by Sara Reinke
She could see photographs stuck to the refrigerator door with magnets, including several of Jay with the bright-faced, beaming little girl she recognized from his front stoop. “That’s Emma,” Jay said, noticing where her attention was directed. “My daughter. She’s five, going on thirty.”
He laughed fondly and Jo smiled politely. “She’s beautiful,” she said. “I saw her when I left your house. She was standing on the stoop with your wife.”
Of course, she knew the older, matronly woman she’d seen outside Jay’s brownstone couldn’t possibly be his wife, but she wasn’t sure how to broach the subject otherwise. She hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on Jay’s hand, and he hadn’t said anything to her about having a wife, but obviously his daughter had to have a mother somewhere.
“My wife…” His expression shifted, his brows lifting slightly, his gaze growing distracted and forlorn. “You must mean Marie, my housekeeper. My wife died two years ago.”
He looked stricken even at this brief and passing mention, and Jo could have kicked herself in the ass. Brilliant, Jo, she thought. Could you have possibly picked a worse thing to say?
She started to apologize, but Paul’s footsteps, heavy and quick coming down the stairs, interrupted. “And no phone calls, either, M.K. I mean it,” he called sharply. “I want that chemistry book open and your nose in it until your mom gets home.”
“You are such a dictator!” came a defiant, furious shout from upstairs, just as Paul returned to the kitchen.
He shook his head, sighing heavily as he reached the table. “Teens,” he muttered, looking between Jo and Jay. “I’ll pay either of you to take them home with you.”
* * *
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Paul told Jo, taking a business card out from his wallet and pressing it against her palm. “But here’s my card. I’ll write my home number on the back. My cell’s on there, too. Call me anytime, day or night, if you need anything or see anything you think is suspect.”
“Are you sure?” Jo asked, glancing at Jay uncertainly. “What if he’s still watching me? What if he comes after me again?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Paul said. “It sounds like he was long-gone by the time Jay found you, which means he thinks you’re dead and would have no reason to watch you anymore. I think he’s keeping tabs on several women all at the same time, just looking for the right chance with any of them, so he’s moved on to someone else.” He clapped his hand gently against her shoulder and smiled at her, paternal and reassuring. “Don’t worry. But like I said, you’ve got my numbers. Call if you need anything.”
“Will you let me know if you catch him?” Jo asked.
Paul opened the back door, standing aside to let them exit. “You mean when I catch him,” he said, dropping Jo a wink. “And yes, I will.”
* * *
When they were gone, Paul slipped his cell phone out of his coat pocket and dialed his office. “Hi, Laurie,” he said when his unit secretary came on the line. “I need a background check on a woman, Jobeth Montgomery. I want to set up some surveillance on her.”
He slipped the curtains on the back door window aside with his fingertips and watched Jay’s car back out of the drive. The woman, Jo, sat in the front passenger seat, her eyes still haunted and fearful.
He suspected that she had every damn right to be afraid.
“Yeah, I’m on my way back in,” he said. “But I need you to go ahead and move on this for me. Jobeth Montgomery. I’ve got her address right here…”
* * *
Jay drove Jo back to her house, a small, two-bedroom bungalow in an older, quiet neighborhood tucked among the city’s closest suburbs. He’d followed her here after leaving the hospital earlier in the evening so that she could change out of her work clothes before meeting with Paul.
All along the drive home, an awkward silence filled his car. It had begun to rain, a slight, cold drizzle, and Jo had seemed to distract herself by absently watching drops of moisture bead on the passenger-side window. At last, as Jay pulled into her driveway, she cleared her throat slightly, drawing his gaze.
“Would you like to come inside?” she asked. She glanced down at her hands and picked at the lap of her jeans. “I’m not much of a cook or anything, but it’s suppertime, and I owe you at least a pizza.” She glanced at him and smiled. “At least.”
He laughed, and she added, “I have a bottle of wine I could throw in, too.”
“Sold,” he said.
