by Merry Jones
And after dinner, ashamed and appreciative, lulled by wine and a full belly, I let myself fall again for Nick. I put aside old differences; they didn’t matter anymore. For the last twenty-four hours, Nick had been entirely devoted to me and my daughter. He’d done his best to anticipate our reactions and address our needs. If his intentions were unclear, they were also irrelevant; for the moment, it was enough just to be there with him. To be away from the city. To dwell in Nick’s space. Here, the air was crisp and fresh, the moon a bright half melon. No sirens blaring, no psychopaths looming. I was in a rustic farmhouse beside a strong man who not only cooked but even read bedtime stories to my daughter and helped me tuck her into bed.
But then, once Molly was in bed, Nick and I were alone. Without Molly around, I felt awkward, uncertain how to behave. Nick stoked the fire, added a log and turned to me with his crooked half smile.
“Thanks for today,” I said.
“Are you tired?” he asked at the same moment.
We both stopped, waited a beat, and began again. Again, we both talked at once, both stopped, both apologized at the same moment. Finally, we both laughed.
“Seriously, Nick,” I managed. “This day has been medicine.”
“It’s been good to have you here,” he said.
We stood facing each other, grinning stupidly, as seconds ticked by. Say good night, I thought. Say good night, step into the guest room beside Molly’s, and shut the door. But I didn’t. I stood outside Molly’s door, gawky and silent, wishing Nick would reach out for me. Wanting him to. Wondering if he wanted to. If he would.
Do something, I told myself. But I did nothing. I stood silent, idiotic.
Finally, Nick took a step, closing the space between us. He put an arm around me, and I reached out and touched his face. My fingers traced the scar his wife had left. He stiffened momentarily; a painful glint shot through his eyes.
“Sorry.” I took my hand away. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, hadn’t planned the touch.
“No, no need. I’m just numb in spots, can’t feel anything. The bullet ripped through nerves that never healed.”
He led me to the main room, to sit by the fire. Slowly, he took my hand and brought it back to his face. He held it there for a moment.
“I don’t talk about that much.” He forced a half smile.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to.” I already knew what had happened. And that he didn’t talk about it.
He let go of my hand. His eyes reflected the fire. “I told her a hundred times that I was leaving. A thousand. I guess I’d told her so often, she didn’t believe I’d ever really go. So when she saw me packing my stuff, Annie—my wife—she . . . she made a bad decision. Didn’t think it through.” He paused, thinking. “When she shot herself, she must have thought I was dead. I damned near was.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think of to say.
Nick nodded. “I don’t remember the last time I talked about it. Fact is, I’m not sure why I’m talking about it now. I mean, it was a long time ago. Not something to dwell on anymore. At least, not now. Not tonight. Not while I’m with you.”
Nick leaned my way, and his shoulders towered above me. His arms enclosed me and held on. And there, by the crackling fire, I looked into Nick’s blue eyes and watched the tides rise, the moon fall, the blue skies open and swallow us whole. I felt myself spin, spiraling dizzily past nannies and body parts, past Charlie’s Pontiac and his exploding head until, limbs interlocking, flesh melting, I landed in strong arms that reached out, caught me, and carried me up the stairs.
FIFTY
I KNEW THAT I WAS IN A DREAM, BUT I COULDN’T PULL MYSELF out of it. I lacked the strength to open my eyes, let alone move a leg or an arm. So, reluctantly, I surrendered, letting the phone ring unanswered, allowing the dream to progress until I could muster the energy to lift my eyelids.
First, I had to get the damned corpse off of me. I could hardly breathe for the dead weight of the body lying on my chest. I pushed, lifted its leaden arm, and felt it land with a thud. I struggled to roll its torso and shimmy off to the side. Finally, the body slid off. Air rushed into my lungs. I sat up, pulled away from the corpse, and looked at it.
Nick, not a corpse, lay beside me, soaked in blood. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I shook him. He didn’t respond. The phone stopped ringing, shocked to silence.
Frantic, I looked around the room. I saw parallel bars, easels, a fireplace with burning embers. Where were the nurses? The staff? Once again, I tugged at Nick’s arm. It flopped limp and cool.
“Nick!” I whispered. Nick’s eyes remained closed, his body motionless.
