“I don’t want to care if he dies,” I said. “I really don’t. I know that if he lived, we wouldn’t have a relationship.” I hesitated. “But it’s like … it’s like I want to just know he’s around. So I can be pissed off at him. I don’t think I can be angry at him after he’s dead.” I turned back to Carolina. “Dumb, huh?”
She slid her hand to mine and forced her fingers into mine. She covered our hands with her other. “No, it’s not dumb. It’s exactly right.”
We sat there, listening to the thunder and the rain, thinking about that.
FORTY-TWO
I left Carolina’s and spent a couple hours busying myself with errands—groceries, gas, mail. But nothing cleared my head and I eventually found myself pointed in the direction of Coronado. I wanted to see Liz. After seeing Simington so isolated, I didn’t want to be alone, not even for a night.
The rain was splashing off the bridge, billowing into the bay like small explosions as I crossed over to the island. The normally bright lights of downtown were muted and murky.
I ran up the path to Liz’s house, and she opened before I could knock, waving me in from out of the tropical weather. She handed me a towel.
“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you,” she said.
I wiped off my face, dropped the towel, and pulled her to me, kissing her. Her hands were on my chest at first, protesting being pushed up against a soaking wet human being, but then her hands slipped around my neck and she forgot about my wet condition.
When I finally let her go, she stepped back and put her hand to her chest. “Wow. Nice to see you.”
I smiled. “You, too.”
“What brought that on?”
“Seeing you.”
“Ah.”
“I’d like to see more of you. Right now.”
She reached out for my hand, an electric charge between us that I’d never felt.
“This way,” she said, pulling me toward the bedroom.
Our clothes were off before we made it to the bed, and our bodies clung together like magnets. All of the anger and sadness that had permeated my existence for the last few hours dissipated as I lost myself in Liz, the one person I knew for certain wanted nothing from me other than for me to be who I was. And as we moved together, everything feeling right and simple, all I wanted was to love her.
When we’d finished, we lay there in the dark, the rain moving down her window in silver streams. Her head was on my chest, and her breathing was in rhythm with mine. I put my face into her hair, taking in the scent of coconut, mint, and sweat. I kissed the top of her head.
She rolled over so her head was on my shoulder and she could see me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but was there something in the water in San Francisco?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Because if there is, we should bottle it and start selling it. Sales will dwarf every other sex drug on the market, and we’ll be able to bathe in the money.”
I laughed and rubbed her back. “I just missed you.”
She wrapped an arm around my chest. “I missed you, too.”
The rain tapped against the window like it wanted in.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“It went.”
“That bad?”
“I don’t know, Liz,” I said, sighing. “I don’t know if was bad or good or something else.”
“You wanna tell me?”
I didn’t want to talk about it, but I wanted to tell her because if anyone could make sense of it, Liz could. I trusted her.
I told her about my conversation with Simington and then meeting up with Keene in the airport. None of it sounded any different than when I’d spilled it all to Carolina.
Her arm tightened around my chest when I’d finished. “Rough,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded awkwardly, my head sunk into the pillow.
“Simington didn’t know about Darcy’s death?”
“If he did, he didn’t show it.”
“You believe what he said about Keene?”
“I guess. I don’t think I can know for sure, though,” I said. “He could be maneuvering me, but so far what he’s said seems to be true.” I pressed my hand into the small of her back, feeling the heat of her skin up against me. “Keene’s a bad guy. That’s one thing I’m positive of.”
She threw her leg over mine beneath the sheets. The rain was tossing awkward shadows into the room, and I
