inside my skull, the day’s events shifted in and out of focus like a bad home movie.
After clearing wrappers, one paper plate, one plastic fork, and the empty soda can, I phoned Mateo. He told me that Molly remained comatose.
His words tipped a delicate balance. I was no longer merely exhausted. Suddenly I just wanted to lie on the bed, bury my face in the pillow, and cry. I felt overwhelmed by sorrow and worry for my friend.
Instead, I shifted topics.
Mateo was outraged when I told him about Diaz, and insisted I continue with the case. I agreed but promised to be at his lab on Saturday.
I spent the next twenty minutes jotting on paper a detailed chronology of what had happened at the Paraiso. Then I washed panties in the bathroom sink.
Teeth. Hand cream. Oil of Olay. Sit-ups.
I turned on CNN. A grim-faced commentator moved through soccer, an earthquake, the world market. Locally, a bus had crashed into a ravine, killing seventeen and hospitalizing a score of others.
It was no go. My mind looped from a septic tank, to an intensive care unit, to a well, and back again.
I pictured the skull, slick with human waste. Why hadn’t I done a more thorough exam? Why did I permit people to intimidate me and prevent me from doing what I knew should be done?
I pictured Molly, tubes running from nose, mouth, and arm.
My emotional equilibrium finally collapsed as I was plugging my cell phone into its charger.
In Charlotte, Birdie would be sound asleep. In Charlottesville, Katy would be studying for finals. Or partying with friends. Or washing her hair.
My chest gave a tiny heave.
My daughter was a continent away, and I had no idea what she was doing.
Stop sniveling. You’ve been alone before.
Killing the lights and TV, I slipped between the sheets.
My mind circled the same holding pattern.
In Montreal, it would be close to midnight. Ryan would be…
What?
I had no idea what Ryan would be doing.
Lieutenant-detective Andrew Ryan, Section des Crimes Contre la Personne, Surete du Quebec. Tall, craggy, with all the crags in the right places. Eyes bluer than a Bahamian lagoon.
My stomach did that weird little flip.
No nausea there.
Ryan worked homicide for the provincial police, and for a decade our paths had crossed and recrossed as we investigated cases of unnatural death. Always distant, always professional. Then, two years ago, my marriage imploded, and Ryan turned his legendary charm my way.
To say our history since had been rocky would be like saying Atlantis had a water problem.
Suddenly single after a twenty-year hitch, I’d had little knowledge of the dating game, and only one maxim: no office romance. Ryan ignored it.
Though tempted, I kept him at arm’s length, partly because we worked together, partly because of his reputation. I knew of Ryan’s past as a wild-child turned cop, and of his present as the squad room stallion. Both personae were more than I wanted to take on.
But Detective Lothario never eased up, and a year back I’d agreed to a Chinese dinner. Before our first social outing, Ryan vanished undercover, not to resurface for many months.
Last fall, following an epiphany concerning my estranged husband, I’d decided to consider Ryan again. Though still cautious, I was finding Ryan thoughtful, funny, and one of the most annoying men I’d ever encountered.
And one of the sexiest.
Flip.
Though that runner was still in the blocks, the gun was loaded and ready to fire.
I glanced at my phone. I could be talking to Ryan in seconds.
Something in my brain said “bad idea.”
Why?
You’d look like a wimp, the something answered.
I’d look like I care.
You’d look like a grade-B heroine mooning for a shoulder to cry on.
I’d look like I miss him.
Suit yourself.
“What the hell,” I said aloud.
