The Deepest Water by Kate Wilhelm Page B

possibilities in a constantly changing market. Review various portfolios so he would have some notion of what to tell old man Donaldson, or Mrs. Meyers… He was way behind after a week of doing little or nothing.
    “You want to take a long walk, climb one of the trails up Mount Pisgah?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Can’t. But you should go soon if you decide to hike up a mountain. It’s going to rain later on, according to the weather channel. Tonight, let’s go out for dinner. Deal?”
    She nodded. “Deal.” She knew she needed exercise as much as Spook did; the little bit of rowing she had done had made her back and arms sore, not a good sign. Since Brice went to the gym three days a week he probably didn’t feel the need for movement the way she did, but also, she had to admit to herself, she couldn’t face any more of the sympathy cards and notes, the condolences that had poured in from all over the country. Jud had touched the lives of many people, and many of them had reacted to his death emotionally. Now she was working through the box of cards and letters, responding briefly to each one.
    Brice returned upstairs to his study and work, and she cleared the table, put things in the dishwasher, and got ready to leave. The phone rang and she paused to listen to the incoming call, then snatched up the phone.
    “Willa? I’m here.”
    “Abby, I’m glad you picked up. Are you all right? How are you?”
    “Okay. I’m okay. Willa, the police are looking for you, state police.”
    “I know. They’ve left messages on my machine. I’ll give them a call, but, Abby, I have to see you before I talk to them. Can we meet somewhere?”
    Involuntarily Abby glanced up the stairs, then lowered her voice. “Yes. I’ll come over to your place.”
    “No. I’m not home. I don’t want the police to know I’m back until after we talk, and they might come to the house. I suspect one of the neighbors was asked to call them when I turned up.”
    “Where are you now?”
    “Safeway, at Eighteenth and Oak. I’ll wait out front.”
    Willa Ashford was forty-one and didn’t try to pretend otherwise. Her chestnut-colored hair had streaks of white already and she seldom wore any makeup, and was careless about how she dressed, usually in jeans and sweatshirts or sweaters, and running shoes. Abby thought she was beautiful.
    She had had a crush on Willa in her freshman year when Willa had been her instructor. At the time Abby and Matthew Petrie were together, fighting most of the time, and with so little money that, although they both worked while they were attending school, they often didn’t know if they would be able to pay the rent, or buy groceries. The threat of being put out on the street had been ever-present. Willa had appeared so serene, so self-assured and composed, so beautiful and intelligent, everything that Abby knew she herself wasn’t, she had set up Willa as an ideal which no other woman could even approach. She had loved her, with reverence and adoration, the way she imagined good Catholics felt toward Mary.
    In the spring of her freshman year Abby had dropped out of school; there would be time later for her to go back, she and Matthew had said, and he had only one semester to finish; he would graduate, then work while she got her degree. The only thing she missed, she had confided to her friend Jonelle, was Willa. And Jonelle had said wisely, “Honey, you’re looking for the perfect mother, someone whose shoulder you can cry on. Your life is the pits and she would make the fairy-tale mother for you to run to; that’s what you miss.”
    She and Matthew maxed out their credit cards, borrowed heavily, skimped on everything; she worked at a restaurant and often took food home with her, hidden in her backpack. Then she learned that Matthew was into video poker, and although he graduated and got a job, money was scarcer than ever. Seventeen months after they were married, they separated, with the divorce