I get a sudden flash of blistering days spent hanging out at the beach, his head resting on my sun-burned stomach, me sketching him as he lay in my backyard hammock snoozing, the first time he ever kissed me, under an oak tree in the park during the July Fourth parade, Nate stripping naked in such a hurry he stumbled against my mother’s antique sideboard and broke one of my grandmother’s dishes . . .
‘How long did you date for?’ Hannah asks.
‘Not long,’ Nate says. ‘She dumped my sorry ass when she took off for college.’
I flush bright red and start shifting foot to foot. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
He cocks an eyebrow at me and laughs. ‘Yeah it was, but you were right to. You were going places and back then I was going nowhere.’ He notes my awkwardness and gently nudges me with his elbow. ‘Don’t worry, all’s forgiven.’
I cringe some more, remembering the details of our break-up. How I went over to his house the morning of the day I was leaving, how I let him pull me into bed, and how, afterwards, lying there naked in each other’s arms, I told him I thought we should have a break. He swung his legs over the bed, stood and walked naked to the door, then opened it for me. He didn’t say a word. I gathered up my clothes in silence, tears falling down my cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him as I scurried past.
‘Have fun in New York,’ he muttered.
I wonder how long it took him to get over me? Not long, I imagine. Still, I don’t want to make him dwell on our break-up.
‘So you finished college and then moved back here, huh?’
‘Yes,’ I nod. ‘So, what about you?’ I ask quickly, trying to change the subject. ‘Do you have any children?’
His face lights up. ‘Two. Girls. Twelve and fourteen. I’m divorced so I see them every other weekend. They live in Long Beach with their mom.’
I nod, trying to picture the kind of woman Nate might have married and what might have happened to break them up.
‘You?’ he asks.
‘Oh, um, yes, I’m married.’ I hold up my left hand, as though needing to prove it by showing off my worn wedding ring.
‘No,’ he clarifies. ‘I meant, any other kids?’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve got another daughter – June – she’s almost eleven. And a stepson, Gene, he’s twenty-four.’
I wonder if he already knows some of this about me. It would be easy enough to discover by searching online – there are several articles featuring Robert that mention me, but he wouldn’t necessarily have known my married name and perhaps he’s never been curious about what happened to me. I would never admit it but every so often I’ve looked up Nate, but his Facebook profile was always set to private and I didn’t want to friend him – it seemed too stalker-ish.
‘You’re at college?’ Nate asks Hannah.
She nods, her back straightening with pride. ‘I’m a sophomore,’ she says. ‘NYU.’
Nate takes that in and I see him frown a little as he does the math on her age. He turns to me and to cut him off before he can ask, I shrug, embarrassed. ‘College dropout!’ I laugh.
Nate studies me curiously and I realize that he’s probably the only person who truly understands how much college meant to me. How much I’d dreamed of New York and being an artist. It’s why we broke up. I wonder if he feels smug that it didn’t work out. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says somberly. ‘That’s a real shame.’
I’m surprised by his reaction. I would have thought he’d have reveled in my downfall, but I suppose I’m thinking of him as the swaggering teenage boy I used to know and he’s not that person anymore. He’s a grown man.
‘Anyway,’ Nate says, looking between me and Hannah, ‘you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. Can I help at all?’
‘Um, well, we’re actually waiting for my stepson,’ I say, grateful for the change in the conversation. ‘He’s . . . I think . . .’
‘He’s been arrested,’ Hannah cuts in.
Nate looks at me and I shrug in embarrassment. ‘What’s his name?’ he asks, walking over to the counter and grabbing a clipboard from the cop sitting behind the desk.
‘Gene . . . Gene Walker.’
Nate scans the list. His finger stops at a line and his eyebrows rise.
‘What?’ I ask, my heart sinking. ‘What did he do?’
‘Failure to stop for a police officer after a minor traffic misdemeanor. He was driving erratically.’
I latch onto the word minor. ‘Is that bad?’ It doesn’t sound too bad and at least it’s not a DUI.
