Heart of Ice

to anyone who doesn’t fit into your predetermined plan. Bitch! Do you even remember Sarah? Do you ever think about her? Pretty soon you will. Believe me, it will be the last thing you ever think about!

He heard his wife stirring. Olivia was coming down the stairs. He minimized the window and opened another file. He looked up and smiled.

“Hi, baby,” she said, “it’s late. I want you to come to bed.” Her beautiful dark skin glistened from a bath. She smelled of the faintest hint of lavender. As she put her hand on his shoulder and tugged, her nipple protruded from the slit of her robe.

Michael looked in her eyes. “Hold that thought,” he said. “I’ll be right up.”

“You better. I’m a lonely girl.”

“I’ll power down now.”

Olivia disappeared up the stairs and he went back to Jenna Kenyon’s blog. He waved the curser over the box that said “post.” It was so tempting. He wanted so much for that girl to know that her fate was something to fear. Her future belonged to him.

He closed out the blog without saving it.

No need to warn her, of course. No need to get caught.

Chapter Fifty-three

Something was wrong and Olivia Barton could feel it in her bones. The first indicators were trivial, silly almost. She smelled cigarette smoke on Michael’s clothes and asked him about it. He said someone at work smoked in the conference room. She knew that was a lie. Human Solutions, like all California employers, offered a totally smoke-free environment. She figured he’d been stressed out and started smoking again. It pained her. He’d quit before Danny was born.

“I want to live a long life to take care of my boy,” he said.

Why are you smoking now? What’s going on with you?

As the uncharacteristic behaviors escalated, she began to worry. Worry turned into action. She knew that some wives pick their husband’s pockets hoping to find something that will indicate a love affair. Olivia knew something was awry with Michael, but an intimate physical betrayal was simply not at the top of her list. She sought more clues as to the changes in his behavior that she worried indicated a possible breakdown. Something was wrong. She wondered if there had been some trigger that had brought back problems long since buried.

She’d seen an episode on Dr. Phil about repressed memory syndrome and how childhood trauma is frequently revisited in adulthood. Sometimes a woman or man relives the incidents of the past that they’ve never quite resolved. They become stuck in dramas that quietly play in their heads. No one knows it. No one but the victim. Shame is a silencer.

The things that told Olivia that a problem was percolating were small but powerful. She remembered how she’d noticed on at least two occasions that Michael had stripped the bed of its sheets and laundered them. One time, he said he’d spilled coffee. Another time, when she detected the smell of urine, he said that Simon, the cat, had peed on the bed. It was possible, of course. But Simon never did it again. He went missing shortly after that.

All of that would have been believable if not for the obvious lie. She looked at the online report from the state of California that indicated how much money was drawn from their bank account for the Fast Pass, an electronic transponder that allowed access to carpool lanes and expressways for a fee.

“What’s with all the trips on the Fast Pass down to San Diego? You don’t have that region,” she said referring to his service territory for Human Solutions.

He looked at her, then down at the printout. “Nope. Must be an error. I’ve heard about a bunch of transponders that have sent screwed-up signals to the reader. Remember that article in the Times?”

She looked at him with blank eyes.

“We talked about it, Olivia.”

She searched her memory, but she knew that there had been no discussion. His insistence alarmed her.

“I guess so,” she said, finally. “I’ll call them tomorrow and straighten it out.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll do it. I hate paying for something we didn’t use and I’ll let them know that we won’t stand for it. Stupid government computing systems. Jeesh, I’d like to consult for them and see if we couldn’t save the taxpayers some dough.”

His little rant satisfied Olivia until she caught him in what had to be a lie. It was a crumpled cash receipt for coffee from a San Diego Hardee’s restaurant. The date was the same day as the date on the Fast Pass report.

He had, in fact, been there. He had to have been. But why? Why did he lie?

There was something else that ate at her. When he arrived home from Dixon, he came with only one bag.

He’d left for Tennessee with two. The larger of the two was a garment bag that held three pressed long-sleeved shirts and a pair of suits—though, depending on the client, he usually only wore a suit the first day. The second was a smaller bag with wheels that held his socks, underwear, and shaving supplies.

“What happened with your bag?” she had asked, eager to get him unpacked and the suitcases put away so they didn’t hog the space of their small master bedroom.

“I must have left the other in the car.”

She knew that was wrong. “No, I just looked in the car. Empty.”

“Damn that airline.” Michael’s face started its slow turn to red. “They probably lost the other piece.”

Olivia wanted to ask how it was that he didn’t notice that he’d come home with only half of what he brought. But she held her tongue.

Something wasn’t right. Why invent a story? When concern morphs into fear, a woman revisits the things that bothered her only a little.

When he was sleeping she snuggled up next to him, spooning his back. She flicked the hair at the nape of his neck and looked closely at the row of small circular scars. There were five. They were in perfectly spaced sequence.

Dear God, what did they do to you?

Michael felt his wife’s touch and the warmth of her body and breath on his back. He rolled over and kissed her.

“I love you,” he said.

She whispered back the same words.

He rolled over and pressed his body against her, nuzzling her. He smelled, as always, of mint toothpaste and Irish Spring. He explored her body with his hands, whispering all the while how much he adored her. But as he did so, Olivia’s own interior monologue was at odds with the moment.

What happened to you, baby? What did they do to you? Why are you slipping away? Where are you going?

In the dim light of their bedroom she could see his handsome face as he made love to her, his eyes intense, his body taut and hard where hers was soft and smooth.

“I love you, Olivia,” he said, “I love you more than you know.”

“I love you, too.”

Again, the monologue that she had running in her head: