by Dete Meserve
I roll down a window and inhale the smell of the desert—this time of year when the sweet wildflowers aren’t in bloom, the air has a dry, smoky scent. It stirs memories of our first night together in the desert, the heat of his body next to mine, as the wide sweep of the Milky Way arched over us and the velvety black sky studded with stars from horizon to horizon swirled around us.
On that moonless night with clear skies, I’d pointed out a few constellations, including Cygnus, with its gaping black hole at the swan’s heart. Then I showed him Orion and the place where, just off the hunter’s knee, we’d discovered the Witch Head Nebula, a giant nursery where baby stars are born.
“Amazing, right? You have a favorite?” I asked, leaning into him.
“I’m terrible at choices like this,” he said, laughing. “I mean, you’re asking me to choose between a star nursery and a ginormous black hole. Which would you choose?”
I don’t hesitate. “Easy. Star nursery. Think of all the new stars that no one’s ever seen before.”
“Well, if I had to choose a favorite anything out here,” he said, waving his hand from Cygnus in one swath of the sky to Orion in the other, “I wouldn’t choose any of these.”
I looked at him, surprised at his indifference to the mysteries unfolding above us.
He turns to look at me, and a warm desert wind blows past us, ruffling our hair. “I’d choose you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I must be dreaming.
As the sun breaks through the clouds, I crunch through the leaves beneath the tall tamarisk trees until I spot the Summer Triangle cabins hidden behind mounds of gray and golden ribbonwood chaparral.
Ben is standing on the front step of one of them. Leaning against the wooden rail.
Or at least it appears to be him.
I drop the water bottle I’m carrying and hear it thud on the ground.
My heart rate spikes as I try to figure out what I’m seeing. The man’s pants are torn into cutoffs and he’s wearing a sleeveless shirt. He’s looking toward the trailhead, and from a distance his profile looks like Ben, only slimmer.
Is it Ben? Or is my imagination spinning out of control?
I pick up my water bottle and take a few small steps, trying to get a glimpse from another angle; the man’s figure is silhouetted against the rising sun.
He turns his head slightly and then I have no doubt it’s him. I’d know that face anywhere. The hard line of his jaw, the wave of his hair.
Emotions come flooding back all at once. Surprise. Relief. An overwhelming sense that what I’m seeing—what I’m experiencing—isn’t real.
I open my mouth to say his name, but no sounds come out. I swallow hard and try again. “Ben!”
He turns to look at me, and my stomach does a joyous flip.
“Sarah?” he calls out. Even from a distance I see a smile light up his face.
I run as fast as my legs will carry me through the sand and leaves, then scurry up the stairs of the cabin and throw my arms around him, holding him tight. He pulls me in hard, engulfing me in his arms.
“Promise me this isn’t just a . . . dream,” he says, caressing my hair.
I pull back and look at him. He’s sporting a week-old beard and there’s a purple-and-black bruise on his forehead. His normally tanned skin is pale and lined but even so, he is achingly handsome.
My voice is full of emotion. “I’ve missed you.”
Then he folds me back in his arms, his lips grazing my cheek, and suddenly I feel like I’m twenty-two years old again, traveling back in time to our first visit to this cabin. I feel warm and safe in his arms even though I’m not sure why I need safety in a beautiful place like this.
“How did you . . . how are you alive?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he cups my face in his hands and looks at me as if he’s memorizing every detail. Then his blue eyes meet mine and I don’t need words or an explanation for what he’s been through. I can feel it, all the struggle and fear. And pain.
“You’re here,” he whispers.
So many questions are racing through my mind, but I’m lost in one single sensation: I had forgotten what it feels like to be held by him. Not just the physical sensation of my body touching his. I’d forgotten what it felt like to love him. And to feel it back.
His eyes shine with tears. “Zack is okay? You’re both safe?”
For days now, I’ve wondered if I’d ever hear his voice again. But here it is. Warm and steady.
“We’re fine.”
His eyes fall on the meteorite necklace I’m wearing, and his lips lift into the beginnings of a smile. “You opened your Christmas present early.”
“It’s your best present yet.”
He moves a lock of hair from my face. “Wait until you see what else I have for you.”
I pretend not to know about the infinity ring. In that moment I’m also pretending that he’s not a murder suspect. But one thing that isn’t pretend, the thing that surprises me, is the depth of my feelings for him. Standing here, I feel a spark ignite between us, a rush of adrenaline as if I were meeting him for the first time.
“I’m sorry for putting you through all this.” He runs his fingers through mussed hair. That’s when I notice that the sleeves of his black cotton shirt have been ripped off. “It was a mistake coming here. I thought by hiding out for a day or two, I’d be protecting you and Zack. I had no idea I’d end up sick and stranded without food or water. How long . . . how long have I been here?”
“Over a week.”
He closes his eyes and lets that sink in. “A week?” He slowly lowers himself to a sitting position on the wooden steps. “How can a week have passed already?”
I sit beside him and hand him my water. He unscrews the cap and gulps down the entire bottle in under twenty seconds. That’s when I get a good look at the blood-soaked cloth on his left thigh and the open wound on his upper arm.