‘Well . . . it depends,’ Nate says. ‘He eventually pulled over and they found 30 grams of marijuana on him.’
‘Told you!’ Hannah crowed.
I glare at her.
‘Is that a lot?’ I ask Nate.
Nate grimaces. ‘The legal limit is 28.5 grams. Anything over that and he can be charged with possession.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘Six months jail time,’ Nate answers. ‘Or a fine.’
‘Oh God.’
Nate hesitates a second, clearly weighing something up. ‘Come with me,’ he finally says, nodding his head towards a door that leads beyond the waiting room.
‘Wait here,’ I tell Hannah, and follow Nate.
‘Don’t you dare pay his fine,’ Hannah hisses after me. ‘Why should you always bail him out? He’ll never learn his lesson!’
Nate leads me through a set of double doors, down a corridor, and into an office. There are framed photographs on the wall of Nate in dress uniform shaking hands with someone covered in medals, and on the bookshelf is a snapshot of two girls – both exceptionally pretty, with Nate’s dark hair and blue eyes.
‘Your daughters?’ I ask.
He glances at the photo and nods. ‘Yeah, they’re great. Though they only have two activities: shopping and finding everything I say or do mortifying.’
‘Sounds just like Hannah,’ I laugh.
If I’ve ever stopped to think of Nate these last twenty-two years it’s been only occasionally and never with regret, but now, seeing him again, it’s like the past has collided with the present and atoms are splitting inside me. It’s discombobulating. Unwelcome.
Well, possibly unwelcome.
Clearing some papers off a chair, Nate gestures for me to sit. I do. Nate leans against the edge of his desk. I eye his gun, holstered at his waist, and his crotch, which is right at eye-level, then look away, flustered. I’m bombarded with memories of us having sex in the way that only teenagers have sex, with total abandon and excitement and terror and curiosity.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘I can probably get the first charge dropped. I just need to have a word with the officer who pulled him over. The second one – the drug charge – is going to be harder. But he doesn’t have any priors on record, and he has you to vouch for him.’
‘Absolutely,’ I say, nodding madly, wondering how he doesn’t know about Gene’s prior DUI. I wonder if I should mention it but decide not to.
‘So,’ Nate continues, ‘I can make this disappear just this one time.’
‘You can do that?’ I ask him, relieved.
He nods.
‘Nate, that’s . . . I don’t know what to say . . . how to thank you . . .’
‘Just buy me coffee sometime,’ he says.
‘OK,’ I say, swallowing. Is there something in his smile or am I imagining it? Does he really mean it or is that just something people say?
A knock on the door blasts me back into the moment. A uniform cop pokes his head in and tells Nate someone is looking for him. I stand up and Nate ushers me out of his office with his hand resting on my lower back, and I feel it there, imprinted, even after he moves away.
I find Hannah in the waiting room, flirting with the police officer behind the desk.
I glare at the officer, who’s happily flirting right back at her. He’s at least eight or ten years older than her. There’s a line of disgruntled citizens waiting behind Hannah,
but neither of them appears to have noticed.
I clear my throat and Hannah looks up and runs over. ‘So?’ she asks. ‘Is Gene going to jail?’
‘No, they’re letting him off without pressing charges,’ I whisper.
‘Seriously?’ Hannah asks, scowling at me as though she’s disappointed. ‘What did you have to do? Sleep with that cop dude?’
I whack her on the arm.
‘No, I’m serious,’ she answers, laughing. ‘He was totally into you. I could tell. And he’s hot, you know, for an old guy.’
I whack her again. ‘Hannah,’ I hiss.
‘What?’ she asks. ‘You dated him, didn’t you?’
I nod, blushing.
‘When did you break up with him? Or should I ask why?’ she says, elbowing me in the ribs and laughing.
‘Before I went off to college,’ I mumble.
