ripped-up belly had been a girl.
Mary put the pistol away. She lay down and tried to sleep, but she was too excited. Twenty days remained before her rendezvous at the weeping lady. She got up, put on her gray sweatsuit, and she went out into the midnight cold to run a mile and think.
4: Thursday's Child
On Thursday night after dinner, the first of February, Doug put the newspaper aside and said, 'I've got some work to do at the office.'
Laura watched him stand up and walk back to the bedroom. Their dinner had been eaten in silence of the stoniest kind. It had been Monday afternoon when she'd driven out to the Hillandale Apartments, and since that day she had seen Doug's guilt in every movement and heard it in every word. Doug had asked her what was bothering her, and she'd said she didn't feel well, that she was ready to be unbloated again. That was partly true, but of course only partly; Doug, acting on instincts that had begun to beep like a radar alarm the last few days, did not pursue the point. Laura immersed herself in reading or watching movies on the VCR, her body gathering strength for the rite ahead.
'I'll be back in about…' Doug glanced at the clock as he shrugged into his coat. 'I don't know. I'll just be back when I'm through.'
She bit her tongue. David was heavy in her belly tonight, and his kicking was a real irritation. She felt huge and lumpy, her sleep had been racked with bad dreams about the madwoman on the balcony for the last two nights, and she was in no mood for games. 'How's Eric?' she asked.
'Eric? He's fine, I guess. Why?'
'Does he spend as little time at home as you do?'
'Don't start that now. You know I've got a lot of work, and the day isn't long enough.'
'The night isn't long enough, either, is it?' she asked.
Doug stopped buttoning his coat. He stared at her, and she thought she saw a small flash of fear in his eyes. 'No,' he replied. 'It's not.' His fingers finished the job. 'You know how much it costs to raise a child and send him to college?'
'A lot.'
'Yes, a lot. Like more than a hundred thousand dollars, and that's today's rates. By the time David's ready for college, God only knows how much it'll cost. That's what I think about when I have to go to work at night.'
She thought she might either burst into tears or laughter, she didn't know which. Her face ached to collapse, but she kept her expression calm by force of will alone. 'Will you be home by midnight, then?'
'Midnight? Sure.' He pulled his collar up. 'Want me to call if I'm going to be too late?'
'That would be nice.'
'Okay.' Doug leaned over and kissed her cheek, and Laura realized he had dashed his face with English Leather. His lips scraped her flesh, and then they were gone. 'See you later,' he said. He got his briefcase and headed for the garage door.
Say something, Laura thought. Stop him in his tracks. Stop him from going out that door, right now. But terror hit her, because she didn't know what to say and – worst of all – she feared that nothing she could say would stop him from leaving.
'The baby,' she said.
Doug's steps slowed. He did stop, and he looked back at her from a slice of shadow.
'I think it's going to be only a few more days,' she told him.
'Yeah.' He smiled nervously. 'I guess you're good and ready, aren't you?'
'Stay with me?' Laura asked, and she heard her voice quaver.
Doug took a breath. Laura saw him look around at the walls, a pained expression on his face, like a prisoner judging the width and breadth of his confinement. He took a couple of steps toward her, and then he stopped again. 'You know, sometimes… this is hard to say.' He paused a few seconds and tried again. 'Sometimes I see what we have, and how far we've come, and… I feel really strange inside, like… is this it? I mean… is this what it's all about? And now, with you about to have the baby… it's like the end of something. Can you understand that?'
She shook her head.
'The end of just us,' he went on. 'The end of Doug and Laura. You know what I had a dream about last week?'
'No. Tell me.'
'I dreamed I was an old man. I was sitting in that chair.' He motioned to it with a tilt of his chin. 'I had a gut and I was balding and all I wanted to do was sit in front of the television set and sleep. I don't know where you and David were, but I was alone and everything was behind me, and I… I started crying, because that was a terrible thing to know. I was a rich man, in a fine house, and I was crying because -' He had trouble with this, but he forced it out. 'Because the journey's what it's all about. Not the being there. It's the fight to make it, and once you get there…' He trailed off, and shrugged. 'I guess I don't make much sense, do I?'
'Come sit down,' she urged him. 'Let's talk about it, okay?'
Doug started to walk toward her. She knew he wanted to come, because his body seemed to tremble, as if he were trying to break away from some force that pulled at him. He balanced toward her for a few precious seconds, and then he lifted his arm and looked at his Rolex. 'I'd better go. Got a heavy client first thing in the morning, and there's paperwork to clear up.' His voice was stiff again, all business. 'We'll talk tomorrow, all right?'
'Whenever,' Laura said, her throat tight. Doug turned away from her and, briefcase in hand, he walked out of the house.
Laura heard the Mercedes' engine growl. The garage door went up. Before it ratcheted down again, Laura got to her feet. She winced and put a hand to her lower back, which had been hurting since early morning. Her bones ached as she walked across the den, and she picked up the keys to her BMW from the little silver tray. She went to the closet and got her overcoat and purse. Then she walked out – hobbled was more the correct term – to the garage, slid behind the BMW's wheel, and started the engine.
She had made up her mind that she was going to follow Doug. If he went to work, fine. They would talk about the future honestly, and decide where to go from here. If he went to the Hillandale Apartments, she was going to call a lawyer in the morning. She pulled out of the garage, turned off the driveway onto Moore's Mill Road, and drove toward the complex, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.
As she merged into the traffic on the expressway, she realized what she was doing as if seeing it from a distance, and its audacity surprised her. She hadn't known she still had any true toughness left in her. She'd thought all her iron had melted in the blast furnace of murder on that hot night in July. But following Doug – tracking him as if he were a criminal – shamed her, and she began to slow the car to take the next exit ramp off and circle back for home. No, she thought. A stern inner voice, commanding her to keep going. Doug was a criminal. If he had not already slaughtered her heart, he was hacking steadily at it. Savaging their lives together, tearing them asunder, making a mockery of the vows they'd taken. He was a criminal, and he deserved to be tracked like one.
Laura put her foot to the accelerator and sped past the exit.
At the Hillandale Apartments, Laura cruised around the building where C. Jannsen lived, looking for Doug's car in a parking slot. There wasn't a Mercedes in sight, only the low-slung, jazzy sports cars of younger people. Laura found an empty space just down from the building, and she pulled into it to wait. He's not here and he's not coming, she thought. He left before I did. If he was coming here, he'd be here already. He went to work, just as he said. He really did go to work. Relief rushed through her, so strong she almost put her head against the steering wheel and sobbed.
Lights brushed past the car. Laura looked behind her and to the right as the Mercedes moved by like a shark on the prowl. Her breath snagged on a soft gasp. The Mercedes pulled into a parking space eleven cars away from Laura. She watched as the lights were switched off and a man got out. He began to walk toward C. Jannsen's building. It was a walk Laura recognized instantly, sort of a half-shamble, half-strut. In Doug's hand was no longer the briefcase, but a six-pack of beer.
He'd stopped at a package store, she realized, and that was why she'd gotten there first. Rage flared within
