“I’ll take that as a no,” Jesse
said.
“He’s a nice guy.”
“You’re marrying him because
he’s a nice guy?”
“I’m marrying him because my clock is ticking fast, and he’s the
nicest guy I have found who wants to marry me.”
“You’re a practical person,”
Jesse said.
The overhead light was on in the bedroom, and as Jesse looked at
her naked body, he could see still a faint trace of sweat between her breasts.
“Most women are,” Abby said. “I
always get a laugh out of the
popular mythology about romantic women and practical men.”
Jesse nodded.
“It is sort of laughable,” he said.
“Would it bother him if he
knew?”
“Of course. But he’s no virgin and neither am I and we both know
it.”
“Do you feel like you’re cheating on him?”
“Yes, I guess so, a little.”
“But …”
“But you and I needed to be put to rest.”
“And this was it?”
Abby rolled onto her side and pressed her face against Jesse’s
chest.
“Yes,” she said. “This was
it.”
Jesse smiled and laughed softly.
“What?” Abby said.
“I’m the other guy,” Jesse said.
“The one I want to kill when
Jenn is with him.”
“Irony,” Abby said.
“You’ve always been a real bear for
irony.”
When she was dressed and her makeup was fixed and her hair was in order, Jesse offered to walk her to her car.
“I’m right in front of the Gray
Gull,” Abby said, “and besides,
it seems righter, somehow, if I kiss you good-bye here and go out the door.”
“Sure,” Jesse said.
They kissed, and when they were through, Abby turned and went out the front door without a word.
There were only a few cars in the parking lot. Abby was grateful
to get into her car and out of the wind. She started the engine and put it in gear and drove out of the lot. A red Saab sedan pulled out of the lot behind her. Both cars turned down Front Street.
35
She had been shot twice in the chest, as she got out of her car,
in the driveway of her house on North Side Drive, her body turned toward the back of the car, as if she had turned to see what was behind her. Anthony deAngelo had found her on routine patrol. She had fallen with the car door open, and one foot still caught on the edge of the car. Anthony had seen the car with its interior lights on and stopped to take a look.
“It’s Abby Taylor,” deAngelo