I was on my feet, running in circles. Still Nick didn’t move. I reached for a lamp, knocked it crashing to the floor. I tried to find the light switch on the wall, couldn’t. Of course I can’t, I told myself. This is a dream. There’s not going to be a switch on the wall. It’s a nightmare. Not real, not real. Wake up, I told myself. But my eyes were stuck shut. I couldn’t escape, not yet.
And Nick’s bulk lay lifeless near the fireplace. His arm was where it had been when I got up, his back drenched in blood. I sank down beside him, trembling.
I heard myself howl and pounded his chest, trying to remember CPR, the xiphoid process. Something about the xiphoid process. I exhaled into his mouth. Again. But Nick lay stubbornly lifeless. Dead. Gone. He wore a vacant expression, not emotional, not relaxed. Just blank. Discarded features with no one inside them. I backed away, shivering. This is a dream, I thought. A dream.
“Oh God,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. Empty plates and wineglasses sat unwashed on the table. My napkin lay on my plate, just where I’d dropped it. Molly’s damp socks and boots lay by the door. This dream had too many details, was far too vivid. The phone started to ring again.
It took all my energy, but I strained, tugged, squirmed, twisted. Somehow, I pulled myself free of the nightmare. I opened one eye. Finally, the other. The corpse disappeared, but the phone kept ringing. I could barely lift my head; it weighed tons. Groggy, I let it go. It fell back onto the pillow.
“Oh God,” I repeated. The phone jangled on. I reached across the bed to wake up Nick but couldn’t find him. My hand groped crumpled blankets, tangled sheets, scattered pillows. But no Nick. I rolled over and blinked through the darkness, straining to see his side of the bed. It was empty. Nick wasn’t there.
Maybe I wasn’t up yet. Maybe I was still dreaming. Maybe that was why I was so groggy. Besides, Nick must be around somewhere. In the bathroom. Or the kitchen getting a snack.
“Nick?” My voice sounded raw, shaky. “Nick?” This time I called louder. No answer.
The phone rang on. Where the hell was it?
I tried to sit up. Too fast. A wave of dizziness rose suddenly, knocking me back down. I lay still, but the bed seemed to rock, a raft in a stormy sea.
Was I sick? Hungover? Maybe Nick was, too. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t answered the phone; maybe he was throwing up. In the bathroom. Or outside. Maybe he’d gone outside for fresh air. To clear his head.
Maybe.
I sat up, made myself wake up enough to stand. Cold and naked, I wrapped up in a flannel sheet, got out of bed, and headed toward the ringing. Was it downstairs? Maybe the main room. Or the kitchen. It might wake Molly, although nothing could wake Molly when she was tired. Unsteady, wobbling, at the end of the bed I bumped into a table, knocking the lamp onto the floor. Where was the damned phone? And who was calling in the middle of the night? Oh dear—was there a police emergency? Was Nick’s department trying to reach him? I hurried, stumbling through darkness, searching for a light switch.
Still caught in the images of the nightmare, I felt my way along the wall, searching for a switch. Finally, I made it to the stairs and, trying not to trip on the sheet, went down carefully, step by step.
“Just find a light,” I told myself. “Turn on some lights. There.” I flicked on the kitchen switch. Light blasted the counter, the s
tove, the sink and spilled into the living room, blinding me, making me blink. I looked for Nick’s cell, found it beside a salt shaker on the kitchen table. Of course, as in a nightmare, it stopped ringing before I could cross the room.
FIFTY-ONE
I STOOD BUTT NAKED IN NICK’S KITCHEN, DIZZY AND SHIVERing and dragging a flannel sheet. Where was Nick? Who’d been on the phone? I stared at it, trying to think, but I was cold, and my thoughts were fuzzy and hard to define. What time was it? Two? Three? Where was a clock? Slowly, holding on to the kitchen table, I scanned the walls, saw darkened pictures, wobbly window frames. But no clock. The guest room where Molly slept was off the main room. I was on my way to check on her when the phone began to ring again.
I pivoted, hurrying back to the phone. Who was calling? Why so late? Maybe it was Nick, calling to tell me where he was. Why he was gone. When he’d be back. I took three giant steps and pounced on the phone.
