and, with the room swerving unsteadily and a sour taste in her mouth, plummeted into sleep. What had he done? she asked herself. He had lit a cigarette. In the morning, she had risen, not inviting him for a second tumble, making up some story about needing to be at an appointment, not offering any breakfast, or even a kiss, just disappearing into the shower and scrubbing herself under steaming water, sudsing every inch of her body, as if she’d been covered with some unusual smell. She had wanted him to leave, but he had not.
Ashley tried to recall the brief morning-after conversation. It had been filled with falsehoods, as she had distanced herself, been cold and preoccupied, until finally he had stared at her in an uncomfortably long silence, then smiled, nodded, and exited without much further talk.
And now, all he talks about is love, she thought. Where did that come from?
She pictured him going through the door, a cold look on his face.
That recollection made her shift about uncomfortably.
The other men she had known, even if only briefly, would have exited either angry or optimistic or even with a little bravado after the one-night stand. But O’Connell had been different. He’d merely chilled her with silence, then removed himself. It was, she thought, as if he were leaving, but he’d known it wasn’t for long.
She thought to herself, sleep. Shower. Plenty of time with her back turned. Had she left the computer on and running? What was strewn about her desktop? Her bank accounts? What numbers? What passwords? What did he have time to find and steal?
What else had he taken?
It was the obvious question, but one she didn’t really want to ask.
For an instant, the room spun again, and then Ashley rose and, as quickly as she could, raced to the small bathroom, where she pitched forward, head over the glistening toilet bowl, and was violently, utterly sick.
After she cleaned herself up, Ashley pulled a blanket around her shoulders and sat on the edge of her bed, considering what she should do. She felt like some shipwrecked refugee after rough days adrift at sea.
But the longer she sat there, the angrier she got.
As best as she could tell, Michael O’Connell had no claim on her. He had no right to be harassing her. His protests of undying love were more than a little silly.
In general, Ashley was an understanding sort, one who disliked confrontation and avoided a fight at almost all costs. But this foolishness-she could think of no other word-with a one-night stand had really gone too far.
She threw the blanket off and stood up.
“God damn it,” she said. “This is ending. Today. Enough of this bullshit.”
She walked over to her desk and picked up her cell phone. Without thinking about what she was going to say, Ashley dialed O’Connell’s number.
He answered almost immediately.
“Hello, lover,” he said almost gaily, certainly with a familiarity that infuriated her.
“I’m not your lover.”
He didn’t reply.
“Look, Michael. This has got to stop.”
Again, he didn’t answer.
“Okay?”
Again, silence.
After a second, she wasn’t even sure he was still there. “Michael?”
“I’m here,” he said coldly.
“It’s over.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s finished.”
There was another hesitation, then he said, “I don’t think so.”
Ashley was about to try again, but then she realized he had hung up.
She cursed, “You goddamn son of a bitch!” then redialed his number.
“Want to try again?” he answered this time.
She took a deep breath.
“All right,” Ashley said stiffly, “if you won’t make this easy, I guess we can do it the tough way.”
She heard him laugh, but he did not say anything.
“Okay, meet me for lunch.”
“Where?” he asked abruptly.
For an instant she scrambled about, trying to think of the right place. It had to be someplace familiar, someplace public, someplace where she was known and he wasn’t, somewhere she was likely to be surrounded by allies. All this would give her the necessary gumption to turn him off once and forever, she thought.
“The restaurant at the art museum,” she said. “One this afternoon. Okay?”
She could sense him grinning on the other end of the line. It made her shiver, as if a cold breath of air had seeped through a crack in the window frame. The arrangements must have been acceptable, Ashley realized, because he had hung up.
“So I suppose,” I said, “in a way this is all about recognition. Everyone needed to see what was happening.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Easy to say. Hard to do.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. You know we like to presume that we can recognize danger when it appears on the horizon. Anyone can avoid the danger that has bells, whistles, red lights, and sirens attached to it. It’s much harder when you don’t exactly know what you’re dealing with.”
She thought for a moment, while I remained quiet. She was drinking iced tea and lifted the glass to her lips.
“Ashley knew.”
Again she shook her head. “No. She was scared, true. But just as much as she was frightened, she was annoyed, which truly hid the desperate nature of her situation. And, in reality, what did she know about Michael O’Connell? Not much. Not nearly as much as he knew about her. Curiously, although at a distance, Scott was closer to understanding the real nature of what they were up against, because he was operating far more out of instinct, especially at the beginning.”
“And Sally? And her partner, Hope?”
“They were still outside fear. Not for much longer, though.”
“And O’Connell?”
She hesitated. “They couldn’t see. Not yet, at least.”
“See what?”
“That he was beginning to truly enjoy himself.”
9
When Scott was unable to reach Ashley either on her landline or on her cell phone, he felt a sweaty sort of anxiety, but he immediately told himself it amounted to nothing. It was midday, she was undoubtedly out, and he knew his daughter had on more than one occasion left the cell phone charging back at her place.
