The Most Dangerous Thing

highway, which is part of an enormous mall. She, Karl, and Annabelle have come here for virtually every talking animal movie and Pixar film made over the last two years. It is a ridiculous place to try to have a conversation, she thinks, especially as the ticket takers begin to eye her skeptically. Is it so unusual for a woman to wait in the lobby of a movie theater?

An African American man comes through the door, sixty or so, and her stomach lurches. This is it . This is the moment she will be called into account, told that the man they left in the woods to die was someone’s father, grandfather, cousin. She will counter, of course, share the horrible truth about what he did to Go-Go, but it doesn’t balance out, not quite. Unless Go-Go’s death balances it out. Chicken George died in a night. Go-Go spent years dying.

The man walks by, gets in the ticket line. She glances at her watch. The mystery client is going to stand her up after all. She feels relieved for some reason. He doesn’t want to see her. He has nothing to say to her. This has nothing to do with Chicken George.

She checks her e-mail on her phone, checks her messages. Nothing. Now she’s angry. She could have had this hour with Annabelle at the house. They could be sitting in the kitchen, dyeing eggs, baking. She’s getting irritated at this phantom client whose on-again, off-again decisions have affected her. She begins playing a game of Angry Birds, feeling like a very angry bird herself.

“Mrs. Robison?” a man’s voice inquires.

She looks up into the face of a white-haired man, broad shouldered, quite handsome. He is wearing a turtleneck beneath a well-tailored camel’s hair coat.

“Yes.” She doesn’t even bother to correct him, say it’s Ms.

“I’m sorry I’m late. It’s farther than I realized, the walk here. It looked so close on a map. And I felt I was taking my life in my hands, walking along the shoulder. I thought there would be a sidewalk.”

“There often aren’t,” she says, feeling stupid. “I mean-in the newer developments.” She cannot imagine what this immaculately groomed man has to do with Go-Go. Perhaps he senses her confusion, for he extends his hand. He is the kind of man who takes another person’s hand in both of his, holds it, making eye contact.

“I am Andrew Burke,” he says. “Gordon Halloran knew me as Father Andrew, but I left the church several years ago. Last fall I asked Tess Monaghan to find him so he could do me a favor of sorts. He said he would. Then he changed his mind, and now he’s dead. A possible suicide. I feel horrible about that.”

Perhaps because he’s a man who seems skilled at giving comfort, Gwen also wants to comfort him. “No one knows, for sure. If it was a suicide.”

“But you think it is.”

She wants to tell the truth. “Sometimes you can’t know.”

He shakes his head. “True enough. But I feel that I inadvertently pressured him. You see-we spoke, after Tess found him. I wasn’t supposed to call, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m afraid I frustrate her, with my inability to follow her instructions. But I wanted to hear from him-what I needed to hear. He ended up telling me things, things I think I should tell someone close to him. I considered his mother, but I don’t think Doris could bear it. When I heard about you from Tess, I realized that’s who I needed. A friend, someone who cared enough about Go-Go to ask questions after he died. Besides, you’re a part of the story, aren’t you?”

Gwen wants to run, dash out to her car in the parking lot and drive back home. Drive back in time. But how far back will she have to go? How far must she go to escape what has happened? You’re a part of the story- well, she is. But so is Sean, so is Tim, and McKey. Why is she being singled out?

Because she wouldn’t leave it alone. Because she had to go to the private detective, had to pry. Tim warned her not to do this. But how could she know that Tim would grow up to be not only smart but wise? When did that happen?

“Is there somewhere we can go? Somewhere private?”

“There’s actually an airport bar outside security in terminal A,” says Gwen, who has always wondered who drinks outside the security gates in an airport. Now she has one answer. People who can afford to sit while others rush by, people who want to be as anonymous as possible. “Let’s go there.”

“A drink would be nice,” says Father Andrew-no, just Andrew Burke, not a priest, not anymore, which Gwen finds bizarrely comforting. He puts a gentle hand between her shoulders. It’s as if he has had some experience with people who need help moving toward something unpleasant and inevitable.

Chapter Thirty-seven

A s McKey’s flight begins to make its descent into Baltimore, she hears the passengers start the usual patter about what they can identify on the ground below. “There’s Big Lots. Is that Ritchie Highway?” “I see the Applebee’s. The one on Route 175.” The Chesapeake Bay should make it easy for people to orient themselves, yet much of what she overhears is off-kilter, people mixing up east and west. McKey finds the whole ritual strange. Who needs to orient themselves from the sky? By the time you identify where you are, you’re no longer there.

She makes the final pass through the cabin. There’s always at least one person who doesn’t put electronic equipment away after the announcement. This time, it’s a Kindle user, who maintains that the prohibition doesn’t apply to e-readers. Yes, it does, sir. She’s firm but not bossy.

It is almost eleven. The airport will be a ghost town, with all the newsstands and food places closed for the evening. She won’t even be able to grab McDonald’s on the way out. She’ll end up eating canned tuna and whatever she can scrounge from her own fridge. She should shop tomorrow, make it special. No. That will spook him. She’ll have beer and wine-shit, she told him she was in AA. Fuck it, she’ll tell him she realized she didn’t really have a problem. But isn’t that what everyone says? Maybe she’ll tell him the truth, that she was there to watch over Go- Go. But then he’ll ask why. As always, the less said the better.

She picked up Sean’s message in the shuttle on the way to Detroit Metro. “What are you smiling about?” one of her coworkers asked. McKey hadn’t realized she was smiling. She knew he would call her. It has taken more than thirty years, but Sean finally wants to be bad, and he has chosen her. Not Gwen, her . There are some women who would say that’s because Gwen is a nice girl while McKey is not, but McKey doesn’t see it that way. For one thing, she doesn’t think Gwen is all that nice. She cultivates the appearance, as many women do, but Gwen has lots of bad in her. Everyone does. Goodness isn’t natural. All other living creatures put themselves first. Only people try to pretend they’re different, that they have any goals beyond survival.

Sean probably wants a one-off, no complications. That’s what she wants, too. She thinks. She’s pretty sure. God, if he fell in love with her, imagine the headaches. He might get a divorce, which he probably can’t afford, and then there would be his kid and all that shit. McKey is not angling for that . Although it would be cool if he fell in love with her short-term, if he got a little crazy for a while, then sobered up and went home. A prolonged fling would be perfect.

It’s funny to McKey how men think they’re in charge, making these decisions. They never are. If a man leaves his wife, it’s because another woman has finagled him into asking for a divorce. Or he gets kicked out, which wasn’t what he wanted, even if he was having affairs and the like. Rita always engineered the end of her relationships. Shed Rick for Larry, shrugged Larry off to follow that big-talking loser down to Florida. She may not have made the best choices, but they were hers.

McKey could end it here. It’s enough that Sean has called, that he wants to see her. To talk, he said in his message. Right, sure, uh-huh. I bet your wife doesn’t understand you. I bet you’ve grown apart. She’s very cold. She never pays you any attention, never has a kind word for you. McKey has heard all those things over the years. Not long ago she heard them from her ex, who came sniffing around her door, and OK,