He looks at me uncertainly. If I sound sarcastic, I don’t mean to.
After the police have left, I put my daughter in her bed and convince Ella to go home.
“Did you call Gray?” Ella asks as we stand on my front porch, waiting for her husband to pick her up.
“Yes,” I lie.
“Is he coming home?”
“He says he’ll try,” I say with a shrug.
She doesn’t seem to like my answer but reserves comment. She takes me in her arms and holds me tight. “Anything? You call. I mean it. Anything.”
“I will,” I promise.
I watch her glide down the stairs as her husband pulls up. He gives a wave from the street but doesn’t get out of the car; he always holds himself aloof, gives me odd looks. He doesn’t seem to like me very much, and I’m not sure why. Maybe he senses that I hold most of myself back, too. Maybe it makes me seem untrustworthy. As much as I try to blend in, I guess I don’t.
I can’t convince Drew to leave. Vivian is going home, and he intends to sleep on the couch until morning. He couldn’t care less about me; it’s Victory he’s worried about. I’m sure they’d try to take her home with them if they thought I’d let them.
“It’s not necessary, Drew.” I might as well be talking to a gargoyle.
“It’s his pleasure,” says Vivian, pulling her bag over her shoulder. “Give the old watchdog something to do. Unless you, Victory, and Esperanza want to come home with us?”
“No. We’re okay,” I say. She pulls me into a hug.
“Don’t let Drew get to you,” she whispers. “He does care about you, in spite of how it seems. More than you know.”
I nod and wonder what good that kind of caring is to anyone. She leaves, and I stand at the door with my hand on the knob for a second. I feel Drew’s eyes on me.
“This could be a shitstorm.”
I turn to face him. From where he’s standing, I can just see the dark bulk of him, not the features of his face.
“Was it him, Drew?” I ask. The house sighs as the air-conditioning kicks on, and I feel its cold breath on my neck.
Drew crosses his arms across his chest. “He’s dead. You know that.”
“Then who? Who knows that name?”
“Someone’s fucking with you, girl. We’ll find out who. Don’t worry.” His words are benevolent, but his tone doesn’t quite make it. He doesn’t move closer or step into the light.
“Okay,” I say.
“Get some sleep.”
In the dim light of my bedroom, I get down on my knees and reach into the hole in my box spring. I search around until I find what I’m looking for, a small velvet box. I open it. Inside is a gold necklace, half of a heart.
There are some other, more useful items in my box spring as well: a Glock nine-millimeter and some ammunition, a Canadian passport with my picture and someone else’s name, twenty thousand dollars in cash in four neat bundles of five thousand each. There’s also a small black notebook containing vital pieces of information, among them the account number and PIN for a bank account where I’ve saved a bit of money, and the name and contact information for a man who promised me a long time ago that he’d help me disappear-for good, if necessary.
10
The morning hasn’t yet dawned when I hear Gray come in downstairs. I’ve spent the night in a kind of vigil, watching the beach from my window, waiting for the form to rise again from the grass. But no, there has been nothing like that. A couple took a midnight dip in the ocean, made out on the shore, then slowly strolled up the beach, arms wrapped around each other. Someone-a young man or a boyishly shaped woman, I couldn’t tell-took a jog at 4 A.M.; I watched the loping figure pass the house and then return twenty minutes later. I suppose I should be pleased, feel some sense of relief. But these mundane occurrences are something of a disappointment to me.
I listen to the low rumble of Gray’s conversation with his father. I imagine Drew filling him in on the evening’s events, imagine his superior tone and the lightly condescending roll of his eyes. Then I hear Gray taking stairs two at a time. He slows and opens the door quietly, expecting me to be asleep.
“What happened?” he asks when he sees me sitting in the chair. The sight of him makes me angry and relieved at the same time. Something about the way he looks right now-or maybe it’s just the night and all that’s taken place, or how this terrible anniversary is also, coincidentally the anniversary of the day we met-makes me remember the first time I saw him.
“He’s back for me,” I say. I’m not sure I really believe this; I’m testing out the words on the air. He steps into our room, closes the door behind him, and turns on the light. I hear the door open and shut downstairs; Drew’s SUV rumbles to life in the driveway, then drifts off.
“Annie,” he says quietly.
“It’s different this time. I can’t explain how. It’s different.”
He sits on the bed. I can see the purple shadow of a shiner under his right eye. His bottom lip is split and swollen. He doesn’t need any more scars. His body is a minefield of injured and broken places, places that have been cut and ruptured and never healed quite right. We’re compatible that way, except that my skin is flawless. It’s my psyche that’s a minefield.
I tell him what happened on the beach. He listens with his eyes on me; I can’t read his expression. He taps his foot quickly on the floor as I talk, something he does when he’s stressed or working a solution to a problem. When I’m done, he’s quiet for a while, as though he’s searching for the words he needs. He asks a few questions: Did I see his face? What was he wearing? Was it very windy?
“Did Drew tell you about the phone call from my father?” I ask when he gets up and walks over to the doors leading to our balcony. He’s looking at the beach; the clouds have parted, and the beach is washed in gauzy silver moonlight.
He nods. “Maybe that’s what has you so spooked, Annie. Maybe that’s what’s different about this time.” He extends his hand to me, and I join him by the doors. He points out the window.
“Look how much light there is out there. Look at that couple walking on the beach.”
There’s a young girl in a sweater and jeans, holding the hand of a tall, thin young man. They walk slowly, arms swinging.
“With so much light, you would have been able to see
“There
“I don’t doubt there was someone. But it wasn’t Marlowe Geary.” He turns to me, touches my face. “Isn’t it possible that you saw someone, became frightened, and your mind did the rest?”
I don’t answer immediately. Then, “He called me Ophelia.”
He walks away from me, lies down on the bed with a sharp exhale of breath. I stay by the door watching him.
Gray is not a handsome man, not in the classical sense. Though there’s something in the way he carries himself that makes a girl forget he’s not easy on the eyes. He is older than I am by twelve years. There’s a hard silence to him, a shell you’re not sure you want to crack. There was no reason for me to fall in love with him. In fact, the circumstances of our meeting were not conducive to the start of a relationship. The first time I met Gray, he handcuffed me and threw me in the back of his car. He wasn’t sure what to do with me, and he couldn’t leave me
