Her Name Was Annie Page 2

  “You were a little rough on him, don’t you think?” Jack asked, standing in the bedroom doorway.

  “No. I don’t.” I stood up and paced back and forth. “I know what happened and will not be viewed as some drunk on the beach who made a story up for attention.”

  “I think you’re being a little paranoid. That’s not what he was trying to say.”

  First I was seeing things and now I was paranoid. I had all I could take of male egos and their patronizing ways for one night. I was too exhausted to get in a full-blown battle with Jack over this, so I took a deep breath and calmly requested, “Lock the door behind you, please.”

  Chapter 3

  GRABBING MY LAPTOP and papers I needed to grade for the night, I crammed everything into my bag. I battled with the zipper, finally getting it closed after spewing a few obscenities under my breath. Heading out of the classroom and down the hallway, I said my goodbyes to random staff members I passed as I made my exit. It had been a long week already, and it was only Wednesday. The fact that I hadn’t been sleeping well wasn’t helping matters. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that man thrusting himself into the waves, never to be seen again.

  I couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind as he allowed the ocean to swallow him up. I tried my hardest to erase the memory and focus on the good stuff. Kara would be coming home the weekend for Thanksgiving break. Her college was a little over an hour’s drive away in Pennsylvania, but for me, it was like the other side of the world. As I strode down the long walkway to the parking lot, I pulled my phone from my purse when I heard the ding of a text message.

  Kara: Hey, do you care if I bring a friend home for Thanksgiving?

  Me: Not at all.

  Kara: Thanks, can’t wait for you to meet him xoxo

  Him? Did she have a special someone she hadn’t told me about? I shrugged and threw my phone back in my purse. As my car came into view, I focused closely on the black BMW parked next to me that looked just like Jack’s and then the man standing against it—who was Jack.

  “Well, to what do I owe this honor?” I asked, tapping on my key fob to unlock my car door.

  “A body washed up this morning on the shore about eight miles south of where you saw him go in.”

  “Oh.” My heart sank a little. It had been three days since everything had transpired, and in the back of my mind I was still holding out some hope that maybe the man had survived. “Do they know who he is?”

  “They’re running DNA now. They wanted to know if you could identify him as the man you saw on the beach.”

  “I told you, I barely got a look at him. His back was toward me.”

  Jack nodded. “I know. But can you at least try? I’ll go with you.”

  My stomach churned. Looking at a dead body was definitely not on the agenda for the night, but the sooner I got it done with, the sooner I could get home into my pajamas and in front of the television, which had been my original plan. “Fine,” I muttered, throwing my bag into my back seat while Jack opened up the passenger side door of his car for me.

  “Hey, Stephanie!” a voice called from the distance just as I was about to get into the car. I smiled when I saw it was Michael, the new Gym teacher. Handsome, my age, and divorced. “Don’t forget we’re all going out for drinks tomorrow night, no excuses.”

  “Promise I’ll be there.”

  “Attagirl!” he shouted as he hopped into his Jeep.

  I stood in place for a moment, finally catching the ridiculous schoolgirl grin stretched across my face.

  “If you’re done flirting, can you get in the car now?” Jack’s tone was more annoyed than amused. I snapped out of it, powerless to argue that I wasn’t flirting because I kind of was. The fact that Jack seemed a little jealous over it was oddly an added perk.

  “So Kara informed me she’s bringing home a friend for Thanksgiving.” I decided to break up the silence with a mutual interest as we drove along. “It’s a he,” I added.

  “Oh yeah?” He didn’t seem surprised.

  “Did she happen to tell you about anyone she was dating?”

  “No. I’m sure she’d tell you about that before me anyway. Maybe he really is just a friend.”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged and gazed out the window, becoming more mindful of the quietness between us. Normally on the rare occasions when we were together these days, Kara was there to act as a buffer, filling in that awkward silence with one of her many stories. It amazed me how two people who had known each other for so long and were once in love could be reduced to feeling the need to make small talk instead of saying nothing at all. Jack must’ve been feeling the same way, turning up the radio to drown out the quiet. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I began asking him how his parents were, how his job was going, stopping short with his dating life. Small talk at its finest. He followed my lead, answering amiably, then peppering me with the same line of questioning. I was thankful we were able to fill in the fifty-minute car ride with some chatter instead. Any kind of noise was better than nothing.

  “Wow, so this is where all the taxpayers’ money is going,” I said, referencing the state-of-the-art parking garage we had just pulled into outside of the county building.

  He found a spot right away on the ground level, then we trekked through the garage and into the massive building. After wandering down a vast corridor and through several security checkpoints, we made our way to the elevator. I stood with my back against the wall as we ascended to the third floor, feeling as if I had just walked miles and wishing I had opted for my lower-heeled shoes when I had gotten dressed that morning.

  We were greeted by another security guard sitting behind a desk as we stepped off the elevator. Jack flashed him what I presumed to be his FBI ID, and he nodded us through without hesitation. My stomach felt like it had an acrobat inside, giving a grand performance, and my heart fluttered with dread. The only times I had ever seen a dead body was when I’d paid my last respects at funerals and even then I was a little uncomfortable with the idea. I tried to tell myself this man was a stranger who I didn’t even know, so it should be a lot easier.

