So Cold the River

“All right,” she said. “That’s one approach.”

He rubbed his temples again, but this time there was no headache. Why was he snapping at her? Why did he always resort to this, no matter the situation?

“Where are you?” he said.

“With my parents.”

Oh, how he wished she’d said a hotel. Now Paulie could step in and protect her, clean up yet another of Eric’s messes. He was probably enjoying the hell out of it.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good place. If anybody’s looking for you, that will be near the top of the list.”

“They have good security here.”

Indeed they did. They were twenty-six floors up in a restricted-access, luxury condo building overlooking Lake Michigan. Was going to take a damn long grappling hook to get up there.

“Dad’s been making calls,” she said.

“What? Why in the hell is he making calls?”

“To find out about the man who was murdered. Gavin Murray.”

“Damn it, Claire, the last thing I need is your father stirring up more trouble.”

“Really? Because it seems to me what you need is some help, Eric. It seems to me you need some answers. Who hired this guy, and why?”

Grudging silence. She was certainly right on the need for answers, and Paul was well connected in the Chicago legal community. He just might be able to get some.

“Tell him to start with the Bradford family,” he said finally. “Start with Alyssa, and then see who surrounds her. She shut me down today, and it wasn’t her decision. She was following instructions. Her only advice for me was to leave. Real insight, huh? Oh, and she said the old man is dead. Campbell. Or some version or impersonation of Campbell. Whatever the hell he was, he’s dead.”

“What? How?”

“Died today in the hospital, I think. She hung up without offering details.”

“Wonderful. One more person who can’t verify what you’ve told the police.”

“He couldn’t talk anyhow,” Eric said, thinking, except to me. He could talk to me, no problem at all. But let’s not share that with the police just yet.

“Have you heard back on the water test?” she said.

“Not yet. I need to call Kellen back. Then the police.”

“I don’t think you should do that. My father said you shouldn’t.”

“I can’t just blow them off, Claire, you just said that yourself.”

“I didn’t say blow them off. But Dad said that under the circumstances you absolutely should not talk to them again without a lawyer in the room.”

“But I’m just a witness.”

“You’ve told them what you know, right?”

“But he said he had more questions and I—”

“Here are some of his questions, Eric—he wants to know if you have a history of drug or alcohol abuse or violent episodes.”

“What?”

“Those were high on the list of questions when he called me, which was what I was going to explain before, but you cut me off. He seemed disappointed when I told him we were still on good terms. In other words, never say I can’t lie for you.”

Nice shot.

“I can’t believe he called you,” Eric said.

“Well, he did. And when I told my dad what was said, his response was that you need to get a lawyer. Your background isn’t relevant unless they consider you a suspect.”

“He doesn’t think I should talk to them at all?” Eric said, hating to give any credence to Paul Porter’s advice, but recognizing that the man had been a criminal attorney for many years.

“Not if you’ve already given a statement. He said he’ll get a lawyer if you—”

“I can find a lawyer.”

“All right. Great. You need to do that, and then you need to come home. You can’t stay down there anymore. You can’t.”

His response came without any thought: “But the water’s here.”

“The water? Well, take the bottle you have and come home and go to see a doctor! That’s what you need to be doing.”

“I don’t know,” he said, still taken aback by his own strange response. The water’s here? It had left his mouth as if of its own accord.

“What’s not to know? Have you even heard yourself tell me what’s been happening? You’re sick. That water is making you very, very sick.”

The idea was logical enough, sure, but it felt wrong. Leaving felt wrong.

“Anne’s water is different,” he said. “When I drink that, Campbell stays in the past. Stays where he belongs. As long as I don’t drink any more of the original bottle—and I don’t even have that one right now—I’ll be fine.”

“Listen,” Claire said, “either you come back here, or I go down there.”

“That’s probably not a good idea.”

“It’s a hell of a lot better idea than you staying down there alone, Eric. You really want to do that? With everything that’s happening to your body and to your mind, you want to be down there alone?”

No, he didn’t. And the idea of seeing her… that was an idea he’d been trying to keep out of his head for weeks. Stop wanting her, he’d told himself, stop needing her.

“I’m coming down,” she said, firm with conviction now. “I’m going to drive down in the morning, and we’re coming back together.”

He was thinking of the weeks of silence, the way he always waited her out, lasted until she called him so he wouldn’t have to show need or desire. Now here she came again, ready to get in the car and come after him while the incomplete divorce paperwork he had requested floated between them. Why, he wanted to ask, why are you still willing to do this? Why do you want to?

“I don’t know if you should be here,” he said. “Until we understand—”

“I’m going to leave in the morning,” she said. “And I don’t give a shit what we understand until then.”

That actually made him smile. She rarely swore, only when she got fired up about something, and he’d always made fun of her for both that restraint and the periods when she cast it aside. The Super Bowl when the Bears had lost to the Colts, for example.

“I’ll call you when I get close,” she said. “And until I do, can you please just stay around the hotel? Please?”

“All right,” he said, and he was fascinated and ashamed by the way their separation did not cast even a shadow over the conversations they’d had today, by the way she’d slipped so easily and completely back into the role of his wife. There when he needed her. Why?

“Good,” she said. “Stay there, and stay safe.”

40

HE TOOK CLAIRE’S ADVICE and ignored Brewer’s messages, called Kellen instead.

“You in town?” he asked.

“Yeah. Think you could come fill me in on this? I’ve had cops calling me.”

“I’m hanging tight to this hotel,” Eric said. “Preferably with witnesses present.”

It was supposed to be a joke, but Kellen’s silence confirmed that it was a bad one.

“Why don’t you come down here and meet me at the bar,” Eric said.

He agreed to that, and twenty minutes later Eric was sitting in the dark, contained side of the hotel bar when