My voice was still asleep, not working. Nothing but a hoarse gurgle came out when I tried to say hello, but before I could try again, someone was talking. Not Nick. A sultry voice, familiar. “Nick? Where the hell are you?”
I could almost smell her perfume. She went on, assuming Nick had answered.
“Pumpkin, you were supposed to be here an hour ago. I’m going nuts, waiting—look, the door’s unlocked, so just come right in. How long till you get here?”
“Sorry. It’s not Nick.”
She stopped cold. “Who’s this? Zoe?”
““Nick’s not available right now.”
She was silent, thinking. “Zoe, is that you?” Her voice was tentative, alarmed. “Are you there with Nick? Let me talk to him.” “Nick can’t come to the phone.”
“What? Why not?” She paused. “What happened? Why do you have his cell phone?”
Her breathing was rapid, urgent. I said nothing, didn’t know the answers.
“Zoe? Where’s Nick?”
Excellent question.
“Where are you? At his place? Has he left yet?” “Why is any of that your business?”
“Damn it, Zoe. Why are you being so difficult? You know the situation. What’s going on?”
Another good question. “You’ll have to ask Nick.”
“Trust me, when he gets here, I will.” A loud click. Beverly had hung up.
I looked out the window, saw only my reflection. A still life: nude wrapped in a sheet, holding a cell phone. I slapped the switch, turning the light off so I could see outside. What I saw was snow. Pine trees. Nothing else. No Nick. Where the hell was he? And why the hell was Beverly so agitated? What had she said, that she was waiting for him?
But that wasn’t possible—Nick was out in the country with me and Molly. Except that he couldn’t be found. Oh Lord. Had Nick gone back to town to meet Beverly? In the middle of the night? She certainly seemed to be expecting him. But if Nick was involved with Beverly, why had he brought me here? And taken me to bed? What sick game was he playing?
I made my way through the dark, avoiding the table and the lamp. Shivering, I tied the sheet around me; then, holding on to the phone, I made it to Molly’s room. I opened her door a crack and watched her sleep, bathed in moonlight, undisturbed. I crept in, pulled her covers up under her chin, and stroked her head.
Nothing made sense. We were in the middle of nowhere, cold, alone in inky darkness too dense for shadows. I was accustomed to the city, nights ringing with sirens, revved engines, shouting voices, blaring radios. Here, no one was around to disturb the night. While Molly slept, I hugged the sheet, clutched the phone, and listened to silence so loud it hurt my ears.
Think, I told myself, but my mind felt clouded and thick. My body ached to lie down and get warm. Maybe I should climb back upstairs, get back under the covers, and start over. Wake up again, this time to Nick’s snores. Stop it, I told myself. Get a grip. Think. I closed my eyes, tried to form coherent thoughts.
Nick. The hairs on my neck tingled and stood at alert. Who was he, really? What did I really know about the man I’d just slept with, the man I’d allowed to dump me and my daughter in the middle of nowhere? Except that he was a cop who’d once been shot by his wife. I wandered back to the main room. It was sparsely furnished, gave little information. No photographs or personal items. I walked around, snooping, looking for clues. I opened Nick’s closets, his dresser drawers. I found a woolly fleece robe that smelled like him. I put it on, wore it as I further invaded his privacy, rifling through sweaters and socks, pushing aside hangers, poking into jacket pockets, reaching up onto closet shelves, pulling down a tennis racket, an overnight bag, a box of bullets. In his linen closet, I found spare towels and sheets; in his kitchen cabinets, I found dishes, spices, cans of food. His desk held a drawer full of old cable and phone bills, menus for local pizza parlors, an L. L. Bean catalog, a bunch of brochures for small sailboats.
What I found, finally, was in a stationery box in the bottom drawer. A collection of articles and pictures of Nick and a woman. A woman who, I thought, looked very much like me.
FIFTY-TWO
THE HEADLINES READ, “MURDER/SUICIDE—REAL OR STAGED?” “ ‘I Did Not Kill My Wife’: Cop Claims Innocence.” “Cop Suspended Pending Murder Investigation.”
