she showed up, she went right to her room without speaking.
It made no difference if it was the failed screen test or the Becky thing. Lila was miserable and didn’t emerge from her room the entire next day. Meanwhile, his father flew out the first thing Saturday morning for a golfing weekend in Myrtle Beach. Anxious about Lila suffering in her bed, he spent the day cleaning the house and doing laundry, alert for any cue that she was emerging from her gloom. By evening she still hadn’t emerged, and his worry peaked. She had not eaten for more than twenty-four hours, so he made a tuna sandwich and heated a can of soup. He assembled the plate and bowl on a tray with a small bunch of daffodils from the garden and waited for nearly two hours until he heard her flush the toilet.
Trembling with each step, he carried the tray up the stairs, not knowing if she would be normal or still fuming hatred for him. He could take anything but that. Anything. No matter how irrational she became—and she seemed to be getting worse—he could not suffer her rejection. It was the one thing that could extinguish his will. And he’d do anything to win her back.
For a long moment he stood by the door balancing the tray, his blood throbbing throughout his body, uncertain if she’d let him inside, dreading that she would. He tapped the door. “Mom?” No voice. No sound of movement. He tapped again, this time a little louder. Nothing still. He tapped a third time, saying, “Mom. I’ve got some dinner for you.”
Nothing.
“Mom, please, you’ve got to have something to eat.” He could hear the echo of her own words when he was sick in bed.
With relief, he heard some movement within. Then faintly her voice, “It’s unlocked.”
He opened the door. The room was dark. But in the hall light he could see her sitting up in bed. He turned on a small lamp. She was dressed in her nightgown with her hair pulled back. Her face was blank as he approached. A sour odor laced the air. “I made you some tuna. It’s all I could find, but I put chopped tomatoes and green olives in the way you like it.”
He placed the tray on her lap with relief that she accepted his offer. But she said nothing. “I didn’t know what you wanted to drink so I brought water. You want milk or tea?”
“Water is fine,” she said, her voice flat.
“Want me to open the window?”
She nodded.
He pulled up the shades and opened the window. The sky was purple in the sunset.
“I don’t want the soup.”
He removed it and she took a sip of water. He watched her, struggling to come up with something to say, desperate to get her talking normally. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the part.”
“Makes no difference.”
Her words made him sadder still. “There’ll be other roles.”
She took a bite of the sandwich. He watched her, wondering what was going on inside of her. Wondering what it was like being her. Wondering if she would ever be happy, truly happy. If her ship would ever come in.
Without looking at him, she said, “You can leave.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“I prefer to eat alone.”
“Okay.” He moved to the door. He started to close it behind him but stopped halfway, his hand still on the doorknob. He took a deep breath. “You still mad at me?”
She turned her face toward him and studied him for a moment. Her face was blank, her eyes flat. His heart pounded so loudly that he was certain she could hear it across the room. Then in a clear voice, her eyes trained on him, she said, “I don’t want you to see Becky Tolland again.”
“Okay,” he said, knowing at that moment the syllables rising up from the bottom of his soul were like a pledge to Jesus.
45
Steve lay in bed and stared up into the black.
In the Middle Ages, people believed in the bifurcated soul. Unable to explain the mechanism of dreams, they were convinced that when someone slept, a spiritual double—a doppelganger—separated itself to go roaming on its own, oftentimes wandering into the world to do mischief. It was the same folk mind that created legends of werewolves, vampires, and other shape-shifters—monstrous doubles that acted out dark passions. But this was the twenty-first century, and nobody believed in doppelgangers. Yet, was it not possible that given the right combination of chemicals and psychic makeup he could have left that pub and under some brute autopilot driven to 123 Payson Road, rung the doorbell, followed her up those stairs, and taken a stocking to her?
That, like Dr. Jekyll, he had created his own evil twin?
At around two A.M., Steve was still rolling around in the sheets. So he got up and took two tabs of Ativan that knocked him into a black hole where he remained like dead until his alarm startled him at seven thirty. He took a shower and made a pot of strong coffee to flush the muck out of his brain. He was getting dressed in the bedroom when he heard his PDA ringing.
It sat on the night table. He stared at it while it jangled, the pull of his Glock in the bureau drawer.
“Lieutenant Markarian?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Alice Dion from the Kingsbury Club. I’m sorry to bother you so early at this hour, but I was wondering if we could talk.”
“Okay.”
“I saw the story about the suspect you’ve got, the English professor? So it’s probably nothing and maybe just a waste of your time.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, it’s been bothering me ever since last week. And, God forbid, that I want to cause any trouble or anything like that, especially since you made an arrest.”
“I understand.”
“But I don’t want to do this over the phone.”
“Okay,” he said, thinking,
“One of Terry’s clients. I think it was more than a professional relationship.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But the thing is you already made an arrest, so it’s probably nothing….”
“I don’t think you’ll need that.”
After a long pause, he heard her say, “It’s Neil French.”
“Neil French?”
“Yes. But you may already know they were involved, right? I’m not telling you anything you already don’t know, am I? I mean, I don’t want to get anybody in trouble or anything.”
“Sergeant French has made us aware that he and Terry were friends.”
“I didn’t know. From what I could tell, they kept their relationship pretty quiet.”
Steve felt his brain suddenly take focus. “What are you saying?”
“It’s not just me. Michelle San Marco, another trainer, she knows more about it than I do because she and Terry talked a lot. I think maybe you should talk to her, too.”
“Okay.” He jotted down the address and telephone numbers she recited.
“I don’t mean to impose on you, but we’re wondering if we can do this pretty soon? I’ll be free after eleven