I have so many questions, but I don’t know where to start, so I ask the one that scares me the most. “Did you kill Rebecca Stanton? Is that why you came here to hide?”
He looks at me, his eyes seemingly bluer than ever. “I did not kill Rebecca Stanton.”
All the evidence points to Ben murdering Rebecca. The fingerprints. An eyewitness. The murder weapon buried in our backyard. And yet in this very moment, I believe he didn’t do it.
What is wrong with me? Have I fallen victim to believing something because I want it to be true, even if the evidence says otherwise?
For a long moment, I sit with him, my hand clasped in his, and pretend the events of the past week were of a waking dream. But I can’t keep my questions in check for very long.
“If you didn’t kill Rebecca, then who did?” I ask finally.
“I have no idea. But I know how it looks. It looks like I did it. And then I went missing . . .”
I draw a deep breath. “Everyone . . . everyone thinks you’re dead, Ben. They found your car abandoned in Joshua Tree.”
His face crumples. He tells me about how Leonard found him sprawled on the cabin floor. About giving Leonard the keys to the car and asking him to get help. How Leonard never returned.
“The sheriff found Leonard’s body in Joshua Tree. Not far from the car,” I tell him.
“Joshua Tree? That’s so far from here . . .”
“They think he got disoriented in the heat. Apparently he had dementia.”
“Dementia.” He closes his eyes as if to shut out the news. His voice is low and troubled. “He saved my life. Brought me food and water. Medicine. Took care of me that first delirious day . . .”
He shifts his body on the steps and winces. I study his thigh, red and swollen, covered in a blood-stained fabric that looks like it came from his shirt.
“Let’s get you to a hospital and have a doctor take a look at that.”
He swallows hard. “Someone is after me, Sarah. And it looks like they’ll stop at nothing to get me. We have to think this
through. It’s not safe for me to be out in the open, even at a hospital. It’s not even safe for you to be with me.”
I scan the wound on his upper arm. It’s not nearly as severe as his thigh but still swollen and scabbed over. “You can’t stay hidden forever. You need medical help.”
“What I really need is something to eat.”
“Of course.” I wonder why I didn’t think of that first. I race back to the car and grab a handful of granola bars, a couple of large water bottles, and a first-aid kit. He devours a bar like it’s a five-star meal and downs the bottle of water.
While I remove the dressing on his thigh and try my hand at cleaning around the six-inch black scab that snakes down his leg, he starts on another granola bar and tells me how he’d been shot while riding in the SUV with Antonio, about hiding in the field by the freeway, then making his way to his car parked at Aurora. He talks about searching in the dark for the Summer Triangle cabins, then climbing through an open window and falling in a heap on the floor.
“In hindsight? It was a mistake,” he says, opening another bottle of water. “But I thought it was the best way to keep you and Zack safe from whoever was after me.”
I have so many questions, but I can’t stop thinking that the smart thing to do is set them aside and get him medical help. I have no idea where the nearest hospital or clinic is, but judging how deep we are in the desert, it has to be at least an hour away. Shouldn’t we get going that direction? I wrap a fresh bandage around his thigh. “I think we should get someone to look at this.”
Ben puts his hand on mine. “Am I a suspect in Rebecca’s murder?”
I don’t answer right away, trying to gauge the best way to tell him that he’s the prime suspect. The only suspect. I can imagine what a harsh blow it’ll be after spending the past week fighting for his life.
“They found the murder weapon, the gun, buried in our backyard by the lilac tree.”
Shock registers on his face. “In our backyard? That’s impossible.”
“And somewhere in our house, they found a photo of Rebecca that had been taken from her apartment.”
“A photo of Rebecca?”
My voice is calm, but I’m on edge. “How did they get there?”
I see the alarm in his eyes. “Someone is trying to make it look like I did it. But I didn’t kill Rebecca. I know why my fingerprints are in the apartment and why there’s an eyewitness who saw me leaving the apartment that morning. Because I had been in Rebecca’s apartment that morning, returning her purse. And when I left, the woman across the hall greeted me. But I did not kill Rebecca. And if the gun that killed her was found in our backyard, then someone planted it there.”
He opens another bottle of water and takes a long slug. Seeing him like this tears at my insides.
“And I never had a photo of Rebecca. So that had to be planted, too,” he says quietly.
His eyes meet mine and he knows the silent question I’m asking, even though I don’t say it aloud. “No, Sarah, Rebecca and I weren’t—nothing ever happened between us.”
Then a sick feeling starts in my stomach and spreads throughout my body. I’m not sure I believe him. “Then why did you erase all the video from our security system? I saw the footage where you asked Zack to help you delete everything.”
His face falls. “You think I erased that drive because I was hiding evidence that I killed Rebecca?” he whispers, incredulous.
I look away, noticing the way the rising sun is beginning to cast long shadows through the trees. “Why else would you erase it?”
I’m afraid of his answer. Because I suspect he doesn’t have one. And then I’ll know that I’ve been wrong to believe him about Rebecca. That maybe he is a murderer after all. And then what will I do?