She was worried, despite Paul’s best assurances that the Watcher would think she was dead and no longer be interested in her. Jay worried, too. In fact, before they had even left Paul’s driveway, he had said something about it. “Maybe you could go and stay with a friend for awhile.”
She’d glanced at him, her brow raised. “Until when? I can’t do that. I can’t live my life, day in and day out, afraid.” She’d frowned. “He’s already taken enough away from me.”
Jay followed her up to her front porch and held the screen door while she fumbled with the key to her deadbolt. “It’s small,” she said of the house, glancing at him apologetically over her shoulder. “It needs a paint job and new carpets, but the mortgage is cheap and I don’t have to answer to a landlord.”
“It’s fine,” he said, stepping into the house behind her. She turned on a tabletop lamp as she crossed through the living room while he stood on the threshold, admiring the small, modestly furnished room. “It’s very nice,” he called after her.
A light came on in the adjacent room; a dining room that had been converted into a home office, to judge by the cluttered bookshelves and computer desk. Jo poked her head through the doorway at him. “Yeah, I like to call the look ‘working-class chique,’” she said, rolling her eyes and ducking out of view again. He laughed, watching her shadow bob on the wall as she shrugged her way out of her coat. “Take off your coat, toss it on the loveseat there. Make yourself at home. I’ll grab some wine glasses.”
Jay draped his overcoat against the back of the fir-green couch, first fishing his cell phone out of his pocket. He winced to see he had seven missed calls. Probably the office, he thought. Andy in a panic, wearing his thumb out on the speed-dial. Jay was an editor at a publishing company. End-of-the-month deadlines were looming, and he couldn’t really afford the afternoon he’d taken off to find Jo. No doubt his senior supervisor, Andy, had worked himself into a near-frantic state at Jay’s absence.
Andy and work could wait until the morning. Jay hit his speed-dial for home, and smiled broadly as Emma answered.
“Daddy!” she exclaimed brightly in his ear, making him wince.
“Hey, lamb,” he said. “How was school today?”
“It was good,” she said. “Nathan Brighton ate a bug during recess and we all got to pay a quarter and watch if we wanted. Mrs. Dickens found out and got really mad. She made him give everyone their money back.”
Her first economics lesson, then, Jay thought, shaking his head. “Did you do your spelling words already?”
“Yes, Daddy. Marie helped me with them. Where are you?”
Jay glanced around the living room. “I’m…at a friend’s house,” he said.
“Your friend, that lady?” Emma asked, sounding absolutely delighted. Jay winced to imagine Marie’s face, if the housekeeper happened to be within earshot. “Is it that lady, Daddy? Is it?”
“Yes, Em, and her name is Jo. Will you tell Marie that I won’t be home for supper, please?”
“Why don’t you bring Jo home for supper with you?” Emma asked.
Jay laughed. Marie would love that, he thought. “Well, there’s an idea. Maybe another time. Will you tell Marie for me, please?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
They exchanged “I-love-you’s” and smooches, and Jay smiled as he returned the cell phone to his coat pocket. “Your daughter?” Jo asked from behind him.
He turned, caught off guard, and found her standing in the doorway,
a bottle of wine in one hand, two glasses held by the stems in the other. She smiled at him, curious and inquisitive, and he smiled back. “Yeah. I just wanted to check in.”
Her smile faltered somewhat. “Do you need to go?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about your family―”
“No, it’s alright. It’s fine, really.” He reached for the wine bottle. “I’ll open if you pour.”
* * *
Two hours later, they had almost polished off the bottle of chardonnay, and had yet to order pizza. They sat together on the sofa, both of them loose-tongued and giddy from the wine, talking and laughing easily together.
“I’m glad you stayed,” Jo said, downing the last of the wine in her glass. “Thank you for that, Jay. I know your brother said not to worry, but I…I still felt funny about walking into this house alone.”
She reached over the back of the couch, parting two blades of the venetian blinds with her fingers so she could peek out toward the darkened street outside her window. She had been doing this periodically and unconsciously ever since she sat down. Jay caught her hand, closing his fingers gently against hers and drew her arm back down toward her lap. “Paul wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it,” he said gently. “No one’s out there. You’re safe now.”