I glance up and see Nate behind the counter, talking to the deputy – the guy Hannah was just flirting with. Maybe he’s the one who pulled Gene over. He’s frowning and shaking his head and I panic that maybe he’s refusing to drop the charges. But Nate says something – clearly pulls rank – and the cop, though still scowling, finally nods.
Nate gives me a thumbs-up. Victory.
Ten minutes later Gene’s free.
Chapter 14
Dr Warier discharges me with all the usual caveats and paperwork and I promise to return if I experience any sort of symptom at all, reassuring him that I’m not planning on leaving the hospital, not while June is still here. She’s being stubborn, refusing to wake up, though they’ve taken her off the critical list and the doctors are saying she’s stable. Stable but unresponsive.
I’ve tried talking to her. Gene’s tried singing to her. Hannah’s tried reading to her from a joke book. Robert sits quietly by her side, holding her hand, not saying much.
‘She’ll wake up,’ Laurie tells me, squeezing my arm as she helps me pack my things into an overnight bag. Robert’s with the insurance person again, handling the paperwork for June and me – God knows how much this stay in hospital will be costing our insurance company, but based on the final bill for June’s cancer treatment, I can only guess it’s close to a million already. Hopefully our insurance will cover it all again.
There’s a knock on the door and we look over to see Nate entering. ‘I heard you’re being released,’ he says to me, nodding hello at Laurie.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Robert said you’d told him we could go home?’
Nate nods. ‘Yeah, forensics have released the crime scene.’
I swallow hard. I don’t want to go home. I can’t bear the thought of it, but Robert says that we have to. I gave up arguing with him, reasoning that it doesn’t matter much anyway, as I’ll be at the hospital with June most of the time. I’m only going back there now to grab a change of clothes.
‘It’s a mess, I’m afraid,’ Nate says with a grim smile. ‘I tried to get forensics to be as tidy as possible and clean up after themselves but they’re beholden to no one, those guys.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say.
‘I’ll organize a cleaner,’ Laurie says to me.
‘Good idea,’ Nate says. He pauses then asks, ‘How’s June doing?’
At the mention of June I feel wobbly and overcome. ‘She’s the same,’ I croak.
‘The docs say anything more?’
I shake my head. ‘They don’t know when she’ll wake up,’ I tell him.
What I don’t say is that they refused to answer me when I asked if she would ever wake up. ‘Have you got any leads?’ I ask, hopeful.
‘We’re investigating a few lines of inquiry.’
I have watched enough American Crime to know that means they’ve got squat.
‘I actually came by to ask you to come down to the police department later, if you can.’
‘OK,’ I say, surprised. Maybe I spoke too soon. ‘When?’
‘Now?’ Nate says. ‘Or later this afternoon? Whenever is convenient.’
‘Um, OK,’ I say, thinking of June and calculating how long we’ll be away from her. ‘We should be able to come now.’
‘Just you,’ Nate says quickly. ‘Robert doesn’t need to be there.’
I’m about to ask why when a nurse enters with my medication and before I know it Nate’s walking out the door, telling me that he’ll see me shortly for our interview.
‘Interview?’ Laurie says, bewildered. ‘Hasn’t he interviewed you already?’
‘Yes,’ I murmur, taking the bag of prescription painkillers from the nurse.
‘I wonder what he wants?’ Laurie asks.
‘God knows.’
Chapter 15
‘Ava?’
Looking at Nate now, I find it hard to reconcile him with the swaggering ex-football player I used to know. On paper Nate and I were complete opposites. I had a 4.0 grade point average, a scholarship to college, a firmly middle-class upbringing and had never drunk, smoked or dated. Nate, who lived with his single mom, had never had a grade higher than a C, had read only about three books in his life, lived to play football, and had dated a dozen girls before me. Yet the attraction was so intense between us the differences didn’t matter, at least at first. When a knee injury took away any college scholarship ideas he might have entertained, though, Nate had gone into a spiral. He drank and partied his way through the final semester of school and by the time I left for college he was working construction jobs and I was relieved as hell to be getting away from him.
‘Ava, do you recognize any of these items?’ he presses me.