  “Agent McGuire,” a tall gray-haired man in a suit greeted. “I’m Detective Ramsfield and this is Dr. Chen.” He turned his attention to the man standing beside him wearing a lab coat.

  “Nice to meet you. This is my…” Jack paused midsentence, then corrected himself. “This is Stephanie. She was on the beach the night he went into the water.”

  “Hello, Stephanie,” both men said in unison.

  I managed an uneasy smile.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to tell us if this is the man you saw on the beach?” the detective asked, speaking to me as if he would to a child or an adult who wasn’t in their right frame of mind.

  I cleared my throat and stood a little taller, to prove to him I wasn’t five years old or some head case. “I can try. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be,” I responded, amazed by the confidence in my voice.

  “Well, that’s all we can ask for. Are you ready?”

  I nodded; my stomach pelted with a pang of queasiness. All of the newfound assurance I had just displayed was quickly fading away as I followed behind the doctor with Jack and the detective by my side. I wanted to run out of the room, wishing I could go back in time and unsee what I had witnessed that day on the beach. My throat tightened as I watched the doctor pull out what looked to be a long drawer containing the body. Tears pricked my eyes when he removed the cover that lay over the body. Why was I getting so emotional over this person I had never met? Was it because I was the last person to see him alive? I was the one person who could’ve maybe saved him from taking such drastic measures.

  As I stared down at his ashen-colored face, he seemed to be much older than I had originally thought from my small glimpse of him. I would venture to say late sixties early seventies, still with a full head of dark hair with splatters of gray through the front. It was obvious that he once was very handsome, w
ith strong, masculine features. My eyes ventured to the skull and crossbones tattoo on his right arm. Did he have anyone who would even care that he was gone? A wife or children?

  “Do you believe this to be the man you saw that day?” the detective asked.

  I nodded, still not one hundred percent sure, but he had the longer dark hair I remembered and the same tall stature as that man. What were the chances that two men fitting that description plunged into the ocean? “I’m ninety percent sure it is.”

  “Thank you so much,” the detective said as he signed a paper the doctor had given him. “Now, I’m just going to need your signature right next to mine.” He handed me the pen and moved the paper toward me.

  “What exactly am I signing?” I asked.

  “Just that this is the man you saw on the beach that day.”

  “But I’m not one hundred percent sure it was. I mean, the possibility of it being him is more than likely, but like I said, I didn’t—”

  “Given the day that you saw him, the perceived time of death matching with the post-mortem testing we’ve done, I’d say that’s a fair assumption. Not to mention the tide pattern of the last few days and where his body washed up. It all lines up that it was him,” the doctor added, reiterating what I was already thinking myself.

  Jack nodded, giving me the pinch of reassurance I needed to pick up the pen and sign my name.

  _______________

  “I hope I did the right thing by signing off on that.” I sighed as we got into Jack’s car.

  “You did,” Jack responded.

  “How long before they may know who he was?” I asked.

  “Probably by the end of the week. Then they’ve got to notify the family and figure out what may have led him to do it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “My professional guess would be maybe he had Alzheimer’s and was confused about what he was doing. If you’re going to commit suicide, I can think of quicker, easier ways to do it than that. That’s why I’m thinking maybe he was a little perplexed.”

  I felt even worse than I already had after hearing his thoughts. What if it wasn’t intentional and he just didn’t realize what he was doing? Thoughts of my own father immediately raced through my head. I’d be devastated if he were ever in such a state of confusion that would lead him to do something like that. “I guess you could be right, but once one makes up their mind to end their life, are they really thinking…well, I’ll take some pills and alcohol because I’ll go in my sleep and it will be easier? I think once you come to that point, you lose all sense of fear and what’s going to become of you. Look at the people who throw themselves in front of moving trains…you would have to be fearless and lost all hope to do something like that.” I winced just thinking about it.

  Jack nodded as we pulled out of the parking garage and onto the road. “You’re right. I guess I never really thought about it that way.”

  My mind was reeling, wondering who this mystery man was. He had a name, he was at one time someone’s son, maybe someone’s husband or father. Was there some woman out there devastated because her husband never came home from a walk on the beach? It immediately triggered me to call my father as soon as I got home. Even though he was still totally independent, I worried about him since my mother had passed. “I didn’t recognize him as being a local,” I finally spoke. The small Jersey Shore beach town where the beach house was located was close-knit. The population soared in the summer months with vacation-goers, but the residents who remained year-round all knew each other.

  “Who knows, maybe he was renting a place nearby. Maybe he was visiting someone. They’ll be able to put more of the pieces together once they find out who he is. Are you hungry?”

  It always amazed me how Jack’s train of thought could shift in a moment’s time. One minute talking about something so devastating and the next talking about eating. Guess after being so long in his line of work, you learn to turn off feelings for victims and their families.

