by Dale, Lisa
“Sure,” he said, and to prove the point, he reached out and slipped one of the prettier keys from its nail. He placed it in her hand. It was a fat black skeleton key, the top shaped like a four-leaf clover. “I found this one when I was cleaning out an old funeral home.”
“Some good luck,” she said.
He chuckled.
She reached out and ran her fingers along the bottoms of the keys, so they tinkled a little like muted bells. Her hand stopped at a particularly long key with chunky teeth and a fat handle. “What about this one?”
“I don’t know what it’s to,” Will said. “I bought it off a guy who picks old shipwrecks as a hobby. He said this came from a wreck at the bottom of Lake Champlain. Probably from the Revolutionary War. But I can’t know for certain.”
“Oh wow,” she said, and she touched it gently. “How long have you been collecting keys?”
“Here was my first,” he said, lifting a small skeleton key from the corner of the board. “I found it in the attic of my mother’s old house. It’s nothing fancy. Just your basic skeleton. But it just … I don’t know … I had to keep it.”
“God—you’re right. I never thought about it before. These are beautiful.”
He smiled. “Careful. It’s easy to fall in love with them.”
“And you have no idea what any of them go to? What they open?”
“The usual things. Doors. Cabinets. Jewelry boxes. Safes.”
“But you don’t know anything specific about these keys.”
“For the most part, no.” He reached out to touch one. “Every one of them has a story. I just don’t know what any of them are.”
She turned away from the board to look at him. She wanted to touch him, to lay her palm against his face. Will collected keys because they were beautiful and they meant something to him. Each key had a purpose. They gave privacy: they locked people out of rooms. They gave punishment: they locked people in.
“Pick one,” he said.
She looked at him, disbelieving.
“Pick one. It’s yours.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t.”
“Really,” he said.
She looked over the keys on the wall, all of them beautiful in their own ways. A rush of greed swept over her. But she didn’t reach out her hand. “Thanks,” she said. “But—”
“You don’t have to decide now.”
She bit the corner of her lip, trying to convey her apology with her eyes.
“Come on,” he said. “The ER bills by the minute. And the operating table is ready to go.”
He led her back to the kitchen. They sat together at the wooden table, where he had set down a plate, ice cube, paper towel, and tweezers.
“Ready?”
Her heart skipped—not the big and terrible gurgling she’d felt sometimes over the last few days, but instead a quieter kind of tremor. She’d never done well with needles or stitches. It wasn’t pain that made her nervous, but the sense of not being able to control it. “Could you … um … ?”
“What?”
“Would you mind coming to sit next to me instead of across from me? I don’t want to see what you’re doing.”
“No problem,” he said, and he slid his chair close to hers. Even after the day’s work, his scent appealed to her—something soapy not quite masking the smells of earth, sunshine, and barn.
She slipped her right hand across her body and he took it. He pressed the ice cube into her palm—the cold stung. She held her breath and squeezed her eyes closed. She sat as still as possible. His shoulder touched hers.
“Okay?” he asked.
She opened her eyes. “Fine,” she said lightly.
He laughed. “You had your eyes closed. I haven’t even done anything to you yet.”
“Just tell me you’re as good at surgery as you are at antiques.”
“This? Surgery?” He moved the ice a bit lower in the valley of her palm. “This is nothing.”
“Oh, so you do this kind of thing all the time,” she said. She wanted to keep him talking, to train her mind away from his closeness and heat.
“I’ve patched up my fair share of injuries. Sprained ankles. Hornet stings. I even delivered a baby once.”
“No way.”
He nodded, moved the ice again. “Scout’s honor. It was a little girl.”
She glanced over at their hands, hers resting in his, the faint sheen of water from melting ice. As he told her the story of delivering the baby, she let herself look at him. His hair had been sun-lightened and kissed with the slightest undertones of strawberry. His eyes were the most unusual shade she’d ever seen. They were the kind of gray-green that could go unnoticed in casual conversation, but when she looked at them—really looked—their color was shimmery, elusive, the color of a river on an overcast day.
At some point, she’d stopped listening to his story—and started listening to the story between the words. She saw his rapid blinking, his dilated pupils, his almost imperceptible fidgeting. It was only after she spoke that she realized she’d interrupted him.
“Will, what is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“What? Nothing.”
“Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
She looked away from him, anchoring her gaze to the table before her. “I always do that. I’m sorry.”
“Tell me why you think something’s wrong.”
“Your breath. It’s more shallow than usual. Plus, you’re blinking more than six to eight times per minute.”
“You’re counting?”
“No. I can just tell.” She curled her fingers closed. “Is my being here making you nervous?”
Will sighed heavily. When she ventured to look at him again, she was taken aback by the firmness of his stare. “You don’t make me nervous, Lauren Matthews.”
She felt the blood rising to her face. Heat that had been tucked safely away, just out of her mind’s reach, now flashed sweet and sharp though her whole body. “Some people are uncomfortable around me. You know—because of the people-reading thing.”
“I’m not some people.”
“But you wouldn’t be the first guy who didn’t know quite what to do with me.”
