A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  Reeve

  * * *

  Wednesday—The Day Before

  IT’S PAST MIDNIGHT. One of the cabin windows in the main room is still open, and the cool air continues to seep in, keeping the woodstove from smothering Anne Marie and me with its fierce, cloying heat. I’ve quit adding wood and don’t plan to put in any more for the rest of the night, as it’s still burning strongly. The fire and the wine have softened me—tempered Anne Marie too, because she’s finally stopped asking questions. We’ve gone through a bottle and a half, and there is actually a lull in the conversation. I wonder if it’s possible that she finally talked herself out. I stand up, grab the empty glasses and the last bottle, and say, “It’s getting kind of late.”

  After putting the glasses and the half-drunk bottle next to the sink, which is filled with the dinner dishes, I go back to the main room and lean against the side of the couch. I wasn’t sure how I wanted this night to go. I had visions of Anne Marie in my bed, of waking up cradling her warm body against mine, but after all the unexpected questions, I feel spent, a little angry, and still confused by her mixed messages and her contradictions—one minute resting her head on my shoulder or playfully, inexplicably tugging on my belt, the next minute grilling me about my past. I’ve come to the conclusion that she should probably just go so I can get some sleep. I have another full day with McKay out in the field in the morning.

  Anne Marie says nothing for a moment, just stares at me, her head cocked, her eyes mysterious—the same seductive look that has been keeping me on edge all evening. “You’re right,” she says eventually. “I should go.” She stands up, stretches her arms above her head, exposing the pale skin of her belly above her pants. She grabs her coat by the door and folds it over one arm.

  “Well.” She stares at my chest, not looking me in the eyes, as if she’s suddenly shy. “Thank you for talking to me about . . .” She twitches her head to one side in lieu of saying it.

  I nod. What else is there to add? I didn’t really want to talk about any of it in the first place, but there’s no point in reiterating that now. She stays quiet, her gaze still on my chest. She bites the corner of her bottom lip, her hand moving to the back of her neck, pulling at the wisps of hair falling out of her braid.

  “I hope the day out with us in the field was helpful,” I say.

  “It was.” She glances at McKay, who has followed us to the door. She pets the top of his head stiffly, a little robotically, and I wonder if she’s still a bit unnerved by him. Some people are just not dog people. She looks up at me, meeting my eyes this time. I shouldn’t judge people based on whether they like pets or not, but I do, I can’t help it.

  “Seriously, thank you for letting me join you,” she says, gently gripping my left shoulder. I can feel the damp heat of her palm through my shirt. A jolt of energy bolts through me with her touch. God, I feel like I’ve been swinging back and forth between provocation and desire all evening. There’s a palpable tension in the room when we lock eyes, and she says, “I’m sorry for . . . you know, for asking so many questions.”

  I nod that it’s okay. My throat feels thick with something—loneliness, an unidentifiable aching need—and I’m not sure I want to speak.

  She shrugs. “I’m just really inquisitive. I guess I’ve always been curious about things.”

  “It’s what makes you a good reporter,” I say, and give her a closed-lip smile.

  She nods shyly, and there’s the sweetness I saw in her earlier. It’s what gets me. Suddenly I can’t hold back. I lean down and kiss her—a long, heated kiss that starts slowly, but wells up with intensity. She pushes her pelvis into me, and I let my tongue explore the flesh of her mouth. I stop for a second so I can pull her into my bedroom. There’s a small night-light on the side wall that I leave on for Emily, and I’m glad it’s on because I want to see all of her.

  We fall—or she pushes me, I’m not sure which—onto the bed, and she hovers on top of me. Her braid falls into my face, and I bite down on it, hungry for this human connection. The texture of her hair, it reminds me of Ali’s, and I have this flash amid all the desire that I’m adrift, floating, biting on a rope in a last-ditch effort to tether myself to the human race. The sense of connection almost makes me tear up, but then Anne Marie’s lips are tasting mine and I’m running my hands down her back and onto her hips. She moans softly and I start to kiss her gently on her throat when suddenly I hear an abrasive scratch down the side of the mattress.