  “A little. I’ll just have some left—” Before I could finish letting him know I planned on having my leftover pasta from the night before, we were pulling into the diner, and not just any diner—our diner. It was a no-frills eatery with the best burgers and shakes. It had been in business since I could remember. We’d always made a stop there on the way to my parents’ shore house. Whether it was to grab lunch, a shake for takeout, or at 3:00 a.m. for breakfast after hitting the bars and then going back to the beach house to pass out. It was the place where I had told him he was going to be a dad for the first time, and the place he told me he wanted us to spend forever together. I hadn’t been inside in years. I knew it was stupid, but to me it held too many memories I didn’t want to relive. Memories from another lifetime of two foolish kids who thought their love could withstand anything.

  Jack put the car in park, seeming unfazed by any sentiment this place held, making me feel a little silly for holding on to those happy times held here.

  “Wow, I can’t believe this place is still in business,” I remarked, trying to sound unaffected, as if my heart didn’t ache a little every time I drove past it on my way to the beach.

  “Yeah, wonder if it has the same owners.”

  “Maybe if they’re like a hundred years old.” The husband-and-wife owners who basically lived at this diner back in the day when we’d frequent it had to have been in their late sixties, and that was thirty-plus years ago.

  “You know what I meant…the same family who owns it.”

  I shrugged as we both got out of the car and took the first steps into a familiar place that hadn’t been frequented for so long. The unchanged brick exterior of the building was the exact opposite of the newly remodeled interior. The gaudy 1970s color scheme of orange and green was now white and gray. The worn-out leather booths were replaced with sleek modern ones and the old Formica tabletops were all chrome and glass.

  “It definitely got a facelift, that’s for sure,” I said as we followed the hostess to be seated. I slid into the booth and tried to concentrate on the menu, instead of the memory that came to mind of sitting in this same exact spot so many years ago.

  “Just be yourself, and they’ll love you,” I said to Jack.

  He and I had been dating for three months, and I still hadn’t told my parents about him. I was trying to get over the fact that he was my boyfriend. All the girls fell over him when he had transferred to our school right after Christmas break, and not without good reason. He was absolutely adorable, dirty-blond hair, dreamy blue eyes, and star soccer player. When we became lab partners in chemistry class, we instantly clicked and also became good friends. The friendship we forged put me at odds with some of the more popular girls who had wanted that position. When I started dating him, they hated me even more. That was until the next cute guy came along they could ogle over.

  “What if your dad hates me?” Jack asked, taking a bite of his burger.

  I crinkled my nose. “Not to scare you, but my dad is a big teddy bear. It’s my mom you’re gonna have to win over.”

  Jack nodded. “Okay. I’m up for the challenge.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, you’re worth it.”

  I grinned from ear to ear, leaning over the booth and kissing him. It was the kind of kiss you’d be embarrassed to give in public as an adult—passionate, young, and new.

  “And what about you, miss, what would you like to drink?”

  I snapped out of it to find the older waitress standing at our table, instantly assessing her. Her gruff voice and wrinkled skin gave the appearance of someone who hadn’t had an easy life, but she more than likely had a kind heart underneath her rough exterior. “Oh, umm…I’ll just have an iced water with lemon, please.”

  “You got it!” She smiled and walked away.

  “It will fade away soon,” Jack said.

  “What… What will fade away?”

  “The memory of that dead body. I know that’s what you were thinking
about just now. You were a million miles away.”

  “Yeah. I guess I was.” I nodded and bowed my head so my eyes wouldn’t betray me with what had really been on my mind.

  Chapter 4

  “COME ON, STEPH, the night is still young and tomorrow is Friday!” Tianna, my friend and coworker, pleaded, throwing back her head and downing another sip of wine.

  “No, I reached my two-glass limit, not to mention I’m exhausted! Besides, you have your own personal chauffer to drive you home.” My eyes shifted to the other end of the bar to Tianna’s husband, who was vice principal of the middle school in our school district.

  “Fine, I’ll give you a pass. You’ve had a rough week.”

  “Well, aren’t you sweet? I’ll see you tomorrow.” I stretched my neck and planted a kiss on her cheek, then wrapped my scarf around my neck.

  “Steph! Where are you going?” I turned around just as Michael caught up to me as I reached the door.

  “Home. It’s past my bedtime, and it’s a school night.” I grinned.

  “Well, at least let me walk you to your car.” He cut in front of me and held the door open.

  I stepped outside and immediately put on my coat to try and chase away the chilly air. “The temperature really dropped. It feels like it could snow.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cold.” We both looked up at the clear sky and the full moon overhead, walking the short distance to my car.

  “Well, this is me. Thanks for the security detail. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said with my hand on the door handle.

  “Yeah.” He nodded and smiled. “Hey, would you like to have drinks with just me sometime?” he blurted out like a nervous teenager asking his first crush out on a date.

  “Umm…yeah. I mean…I’ve got some things going on this weekend. So…” I realized I was sounding much like a teenage girl as well with my reply. “What I mean to say is, when were you thinking? My daughter is coming home for Thanksgiving break this weekend, so I’m going to be a little preoccupied for the next week or so.” I was to the point, just how a woman of my age should be responding to an invitation.