She looked at him. She was so damn beautiful and so damn near, and the wine made Jay feel reckless and bold. He wanted to lean toward her, touch her face, brush her auburn hair back from her brow and kiss her. He forced himself to tear his eyes away from her, to look down into his wine glass and turn loose of her hand. Lucy, he thought, an image of his wife’s face―wide-open smile, bright eyes and short-cropped hair―flashing through his mind, overriding the wine, smothering any desire that had arisen.
He still kept a bottle of her perfume in his bureau. Sometimes late at night, long after Emma was tucked into bed and Marie had left for the night, he would draw the half-empty container up to his face, close his eyes and draw the simple, sweet fragrance of Lucy against his nose. The ache for her, his loneliness, his need would sometimes grow so immense, he couldn’t breathe. Lucy.
“Have you always been able to do it?” Jo asked softly, hesitantly, drawing him from his thoughts. “What you did for me…?” He nodded and her brows lifted in gentle sympathy. “How many times has it happened?”
“Counting you? Four,” he said. “But none of them have been like you.” She looked puzzled, and he continued. “You’re the only one I’ve ever been able to bring back all the way, the way you were before, like nothing had happened.”
“What were the others like?” she asked.
Jay tilted his head back and polished off his wine. “They were horrible,” he whispered. “They were better off dead.”
He told her about Danny Thomas, his brother’s childhood friend, the first person he’d ever resurrected. He told her about Eileen O’Connell, a high school friend who had accompanied him to the prom. He hadn’t realized that she’d harbored a crush on him until the night of the dance, when she’d tried to kiss him and he’d rebuked her advances as gently as he had been able.
“But I hurt her,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “There’s no kind way to do that, and I should have just let her. She was a nice girl, and it wouldn’t have hurt anything.” He sighed, forking his fingers through his hair. “I hurt her, and she drank too much spiked punch. She got drunk, and left the dance with some guy who just wanted to get in her pants. I guess she let him. He must have given her something, too. More alcohol and some kind of pills. I don’t know. I tried to find her, but when I did…”
He remembered it so clearly: finding the hotel room ajar, the guy long since bolted and gone. Eileen’s dress and crinoline were tossed in a heap on the floor, her panties and bra in a tangle just inside the doorway, her shoes by the bed. Eileen had been slumped on the floor of the bathroom, naked, her face hidden behind the toilet. She had vomited while unconscious and choked to death; a puddle of thin, frothy bile was pooled around her face and dried against her chin.
Jay had known Eileen since third grade. They had both made plans to go to college together in Missouri the following year. She had always been someone he’d taken for granted; he had looked at her ten-thousand times and never once had truly seen her. His heart had broken with shame and remorse as he’d stood in the doorway of the hotel bathroom. His hands had thrummed with unyielding command, and he’d wept as he’d touched her and then blacked out.
“When I woke up, she was alive again,” he said to Jo. “But not like she’d been. It was just like with Danny. It wasn’t her. It was like her body had returned, but her mind…her soul were still gone. And then the third time…”
He set his wine glass aside on a coffee table, his eyes closed, his brows furrowed. God Almighty, he didn’t want to think about the third time. He settled for simply shaking his head. “I can never bring them all of the way back,” he said, and he looked up at Jo. “Not until you.”
Jo touched his face. “I’m sorry, Jay,” she said softly.
This time, he couldn’t muster the resolve to turn away from her. He leaned toward her, slipping his hand against her cheek, canting his face to meet hers. She closed her eyes, the tip of her nose brushing his, her breath soft against his lips, and then he kissed her. Her lips parted and the tip of his tongue delved into her mouth. She whimpered softly, a wordless invitation, and Jay leaned her back against the couch, kissing her more deeply, cradling her face between his hands. Her fingers curled in his hair, drawing him near. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and the friction of her hips against him as she settled herself more comfortably stoked an immediate, urgent reaction within him.