“I did ask Zack to help me erase the data. There was something I didn’t want you to see on that security footage. But it had nothing to do with Rebecca or her murder.”
“What didn’t you want me to see?”
He’s silent, and when he finally speaks, his tone is quiet and tentative. “After you suggested divorce, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was in shock and anxious, my whole life was spiraling out of control. I couldn’t imagine living without you, Sarah. I still can’t. I couldn’t find my way out of it until I had the idea to get you something that would remind you of what we once were. And what we could be again. I wanted to give you physical proof of what our future could be.”
His words swirl around, enchanting me. “So I bought you a new infinity ring—like the one we lost somewhere here in the desert sixteen years ago—only this time I had it set with that stone you were always talking about, zoisite.
“The jeweler who made the ring came over to the house, and I realized my whole exchange with him was captured by the security cameras. I knew you’d be checking on Zack by scanning through the footage, so I asked him to show me how to erase it.”
He takes my hand in his and something rises within me. A feeling of possibility. For the first time in a long time, I could imagine our future, and it might be better than it is now.
“I wanted the ring to be a surprise. So you’d come back to me.”
CHAPTER FORTY
I’m in awe of the man I thought I knew completely. After so many years together, I thought I knew all he was capable of. Yet here with the tamarisk trees swaying in the gentle wind, I see him in a new, unexpected light. He is a man who was willing to go into hiding so that he could keep Zack and me safe from whoever was targeting our family. He’s tougher than I thought, surviving a serious injury and a harrowing week in the wilderness. And he’s a man determined to win me back.
Even though he’s not holding the ring, I feel him give it to me. As if he’s actually placing it on my finger. And like the moment we both stood beneath the Summer Triangle asterism, I feel infinity yawn in front of us.
He brushes my cheek with the back of his hand. “Will you come back to me, Sarah?”
It feels as though I’m seeing him for the first time. I anticipate his kiss, but it doesn’t come. He’s searching my face, looking for something more.
“You still have doubts about me.”
He’s right. The ring and all he’s been saying is drawing me back to him, but I can’t get past the big question: Is he a murderer?
His face clouds over. “How can I prove to you I didn’t do it?”
I’m not sure what to tell him. There are so many missing pieces to the puzzle that I don’t know where to start.
“Let’s start with how the gun was found in our backyard. If you didn’t put it there, how did it get there?”
The hard line of his jaw twitches. “Someone definitely wants to make it look like I killed Rebecca. But I wonder if the gun was planted Monday night. I heard someone in the backyard, and the neighbor’s dogs were barking like crazy, so I called 911. By the time police arrived, no one was there.”
“Wait.” My pulse quickens. “I recovered a clip from that night where someone blinds the camera in the backyard with a really bright light. You can’t see who it is because they’re in silhouette, but they’re blinding the camera that overlooks the garden where the gun was found.”
“Someone was back there,” he whispers. “Do you have it? The security footage from that night?”
I tell him how someone lured me out of the house by pretending to be him, then broke in and ransacked the place, hunting for the hard drive. When I finish, his face is as white as powder.
“They texted you in code? Our code? Then stole the security footage?”
I shake my head. “Yes to the code. But no to getting the footage. They stole every piece of electronics we own, but I had hidden the drive at work.”
He lifts his gaze. “There’s something on that DVR that someone doesn’t want us to see. But what is it?”
We’re both silent for a long moment, listening to the bluebirds calling out to the sun. The only other sound is the wind rustling the trees.
“I
brought a copy of the footage. Let me get it and show you what I recovered,” I say, rising.
He rises as well, favoring his left leg. He takes both of my hands in his, and there’s a spark in his eye I hadn’t seen in a very long time. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day. Or what truth we’re going to uncover. But I want you to know, you’re the only thing that matters to me.”
He leans in and I’m sure he’s going to kiss me this time, but instead he plants a soft, lingering kiss on my forehead.
There’s a spring in my step as I head back to the car. The question of whether Ben killed Rebecca still hovers around me, but I feel unexpected joy at being with him again and knowing how he feels about me. Are my feelings blinding me from the truth?
I pull the laptop out of the trunk, and as I’m about to close it, I see movement—a slight blur—in the mounds of golden chaparral across the road. I freeze, holding my breath while scanning the area, hoping the motion came from a jackrabbit or even a roadrunner.
I fix my gaze on a sprawling indigo bush fifty yards away. A chill races up my spine. I have the feeling someone is watching me.
The gun feels heavy in my hands as I lift it out of the console. I hold it firmly, my mouth locked in a rigid line, trying to look determined and confident, even though inside I’m on the edge of terrified. I hold the gun casually by my side, as if it’s as natural to be holding a Glock as it is to be carrying a telescope.
If it’s a roadrunner on the other side of those bushes, I’m going to feel ridiculous. But if it’s a person, I want to signal that I’m not an easy target. I walk swiftly back to the cabin, turning around and walking backward, at once terrified that I’m going to see someone in the bushes and equally frightened that I won’t.