Shaking, I scanned the articles, gradually accepting the truth. Nick had been suspected of killing his wife, Anne. He’d denied it. He’d insisted that his wife had taken out the gun, that they’d struggled. It had fired, wounding him in the face. When he was down, he said, she shot herself.
But there was conflicting evidence. Such as the location of the wounds. Anne Stiles was left handed; Stiles was wounded on the left side of his face. If he’d been facing her in a struggle as he said, a gun fired by her left hand would have wounded him on the right. There were other reasons for doubt, as well. The residue on his hand . . . the trajectory of the bullets . . .
I stopped reading and sat, shivering, trying to understand. Had Nick, not his wife, been the shooter? No way. In the struggle, he might have turned his head. There could be a dozen reasons that the bullet struck where it had. And why there had been residue on his hand. He’d been exonerated, after all.
I stuffed the articles back into the box, not wanting to know more, but the face of the dead woman stared out at me from a page of yellowing newsprint. Our resemblance was clear. Was that why Nick noticed me? Why he’d made love to me? I shivered, beginning to understand. Oh my God. Nick had been interested in me because I looked like his dead wife.
Was it possible that Nick Stiles killed her? No, I told myself. No way. But my skin rose in goose bumps and my mouth went dry, insisting that yes, indeed he might have.
Agitated, I moved from window to window, searching the snow, the pine trees, wanting to find Nick. To ask him and find out, for better or worse. Outside, though, nothing moved. Nobody. Snow was beginning to fall, burying footprints from our hike, smoothing over our crumbled snowballs. Concealing all signs of our presence. From the front window, I could find not a single sign of human life.
Not even, it hit me, a car.
Nick’s Volvo was definitely gone. And so was Nick. He’d gone to see Beverly. The sonofabitch had actually driven off to meet her and left us there.
My adrenaline surged. Clutching the sheet, shivering, breathing shallowly, I heard the hollow silence of frigid country air as questions ran through my mind. Why had Nick brought us out there only to leave us there alone? And why had he left us his cell phone?
I should call someone, I thought. I should let somebody know what was going on. But who? It was the middle of the night, after 2:00 A.M. If I called anyone, what would I say? That Nick Stiles had left Molly and me alone in his cabin? Or that, years ago, he’d not been found guilty of killing his wife?
Slow down, I told myself. Don’t let your mind race. First of all, forget those old newspaper articles. They don’t mean any-thing—they even say Nick was exonerated. No charges were filed against him; he’d even kept his job. The only thing the articles pro
ved was that Nick still cared about what happened enough to keep the record of it in his closet.
And there was no proof that Nick had gone for a tryst with Beverly Gardener. Maybe his car was gone because he’d gotten an important call. Police business. Maybe he intended to be back before I woke up, hadn’t wanted to disturb my sleep. For all I knew, Beverly Gardener’s call was beyond his control. Maybe Dr. Gardener was pursuing Nick, hounding him. Chasing him without encouragement, unwilling to accept rejection. Maybe Nick would explain everything shortly, when he got back. In a few minutes. Soon.
Time passed, though; minutes stretched into hours, and still Nick didn’t return. Whatever explanations I tried to concoct became pathetically unconvincing. The night that just hours ago had blanketed us with passion and warmth had turned treacherous, hiding secrets, concealing lies. I wandered the house. Down the stairs, through the main room. Carrying the phone, wearing Nick’s robe, I made the rounds from window to window, room to room, checking for what, I wasn’t sure. For a while, I sat on the bed up in the loft, from which I had a view of the main room, the kitchen, Molly’s room, the front door. Wrapped in Nick’s blankets, I waited for a formerly suspected wife-killer to return from a night out with a self-absorbed, seductive brunette. Would he tiptoe in? Make a grand entrance without apology? Or would he clatter about and make a ruckus, pretending simply to have been downstairs making pancakes all the time?
Enough, I told myself. What’s the matter with you? You’ve got him tried and convicted before you’ve even heard his case.
The phone rang in my hand. I jumped.
Don’t even answer it, Charlie’s voice urged. Just grab Molly and get out. But I didn’t listen to him; I answered, hoping to hear Nick.
A long inhale. An exasperated exhale. Then the husky, insistent voice. “Where is he, sugarplum? For godsakes, tell me. Is he on his way?”