“If you’ve met a guy who didn’t know what to do with you … ” His voice trailed off. He lifted the ice from her palm, put it back down again. There was grit in his voice when he spoke. “Fine. I admit it. I am nervous right now. I’m worried that I’ll hurt you. With the splinters.”
They were quiet a long moment. Lauren’s head was spinning. Her blood felt hot. Will’s shoulder pressed against hers, unrelenting contact. Her focus had narrowed to that single distracting spot. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t you have a wife and a brood of kids living here with you in this big house?”
He laughed a little. “So now you want answers.”
“I can guess them,” she teased.
“No need.” He lifted the ice from her palm, set it down on the plate. “I was seeing someone for a while, off and on. But then we ended up more off than on. Which was okay by me.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else,” he said. He squeezed her hand; her skin tingled. “If the patient is properly anesthetized, I’m going to operate now.”
She tensed up.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”
She laughed, and then she turned her head away, to look out the window and watch the cows across the street ruminating on their dinners. He began to work the slivers of wood out of her skin—a slight pinch and sting. She couldn’t bring herself to watch, but she knew from his focus and grip that he was efficient and not at all squeamish. When she tried to draw her hand back—an involuntary gesture—he clasped it more firmly. She tried not to wince.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry.” He eased his grip. “Having trouble with this one. It’s deep.”
“No worries,” she said, but her toes curled inside her shoes.
She sat quietly while he worked. She closed her eyes, gave in to the unpredictable sensations. When at last she heard the sound of the tweezers hitting the plate, she didn’t open her eyes right away. Beside her, Will made no move to get up. She felt him trace a slow line from the top of her middle finger all the way down to the heel of her palm. Heat—heavy and wet as a summer afternoon—burned through her. And when she opened her eyes, Will’s face filled her vision.
He, too, seemed to be caught in a question. But he didn’t lean forward, didn’t make good on the promise his eyes told. Instead, he recovered, curled his hand around her until her fingers were closed in a fist, and then he drew away. On the plate between them, the ice cube had melted. He picked up the dish and carried it to the sink.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.
She barely heard him. Frustration was a tightening knot inside her. Will had wanted to kiss her—she’d wanted him to. But even though he might have been physically attracted to her, he didn’t like her enough to want to kiss her. The understanding stung far deeper than a splinter under her skin.
She pushed out her chair and went to her purse, which she’d dropped on the countertop when she came in. She pulled her phone from its designated pocket to glance at her new messages. To her dismay, there were none. She opened an e-mail she’d read earlier and perused it again.
“We have to put the dresser away,” she said as she scrolled through the images on her phone’s screen. “I’m assuming we’re bringing it into that old barn out back?”
“It’s okay. I don’t need your help. I can do it myself.”
“Why? What’s out there?”
“Nothing. A barn.”
She shrugged. “Okay. I really need to get back. I’m going out with Maisie tonight.”
He wiped his hands on a towel, then started across the room. His car keys had been hooked to a loop of his jeans with a carabiner; they jingled when he pulled them off. “Then what are we waiting for? I’m not keeping you prisoner here.”
“Will …
He stopped in the doorway that led to the foyer.
“Can you ask Arlen if he’ll see me tomorrow?”
He glanced at the phone in her hand. “Work bothering you again?”
She nodded.
His sigh was both impatient and resigned. “I’ll ask him. Again. But—look—why don’t you write him a note or something? In your own words, so he’ll know what he’s expecting if he does agree to see you.”
“Thank you. I will.”
He pointed at her before he walked out of the room. “Next time we do this, you wear gloves,” he said.
Lesson Seven: When reading a person, whether someone you know well or a complete stranger, it’s important to keep in mind that there is more to talking than just truth or lies. There’s a spectrum of truthfulness, ranging from hard fact to statements made without perfect confidence to blatant fabrications. Most people know the difference between the truth and a lie. But it’s the in-between—those words uttered between truth and lies—where you can gather the most information.
CHAPTER 7
When the mail carrier came to the antiques shop in the evening, the cardboard envelope she’d dropped on the counter had been stuffed full nearly to bursting. The woman, who had dark skin and darker, mirthful eyes, rapped her knuckles against the counter a few times and smiled. “Hey, Arlen. Looks like you got yourself some fans.”
He opened the envelope when she was gone, pulling the cardboard tab like the cord of a lawn mower. Among dozens of envelopes, big and small, a letter from his lawyer was inside. It was printed on soft cream paper. The language was thick as molasses and about as straightforward as a figure eight, but Arlen managed to piece out the basic meaning. The lawyer was sending photocopies of documents pertaining to Arlen’s application for compensation with the State of New York. He hoped to hear something soon. The lawyer knew Arlen needed the money (that he had uncommon need for financial restitution, given the extremely damaging repercussions of an unjustifiable conviction). But in the meantime—this part Arlen understood with no problem—the law office had received some letters from the public, enclosed herein.