  I know exactly what it is—McKay’s long front claws. It’s what he does when he wants to go out—one grating scratch down the side of the mattress. Although this time, because I ignore him and go back to caressing Anne Marie, he does it again. “Go away,” I mumble out the side of our kissing. But he does it again. Scratch. And again. I groan and gently move Anne Marie to my side. “I have to let him out,” I whisper breathlessly. “I’m sorry. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Sunday

  AFTER BREAKFAST WITH Rose, Emily and I spend all afternoon raking and bagging leaves. She’s in heaven, gleefully jumping into the piles and splashing the leaves up around her as if she’s in a pool of water. Dry ones cling to her hair, just as I imagined, and the soggy mulch at the bottom of the pile makes her pants dirty and damp. We put them into orange lawn bags with pumpkin faces on the front that are left over from Halloween, and she proudly carries them out to the curb to display. Afterward, I make us dinner—bratwurst and potatoes—and then I do the dishes.

  And because she demands it, I watch Mulan with her, and try to scoot out of the room to go to my office during “A Girl Worth Fighting For” because it’s kind of painful to watch a kids’ Disney movie when your mind is on a hundred different things. But she catches me and insists I come sit back down and watch the entire film.

  When it’s time to put her to bed, I read her a story, Stellaluna, one of Emily’s favorites, about a fruit bat that is attacked by an owl and separated from her mother. I think it’s one of Emily’s favorites because already she’s growing independent and can envision excursions to other nests without me. A part of me thinks that’s a good thing, and another part of me aches when I think too much about it. I wonder if my own mother realized as the years passed how she would never get those back once we were out on our own. Of course I don’t blame her. She didn’t push us out. She was a single mom: she just needed to work.

  After we close the book, I lie in Emily’s darkened room with her for several minutes as she insists. When I sit up to go, she reaches out for me to stop me. “It’s already been exactly five minutes,” I say as if I’ve timed it.

  She’s too exhausted to question what I’m saying and accepts it—as if we had a deal and I’d honored my end of the bargain. She releases her grip on my arm. I get up, kiss her forehead, and go quietly out of her room and to my office, feeling a small slice of guilt for not staying until she fell sound asleep, for negotiating with her when there was no need to do so. Is this what life as a parent is? A series of bargains with your children until one day they begin bargaining with you to get their way. And then the haggling fades altogether because it’s no longer necessary. They no longer need you at all. For them, you become like an image in the rearview mirror, appearing closer than they’ll ever let you actually be again.

  I slump into my chair with my feet splayed wide in front of me under the desk. The wind has subsided and it’s still outside. No cars pass by on my neighborhood street, and all the world seems inky around me. I can hear the faint buzz of the gas heat being pumped into the house through the floor vents. I’m beat from working on the lawn, but I’m also anxious. I figure the meeting with the county has partly taken the wind out of my sails and partly agitated me. I consider that all of my actions to help Reeve have been a mistake, that I should have stayed out of things from the beginning, been more professional.

  Deep down, I know I’m in the wrong. All day I’ve been trying to not thi
nk about it. Reeve is a big boy, and he doesn’t need me coming to the rescue. And Emily—I can’t protect her from her own father and his actions in the long run. Eventually his choices and hers will determine the type of relationship they have. And if, just if, he somehow ends up in jail, she’ll have to deal with that too, just like I did. It took me a long time to realize that our parents don’t necessarily have to define us. Still, like shadows, certain events from our childhood follow us everywhere we go.

  • • •

  The summer that Reeve shot Sam, they passed stricter stalking laws in California after an actress was shot by a man who was obsessed with her. Earlier in the year, Florida had executed Ted Bundy, and later in the year, Germans tore down the Berlin Wall. In the weeks after Sam’s death, three more fatal shootings occurred across Florida, and the press got really fired up, their drumbeat prompting marches and waking up the Florida legislature to eventually pass a law that would make it illegal to leave a gun where a child could find it. Montana has no such law.

