it fun.
“Hi, Rafferty. I hear you’ve been invited to the poker game tonight.”
Standing between Ruth and her, he reached for something Anderson had just packed. With a shift, he bumped her shoulder and turned to her. “Yup, I am an honorary book club widower.”
“Congratulations,” she said, waiting for the sexual need to rise in her that always happened when Hue was around. But it seemed the pregnancy hormones were not in it for Rafferty. How was it that Rafferty didn’t have her senses on high alert like Hue? A man was a man, right?
But looking back, she had only gotten these over-sexualized thoughts with Hue, never with anyone else. Never the delivery guy or the guy at the post office or old friends that she saw on the street. Just Hue. It seemed her hormones were damn selective. In a good way, at least.
Not that it mattered, anyway. Hue was not into her. She was definitely not his type. His ex-wife was tall, brunette, and had been the homecoming queen.
The guys headed out, leaving the apartment quiet in their wake. “So, is Tess coming?” Amanda asked to fill the silence.
“Haven’t you talked to her?” Ruth asked in confusion.
Amanda understood; she and Tess usually talked all the time. Being almost family had made them closer than if they were just friends. Except Tess was now busy with a baby. A baby Amanda longed to have. Except she was stuck waiting for the end of hers.
“No, sorry. I’ve been busy this week.” Amanda knew the response was not really true, but she hoped Ruth didn’t notice.
Ruth looked at her closely before stating, “She thinks you’re avoiding her. Are you?”
“No, of course not,” she argued, taking a drink from her pop.
Ruth looked in her eyes and held them for a moment. “Tess is coming, and you should make a point to talk to her.”
“I will.” Amanda looked away from Ruth’s intense blue gaze.
She was relieved when Natalie and Hazel showed up at the same time, deep in a conversation that spread to Ruth as they entered the room. Soon, Amanda’s cousin Mia bounced in from her apartment, which was the building next to Amanda’s. Tess was running late, so Natalie started to set up for the recording as the group chatted.
Amanda moved from her stool to her usual spot at the table between Mia and Hazel. To her surprise, Hazel took the chair next to Natalie this week. Well, no surprise, since the two had been getting closer the last few weeks. The hatred that had once simmered between the two had fizzled since they had both found love over the last few months. Amanda was happy to see them getting along again, because they had been close to inseparable in high school just a half-dozen years ago.
Mia was chatting with Ruth across the table about some event she was supposed to be planning for Christmas. Ruth was making suggestions about advertising. Amanda’s cousin was excited about what Ruth was suggesting. But Amanda wasn’t paying attention, her mind was back in her apartment with Hue. Always back with Hue lately.
Looking at them all over her glass as she drank, she realized that she did not want to be here today. She wanted to go home again and wait. Normally, she loved these women and looked forward to these biweekly get-togethers to chat about a topic none of them talked about in their day-to-day lives. Serial killers. It was each one’s secret obsession.
In January, her second month back in Landstad, Mia had been invited to a book club with Ruth and Tess, who had organized the event. Well, not an event, just a book club. They had met the next day at Mia’s restaurant, and Mia had begged Amanda to go with. Both had usually read and shared the same books.
Reluctantly, Amanda had gone to the Sunday afternoon meeting, and it had started from there. It helped that Hazel and Natalie had both crashed the get-together also, so she wasn’t the only one.
One of the first things the book club decided was that they would not read the same book, just the same topic. In their case, it was books about the same serial killer. Natalie, a librarian, was in charge of making sure that no two people read the same book. The way they did it was so that each came to the meeting with a different prospect, a different angle. It worked great and usually had them arguing about this and that.
What had started as an innocent book club about not innocent things had turned almost immediately into something different, nothing Amanda had ever even heard of: a podcast. Natalie had suggested it at their first meeting, and by the third, they were recording their conversations. Natalie did all the work and put it out on the internet. To everyone’s surprise, people listened to them. They even waited for the next recording to come out.
They had purposefully never told anyone what book club really was. The only rule was that you couldn’t tell unless you were married. So far, only Hazel should have been able to tell her husband, but Amanda suspected that the other men in her friend’s lives knew. Since Tess had a baby with Amanda’s brother, he must know. But he had never asked her about it or teased her about it, so maybe not.
Keeping it a secret had started the first day they met. Tess was the bank’s president; Amanda worked at the clinic; Ruth, at that time, worked as a personal assistant downtown; Mia was a popular person in the community; Natalie worked at the public library; and Hazel was a single mom. None had wanted to be associated with serial killers. Now that they had fans, it might not be so bad, but they still all had to be professionals in this little town.
Natalie had all the equipment out, and the group was ready to go by the time Tess came into the apartment. She had never been late before, but it seemed having a new baby made the most punctual woman lose track of time. Or maybe it was Math, who hated being separated from his girlfriend, even for a few hours.
Smiling an apology, Tess set the baby carrier on the couch softly and walked away from it. The movements made Amanda realize that the baby was sleeping. Tess slid into the chair beside her and put on her headphones. Everyone glanced at the baby as Natalie tapped her nose—that meant silence—and started to record.
Hazel handed Tess the remaining pair of headphones as she sat down. Natalie insisted they wore them, something about sounds and echoing. But she was in charge, so they wore them.
By the time Amanda pulled off her headphones, the group had all but solved the West Mesa Bone Collector mystery. Unfortunately, there were three different theories on who did it, and nobody was willing to budge on their theory. So maybe notcompletelysolved in one afternoon.
Amanda was feeling so much better and was happy she had come. Not that she had ever missed one of their get-togethers. For the last couple, she had forced herself to show up and always felt better when she left.