One by one, Arlen wedged a pen into the envelopes to open them. There were some drugstore cards scrawled with phrases of encouragement. A bundle of drawings done in crayon, children’s hands traced to look like birds. There was a sheet of lined paper written in the beautiful, flowing penmanship of a schoolteacher. Some were sealed with stickers, others with tape and fuzz.
He leafed through.
… writing to let you know that I think it’s terrible what happened, and I’m using your case in my intro to criminal law class . . .
… would think that this kind of thing is something out of the Dark Ages . . .
… you’re an inspiration to us all . . .
… enclosed please find a check for a collection taken up at our synagogue . . .
… wishing you all the best . . .
At one point, Arlen had to stop. He couldn’t read the words. For more than a decade he’d thought he was forgotten; but here he was, remembered again.
One man, a student, was going to put Arlen’s story up on his Web site, and he wanted to know: did he have his facts straight? Arlen lowered his head and read:
The trial: Arlen Fieldstone’s case shows us just how easily wrongful convictions can happen—that they can happen to anyone who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. The “evidence” presented against Fieldstone was stacked like this:
A lead from a woman who lived in the building where Fieldstone was staying and who wrongly identified Fieldstone as the man in a police sketch, followed by positive identification from the victim’s housekeeper, although she admitted to not having had a clear view of the man she saw near the property the night of the murder
Unreliable forensic evidence based on dog scent identification when Investigator Derek Hoffman indicated that his scent-decimating dog “Rusty” had found evidence of Fieldstone having been in the victim’s home (which the defendant categorically denied)
Political and social pressure to successfully prosecute a criminal, any criminal, quickly
Weak legal defense counsel and strong prosecution
Arlen put the paper down. He thought: So this is how they’re gonna tell it. It all looked so easy on paper. The tale needed a better ending—something more dramatic and meaningful than He got out of prison: The End. And while some part of him was glad that this student wanted to make his case into a banner against wrongful convictions everywhere, some other part of him didn’t want the story to be told at all. He wanted his life to be everything that was going to happen from here forward, not everything behind. But was that possible?
He gathered up the letters and tucked them back into the envelope. They barely fit. He went to the door, locked it and turned the sign, then climbed the creaky stairs to his apartment alone, the comforting voices of strangers in his mind.
When the sun set in Richmond, the alleyways darkened long before the avenues did, long before the windows of tall buildings stopped reflecting the melon haze of evening. Stoplights at intersections began to stand out brighter and brighter against the dusk, reds growing redder, greens deepening. Good people and bad people and all the people in between stood waiting at bus stops for their ride home or sitting in traffic with their heads propped on their hands.
Lauren showered, cool water and hibiscus refreshing overheated skin. Evenings when she did not stay in to work were rare. But when she did manage a night out with friends, getting ready always verged on sacred—the last glance in the mirror, the fastening of buttons and clasps. She slipped on a black sundress made of cotton so soft and clingy it might have been ink. She hid the circles under her eyes with concealer, she darkened her lashes to a thick black, and she put on the reddest lipstick she could find in her bag.
She thought of Edward, then Will, then Edward again. She looked good and felt eve
n better. She wished that Edward could see her like this, just so she could flaunt the fact that she didn’t need him and was going out for an evening without him. And she wished that Will could see her like this too, because maybe he wasn’t planning to put a move on her anytime soon, but she wanted to make it damn hard for him not to.
She picked up her earrings from the dresser, slipped them in.
She supposed it was natural to compare Edward and Will to each other, if only because they were so very different. Her interest in Edward had been easy, maybe even a little bit expected. It was perfectly ordinary and right that she should be attracted to a man like him: he was good-looking, powerful, moneyed, sure. He was all the things she was. Early on she’d felt that there was a kind of unspoken etiquette between them, rules to guide the dance of courtship, so that she knew what to do and he knew what to do, and there was never any doubt.
Unlike Will, Edward had never once asked her why she got into jury consulting, and she’d never thought to ask him why he practiced law. His admiration had not been easily won; though he made a habit of charming everyone, he respected few. His high standards both terrified her and made her proud. But he’d never asked why she did what she did: it was Will who cared about that. Will, with his worn-out boots and soft heart.
She walked down the stairs, her high black heels clicking against the old pine, one hand trailing along the sturdy banister. Maisie was waiting for her on the couch, watching a sitcom rerun on television.
“Wow.” She clicked off the TV and threw the remote control onto the coffee table. She was wearing dark jeans and a black tank top; her hair was in a ponytail. “You look hot.”
“Thanks.”
“So what’s the deal?” She grinned and reached out to ruffle the bottom edge of Lauren’s dress. “Are we on the prowl? Tell me we are.”
“I think I just need a pick-me-up.”
“In that dress? I’m sure you can get some nice man to pick you up.”
Lauren laughed.
“Why do you need a pick-me-up? Hard day?”
Lauren thought back over the afternoon—watching Will count out cash as fast as a bank teller; hearing for the first time a peahen calling in the top of a tree, the sound raising goose bumps on her arms; and then—that heated flash in Will’s eyes, so taut and elemental that a person didn’t have to be a body-language expert to recognize a desire that raw.