  I imagine the press surrounding Reeve and his family—the barrage of phone calls and photos. After I first found out about the incident, I discovered several old pictures of Reeve on the Internet—one of him timidly smiling for the camera as a child is trained to do as he is led out of their one-story ranch-style house by his father. I imagine him, out of habit, seeing the camera and making his mouth curve upward into a stiff, fake smile because that’s what kids are always taught to do in front of a camera: Smile for the camera, honey.

  I imagine the photo being drudged up and being used against him now in court, not as evidence, but to make an impression on a jury—a way of saying, See this boy smiling? No remorse. This boy shot his friend in cold blood and he doesn’t even look sad. What makes you think he couldn’t have killed Anne Marie? All it took was a shot to the chest, same as he did before.

  I sigh, then shove myself out of the chair. I go to the kitchen and make a small pot of coffee. If Reynolds and Brander can’t get at the truth, then I’ve got my work cut out for me.

  Reeve

  * * *

  Wednesday—The Day Before

  MCKAY FOLLOWS ME to the door and I open it for him so he can do his thing, but then he just sits and stares at me as if I’m doing something wrong. I tell myself I’m just imagining it. McKay could not possibly be upset that I have another woman in my bedroom. He never did this when I was with Ali.

  “Go on,” I say.

  He doesn’t budge.

  “I’m not going out there with you.”

  He still doesn’t move.

  “Out,” I say, standing at the door, still swollen with desire for the first time in forever and here’s my supposedly well-trained dog refusing to go out. The cold air hits me. I bend down, grab his collar, and try to coax him out. He digs his claws into the ground and turns his muscular body to stone, refusing to move. The wild upsurge in me begins to subside. I think of how Anne Marie’s hair felt like Ali’s, but not quite as soft. How her lips were wider and almost rubbery feeling in comparison. I hear her aggressive questions in my head and recall the coldness in her voice when she addressed McKay. I try to brush the thoughts away. “Are you going out or not?”

  McKay still doesn’t move.

  “Suit yourself.” I shut the door and go back in, much calmer, like I’ve retreated back into myself. I don’t want it, but I can feel a shuttering of sorts. I’m hoping that seeing Anne Marie will ignite the craving all over again. I plan to keep McKay out in the main room this time, but when I enter the bedroom, she’s sitting on the bed, talking on her phone. I’m confused. It has to be close to one a.m., but I figure she’s talking to the friend who owns the cabin she’s staying at.

  “No, no,” she’s saying softly, but there’s a slight edge in her voice. “I told you, I’m just at Viv’s cabin.”

  I realize she’s not talking to a friend, so she’s obviously lying to someone—a boyfriend, maybe. I stand by the doorframe with McKay by my side. I suddenly feel foolish that I haven’t even asked her if she’s seeing someone. I didn’t notice a wedding ring, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Anne Marie looks at me a little guiltily under hooded eyes, as if I’ve caught her doing something wrong. “I’ve got to go,” she says into the phone, and hangs up.

  I walk over and sit next to her, the mattress squeaking. McKay follows me back in, sitting in front of me and giving me the hairy eyeball again. I ignore him. “Your boyfriend?” I ask her.

  “Not exactly,” she growls, and looks down at her phone. She moves her thumb up the side like she’s about to hit the off button, but before she finds it, the screen lights up again with Jeffrey O’Brien’s name flashing across the screen.

  She quickly hits the ignore option, then turns it off. I’m momentarily confused as to why my boss is calling her phone so late at night when I realize that he’s just calling her back and that he’s the one she was just talking to. It dawns on me how dense I’ve been. She’s seeing my boss. I look at her, my mouth partially open in disbelief.

  “It’s over with him,” she says. “I’m so tired of it anyway. He’s never going to leave her.” She slides her hair tie off her hair, runs her fingers through her braid to unweave it. It’s long, full, and wavy like Ali’s. I’ve wanted to see her run her fingers through that hair all night. Now she does it when I’ve just realized she’s sleeping with my damn boss. “Just forget that,” she says indifferently, then leans over to kiss me.

