The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

32 : Blaire

B L A I R E

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As blown as my mind is, it makes sense. Sukie's spent so long trying to find Mary S Nesbitt and she's got nowhere. Every potential lead has turned out to be a dead end, every trail turning cold. And the whole time, the answer has been right there, something that no-one else saw because they had no reason to look for it, no reason to believe that Betsy Martins wrote a book about herself in the third person and scrambled her name.

She didn't want to be found. Wherever she is, she didn't want anyone who found this book to know that she wrote it. And yet she left that sliver of a mystery, that hint just waiting to be discovered.

In the hours since I noticed the link, Sukie has taken every spare moment to come over to our table. She's trapped in a state of disbelief, which would be a lot more adorable if I didn't feel so guilty for seeing something that she never logged. So much of her energy has been expended on this book, and I feel awful for swanning in a mere month ago and finding a conclusion she hadn't reached.

When Cat and Niko have to go, I move to the table at the end of the counter and when Sukie finishes making a six-drink, four-toastie take-out order, she joins me with a look of abject devastation on her face.

"Why did I never even consider the chance that Betsy could be Mary? I've spent so many hours looking for every Mary, and I've spent so many hours wondering why she focused on Betsy more than anyone else, and I never put it together."

"It just leapt out at me when I saw their names together," I say.

"I told you we needed you." She folds herself over the table, chin resting on her folded forearms, and closes her eyes for a moment.

"Are you okay, Sukie?"

"Today has been a day," she says, groaning when she looks up at the clock on the wall and sees that it's only lunchtime.

"Oli came back, huh?" I tread carefully. She hasn't mentioned him since he left, and I don't want to poke a fresh nerve. She pulls a face and yawns.

"He's finished for the summer and I guess that was all the impetus he needed to come home. Not, you know, the fact that I've been carrying his baby for, like, five and a half months." With a grunt, she comes around to my side and drags out a chair. "God, my feet are killing me today. Reckon I can make Oli pay for me to get a foot massage?"

"I reckon Oli owes you a shit ton more than that. Did he even have an excuse for blanking you for so long?"

"He was seeing a girl, apparently. He freaked out when I told him that I'm pregnant and I guess he figured that it would just ... I don't know, go away, if he ignored me. Like, if he doesn't reply to the pictures of the scans, then he's not really going to be a dad, so it's fine for him to hang out with his new girlfriend."

"What a dickhead."

"Yeah." She sighs. "I'm so tired, Blaire. I'm tired of his shit, and I'm tired of trying to include him, and I'm tired of being pregnant. And I'm not even due for ... fuck, another sixteen weeks. That's so long."

"It's going to fly by. It'll be so worth it," I murmur, a tentative hand on her shoulder. She leans into it, so I pull her closer, holding her in a sideways hug. "You don't need Oli. You've got all of us, and your mum."

"And a new lead to distract myself," she says, pulling away from me only to be able to look into my eyes. That moment of contact is like an electric shock, sparking me to life. "As if Betsy Martins wrote this."