Abby Ch. 22

Passion In James County XI

Abby

By D.C. Roi

Chapter twenty-two

Lee Marklin finally got time to go home during his lunch hour. He checked the garage, saw Abby's car wasn't there, and began to get angry. How dare she not be home? Where the hell was she?

He stormed into the house. "Abby! Goddamit, Abby! Where the hell are you?" he yelled. Then he saw the envelope sitting on the kitchen table. "Lee" was written on in Abby's neat handwriting. He ripped the envelope open, took out the folded paper inside, and read:

Lee,

I've gone to the cabin. I had to get away and think about things. I know what you're doing with Carol, and I don't think I can continue living with you, knowing what I do. Please, don't come up to the cabin. Let me have some time to think about things. I think, given what's been going on, it's the least you can do.

Abby

Lee grew even angrier when he first read the note, then his anger began to fade. The tone of Abby's note made it sound like she knew divorce was inevitable. Maybe she wouldn't make a big deal out of the divorce, and maybe he could even convince her to be reasonable about a settlement.

"As far as I'm concerned, she can have as much time up there as she wants," Lee thought. He sat down at the kitchen table. "You know, maybe she'd take the cabin and leave me keep the house. Then I wouldn't have to find another one."

The more Lee thought about the way things looked, the better he liked it. It didn't look like getting out of his marriage to Abby was going to be as much of a problem as he thought it would be. That meant the only problem he had was deciding what happened next.

He'd pretty much told Carol he would marry her once he and Abby were divorced. But that was before his wild night with Lora and Michelle, a night which all three participants very much wanted to repeat. Lee wasn't sure how Carol would feel about his relationship with Lora, but he had an idea she might not be too happy about it.

"Damn!" he thought, "I should have kept my big mouth shut!" Just then his beeper went off. "I'll have to figure all this out later, I guess," he mused as he got up to call his answering service to see what he was being paged for.

Abby was putting the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher when a knock sounded at the door. She went to answer it and was surprised to find Ellen Coughlin there, looking a bit rumpled and a bit flushed. She hesitated for a moment, remembering what Greg had told her about not letting anyone in. "My goodness, Ellen's my friend," she thought, feeling silly, "I certainly don't need to worry about her harming me." She opened the door and let her friend in.

"Ellen, what are you doing here?" Abby asked.

"I...I heard about what was happening in your marriage," Ellen said, walking by Abby, into the kitchen. "And I was worried about you. I...I knew about the cabin, and when it looked like you weren't home, I thought maybe you came up here."

"Oh," Abby said, touched by her friend's concerned, and by the fact that Ellen had driven all the way up here to check on her. At the same time she was filled with guilt because of what she'd allowed to happen between herself and her friend's husband. "I...would you like a cup of coffee?" she asked.

"I'd love some," Ellen said. She was surprised how calm she was able to act. She'd gone to Abby's house after finishing with her husband a few nights earlier, but as she drove up, she saw Abby's car driving down the street. Still livid, Ellen followed her former friend, intending to deal with her when Abby got wherever she was going.

Ellen's car was the one Abby had seen following her. And, when Ellen finally located Abby's home at the lake that night, she'd tried to get in, but couldn't because the door was locked. Still angry, she'd slashed Abby's tire.

The next day when Ellen again intended to confront Abby, the young man next door, who Ellen discovered was a cop, was in the way. Still fuming, she'd set fire to Abby's garage. Now, finally, she had Abby alone. Today she was going to make her pay for what she'd done.

Abby walked to the counter, got two cups out of the cupboard, and poured coffee into them. As she did, she wondered how Ellen knew where to find her.

"How did you know where I was?" she asked Ellen as she carried the cups to the table.

"I...ah...I didn't," Ellen replied, flushing a little. "I...I went to your place and there was no one home, so I came over here to your neighbor to see if they could tell me where you were and...lo and behold...here you are. Whose house is this, anyhow?"

"Believe it or not," Abby said, placing the cups on the table. "It belongs to a sheriff's deputy by the name of Greg Atkinson. Some really weird things have been happening since I got here, and he had me stay here last night so I'd be safe."

"Safe?" Ellen said, picking up her cup. "Are you in danger?"

Abby nodded. "Since I got here, my tire was slashed and the garage was burned down," she told her friend. "Greg, he owns this house, he thinks someone may be trying to harm me."

"Why would someone be out to harm you, of all people?" Ellen asked after she took a sip of coffee.

"Well," Abby said, "Greg thinks it might have something to do with the problems I've been having with my marriage."

"Exactly what's going on?" Ellen asked. "I mean, I've heard rumors, but..." She shrugged.

"I'm going to divorce Lee. He's cheating on me," Abby said. "He's been having an affair with Carol Burke."

"Are...are you sure about that?" Ellen asked, "I mean, how do you know?"

"I...I saw them together, at the dinner at Boswell's," Abby said.

"How...where...?" Ellen asked.

"They were upstairs, in one of the bedrooms," Abby said. She felt her eyes filling with tears. "I still can't believe I saw them. And...and then they went off to Las Vegas, to that medical convention, together."

"What are you going to do?" Ellen asked.

Abby shrugged. "I...I guess I'm going to divorce Lee," she said. "I mean, I...I just can't let things go on like they are. Actually, my marriage has been in trouble for sometime now, I guess I've just been ignoring the signs..."

Alexis Loomis turned the unmarked police car off the highway, onto the dirt road that led to Greg Atkinson's cabin. She glanced over at her partner, who'd grown more and more quiet the farther they'd gotten from the nearest town. "Come on, Stan," she said, "you can't tell me you don't think it's nice up here. Look how peaceful it is."

"Godammit, Lexi, it's fucking wilderness," the big man sitting on the passenger side of the car grumped. "I'm no goddamn tree-hugger, and I hate furry little woodland creatures, too."

"Think about it, Stan," Lexi said as she drove down the dirt road. "Maybe, if we get this case cleared, Greg will let us stay a day or two. You could do some fishing." She chuckled.

"The only fish I want come out of a box in the freezer," Stan grumped. "I want to get back to civilization. I hate this wilderness crap!"

"James County Fifteen from Operations," the radio in Greg Atkinson's patrol unit crackled as he headed back toward the lake. He and Sergeant Ames had lodged the prisoner in the Lincoln County lockup and he was headed back to his place.

Greg picked up his radio microphone. "James County Fifteen on, go ahead, operations," he said.

"We got a call from the caretaker up where you live," the dispatcher told him. "A woman he didn't know came in and said she was headed for the Marklin place."

"He get a name?" Greg asked.

"He said he thought it was Coffin, or Coughlin," the dispatcher told Greg. "He did get her plate number. I ran it. It comes back to a William Coughlin, lives in Jamestown. That the same guy we have the BOL on?"

Greg's heart rate sped up. "It's him," he said, "You sure the caretaker said it was a woman?" he asked the dispatcher. He was still five to ten minutes from his house.

"That's what he said," the dispatcher replied.

"Has the detective team that's coming up gotten to my place yet?" Greg asked.

"They just signed off there," the dispatcher responded.

"OK," Greg said, relaxing a little. If the detectives were at his house, Abby should be safe. Just the same, he pressed down on the accelerator. The sooner he got there, the better he'd like it.