  Panic flutters through me. I stand up, holding my palms up in a stop gesture, my longing flip-flopping into plain old fear and anger. There’s no way I am risking my job by sleeping with the boss’s mistress, even if I am shocked about the whole thing. I thought Jeff and Jessie were happily married.

  “What?” she asks, surprised that I’m backing away from her. “I shouldn’t have answered it, but he was going to keep calling if I didn’t. I’m sorry. I should have just turned it off earlier. Like I said, it’s pretty much over anyway. Look,” she says, punching away at her phone, “I’m deleting him. There, I should have done that a while ago.”

  “It’s fine, really. But he”—I point at the phone and shake my head—“he’s my boss. You realize that, right?”

  “I do,” she says, shrugging.

  “Come on,” I say, heading for the door. I wonder if she actually thinks that my knowing about her screwing my boss would somehow add to the attraction, that I would want to play some competitive male game, willing to bash antlers with my boss over her. “Let’s just call this a night,” I mumble.

  “But, Reeve . . .” she begins, but doesn’t finish, probably because I’m already out the bedroom door.

  • • •

  She has no choice but to follow me. She stays in the room for a moment while I wait for her at the front door. Finally she comes out, not looking directly at me. I open the door and let the brisk air rush in. I realize I’ve lost something with her for good, like a beautiful bull trout slipping from my palms back into frigid waters. When we get to her car, she asks me if she can call me, just in case she has any questions for her article.

  “On the canine program?” I ask.

  She shakes her head sheepishly. There’s a dishonesty in her eyes that bothers me, and I realize I’m upset at the way she’s been using me, but it feels more like an ache—a wistfulness or a loneliness—than an actual anger. After all, I have no right—had we slept together, I’d be using her too in a way. “About the other thing,” she answers.

  “No,” I simply say, “I don’t think so.”

  She turns around, gets into her car, and shuts the door. She doesn’t bother to roll down the window or even look at me. With the sound of her engine revving, I feel a deep frustration coupled with a strange relief that I’m returning to the normalcy of what I know—my dog and me in my uncomplicated cabin. I watch her taillights as she drives away, swallowing back a familiar taste of loneliness, the same one I felt the day my dad moved out, the same one I felt the day Ali and I
split up.

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Monday

  THE TWO-HOUR DRIVE from Kalispell to Missoula begins by winding around Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi in the lower forty-eight. It strikes me as funny how all locals repeat that piece of information like it’s a badge of honor. A silly legend has it that a large eel-shaped monster, like the Loch Ness, inhabits the lake.

  It is a gorgeous lake, though, turquoise green in parts and sparkling clear near the shoreline. Old timbers crisscross on the lake bed like giant old bones, and when the water is perfectly still, you can see them. In fact, some logs originally came from a timber mill operation in Somers from the early 1900s. The logs sank to the bottom of the lake and have been preserved for over a hundred years, and they’re impressive and beautiful enough that companies are trying to remove them to sell, since they were cut at the turn of the twentieth century.

  Flathead Lake is also surrounded by cherry orchards exploding in white flowery blooms in the spring, then turning yellowish orange like the color of a sunset in the fall. That’s the way they are now, rows of neatly planted, fiery-leaved trees rolling down hills toward the shoreline. I’m reminded again of the power the beauty of the Northwest has in casting spells that pull you out of yourself, and some quote Reeve used to say comes to me: To the desert go prophets and hermits. “But I go to the mountains,” he’d say.

  The scenery almost makes me forget for a moment why I’m heading to Missoula, but eventually I drive through Polson at the southern tip of the lake, then several smaller towns—Ronan, St. Ignatius, Arlee—most of them located within the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. Unlike Browning, which is huddled in the windswept brown plains of eastern Montana, the Salish and Kootenai reside on fruitful, lush land with the impressive Mission Mountain Range jutting up to the sky and framing the east side of the large valley. As I get closer to Missoula, my mission becomes more potent.