Take me to bed, or lose me forever. Lucy’s voice came unbidden to his mind. He remembered lying above her, much as he did now with Jo. She’d looked up at him, her large, dark eyes framed by a tousled headful of short, dark curls. She had a porcelain complexion, with bright spots of color that would bloom in her cheeks whenever she was excited, angry or aroused. He remembered Lucy wrapping her long, lean legs around his middle, her arms around his neck. Her fingers had twined in his hair and they had laughed together in between fervent kisses, nearly nose to nose. Take me to bed, or lose me forever, she’d said to him, and her lips had unfurled in a wide, mischievous smile.
He drew away from Jo abruptly, wide-eyed and breathless, and she blinked at him in surprise. “I…I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just…I can’t…”
He stood, practically scrambling to his feet and reached for his coat. “I…I should go.”
Jo blinked at him, her eyes bewildered and wounded, as he slipped his arm into his coat sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. Her voice sounded peculiar, somewhat raspy, as if she hovered on the verge of tears, and he turned to her, meeting her abashed gaze.
“It’s not you,” Jay said, hating how clumsy and insincere his excuse would sound to her―because it sounded exactly the same way to him. “It’s me. I… I haven’t been with a woman since my wife died.”
She looked up at him, her brows lifted in sympathy. “Two years ago, in a car accident,” he added, answering the inevitable question before she had to feel uncomfortable asking it. “I was in a coma afterwards for awhile. Lucy died at the scene. I had no idea.”
Jo rose to her feet and went to his side. “I’m sorry, Jay,” she whispered.
He smiled, helpless against her as he looked into her eyes. “Me, too,” he said. When she smiled, something in him softened for the first time in two years. A part of his heart he’d nearly forgotten about warmed. My God, he thought. I could fall in love with this woman.
“Are you okay to drive home?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Probably not.” But it’s going to be a whole lot safer than if I stay here for the night. He struggled not to look at her too long―because if he did, he’d kiss her again, and then Christ only knew where things would end―and pretended to busy himself fishing his gloves out of his pockets. “But I
should go anyway.”
She opened the door for him. “Yes, Jay,” she said, smiling somewhat forlornly. “You probably should.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I’m sorry I missed supper tonight,” Jay said softly, leaning over to brush his lips against his daughter’s brow as he tucked her into bed. He had arrived home much later than he’d intended, and only minutes before Emma’s bedtime. He’d murmured thanks to Marie as she’d shrugged on her overcoat and left for the evening, and hadn’t missed the way she sniffed noticeably as he’d walked her to the foyer. Even though he’d downed at least half a box of mints on the way home, apparently Marie’s keen nose still detected the wine on his breath. To judge by her disapproving frown, she also apparently knew exactly where he’d been while drinking the wine. Knowing Marie had almost certainly called Paul to report another “drinking binge” with “that trashy redhead,” Jay mentally braced himself.
“It’s alright, Daddy,” Emma replied, snuggled in up to her chin beneath the ruffled edge of her pink gingham bedspread. They had just finished her bedtime story, Jay’s ten-thousandth rendition of Sleeping Beauty. “Marie made peas. She put mushrooms in them, too.” The wrinkle of Emma’s nose clearly indicated this was a double-dose of disgust, in her opinion.
“Hopefully, she made more than just that,” Jay said, looking down at Emma’s bright eyes and upturned face. Everyone always said she looked like him, but he saw more of Lucy in her. Sometimes her resemblance to her mother was so apparent, it pained him.
Emma nodded as she drew her teddy bear, Mr. Cuddles, more closely beneath her chin. “She made chicken with gravy.” Any of the varieties of gourmet sauces Marie enjoyed fixing qualified as no more than “gravy” to Emma’s five-year-old sensibilities.
“She left you a plate in the fridge,” Emma added, and Jay nodded.
“She told me, yes,” he said. He rose to his feet and leaned over, just as Emma tilted up her face and puckered her lips, ready for a good-night kiss.
“I love you, Daddy.”