I startle, and it takes me a few seconds to come back to the present. He’s laid out a dozen plastic bags on a table, each sealed and tagged with an evidence label. I peer closer.
‘Yes,’ I say, pointing at the diamond bracelet and a pair of earrings – the chandelier pair. ‘Those are mine.’ I look up at Nate. ‘Where did you find them?’
‘Is there anything else?’ Nate asks, avoiding my question.
I scan the table, peering closer at all the items. ‘Yes, that’s my grandmother’s engagement ring,’ I say, pointing at an art deco diamond ring. ‘But I lost that about a month ago.’ I look up at Nate. ‘I don’t understand. Where did you find all of this?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, Ava,’ Nate says softly. ‘It’s an ongoing investigation. I’ll need to ask you to sign an affidavit that these items belong to you, and we’re going to have to keep it all for evidence for the time being. You won’t get any of it back until after the trial.’
‘Trial?’ I ask, stunned. ‘Does that mean you have a suspect?’
‘I mean in case we get to trial,’ Nate says quickly, gathering all the bags and dropping them into a plastic crate.
I study him. What isn’t he telling me? Why’s he avoiding my eye? And why can’t he tell me where he found my things? Surely I have a right to know? Nate leads me out of the room and then, to my surprise, into a small room next door with a bolted-down table in the middle and two scarred plastic chairs. He gestures for me to take a seat. I glance around. There’s a mirror on one wall, which is clearly two-way. My blood runs cold. This is an interrogation room. Why am I in an interrogation room?
‘I just need to ask you a few follow-up questions,’ Nate says, sitting down and pulling out his battered notebook.
I frown, and he must see the expression on my face because he smiles at me as though to reassure me. ‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ he says lightly. ‘I just need to check some things from the witness statement you gave after the incident.’
‘OK,’ I say, slowly lowering myself into the seat opposite him. My pulse starts to skitter and my lips are suddenly so dry that I reach for the jug of water on the table. My hand shakes when I pour it and I spill some.
Nate looks up from his paperwork. ‘You said that when you got home you set the alarm on the back door.’
‘Yes,’ I say, taking a sip of
water.
‘And your husband told us he disarmed it later when he put out the trash.’
I nod.
‘Was that something he normally did?’
‘What? Disarm the alarm?’
‘No. Put out the trash.’
‘When I nagged him enough.’
Nate smirks. ‘I hear that. I think my wife used that when she filed for divorce as evidence of my unreasonable behavior. He never put out the trash.’
I smile, but distractedly. Why is he asking questions about Robert? And why did he ask me to come alone?
‘And did you always set the alarm at night?’ Nate asks next.
‘Well, no. But recently people have been posting on the local Facebook community page about car break-ins on our road, especially near the trailhead, and we’re not far from there, so we figured better safe than sorry.’
Nate nods thoughtfully and writes something down, then he flips back through his notes until he finds what he’s looking for. I wish I could read his mind, know what suspicions he has. ‘And I just wanted to check – you mentioned you hit one of the intruders with a wooden chopping board and that you used a carving knife to stab him.’
I nod.
‘We haven’t been able to locate either of the items in your house.’
‘Oh,’ I say, bewildered. ‘What do you think happened to them?’
Nate shrugs, studying me like he thinks maybe I had something to do with their disappearance. Or am I being paranoid? ‘Likely guess is that they took them, knowing that otherwise they risked leaving DNA evidence we could use to trace them. If that’s the case, they’re smart.’
‘What about blood?’ I ask. ‘Did they find any traces of blood? I hit him. I stabbed him. There must have been blood on the floor. Can’t they try to match the blood? Don’t you have a database or something to do that?’
‘There weren’t any traces of blood found in the kitchen.’
I shake my head, confused and bewildered. My head still feels foggy, patches of memory are blank. I was so sure I’d managed to cut his arm. I can still remember the way the knife felt slicing through his jacket and then through the flesh, like it was made of warm butter. Surely there was blood?
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