I went into the dining room but didn't sit, and a minute later she came in with a salad bowl in each hand. She put them at our places, then said, “Help me with the apron?”
She turned her back to me and bowed her head. I untied the apron, lifted her hair, and eased the loop over her head. She turned to face me, holding out her arms, and I slid the apron off.
I held her chair for her, filled our wineglasses, then sat at my place across from her.
She lifted her glass. I did the same.
“To life,” she said. “To the future. To everything that's good. Good friends, especially.”
I nodded, tried to smile, and sipped my wine.
The salad featured avocado with cherry tomatoes, scallions, and ripe pitted olives on Bibb lettuce and a light vinaigrette dressing.
The candlelight danced on Sharon's face across from me. She kept looking up at me and smiling.
She was trying hard to be happy.
No way would I spoil that. I'd keep my secrets as long as I could.
“I don't remember the last time we sat down like a family and ate in here,” she said quietly. “Brian was always off somewhere, and Jake hardly ever ⦔
She let the thought slide.
When we finished our salads, Sharon got up to clear away the bowls. I started to push back my chair to help, but she put her hand on my shoulder. “Please,” she said. “Relax. I want to wait on you.”
“I'm not comfortable,” I said, “being waited on.”
“You'll just have to suffer, then.”
A
fter we ate, we took slabs of hot apple pie and coffee back into the living room. I prowled through Jake's collection of
CDs and found Erroll Garner's
Misty
album, an old favorite of mine.
When it began, I realized that under the circumstances, this slow, sad song of love and loss and regret had been a monumentally stupid choice.
Sharon, sitting down at the other end of the sofa, was humming softly.
Look at me. I'm as helpless as a kitchen up a tree â¦
“I'm going to change the music,” I said.
“No, please,” she said. “I like this.”
⦠never knowing my right foot from my left, my hat from my glove â¦
Sharon's eyes, I saw, were indeed misty.
We ate our pie without talking. Then I lit a cigarette, and we sipped our coffee.
After a few minutes, Sharon cleared her throat. “Brady,” she said softly, “you've been avoiding the subject.”
“Jake?”
“Yes. And Ed. And Brian, of course. And that man you killed.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn't know you heard about that.”
She nodded. “I talked on the phone to one of my neighbors when I was at my mother's. She told me.”
“I don't know what's going on,” I said. “The police are working on it.”
She shook her head. “Please. I'm not stupid. You can't put me off like that. This has to be connected to Jake and Brian. You know something, and I have a right to know, too.”
I nodded. “I agree that you have a right to know. But suspicious and speculations wouldn't do you any good. That's all I have now.”
“They are connected, aren't they? All thoseâthose deaths?”
“It looks that way.”
“Brian, too?”
I shrugged.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You're not going to tell me anything, are you?”
I shook my head. “Not until I know. Please trust me. When I know something, I'll tell you.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Even if you think it will hurt me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I have a right to that,” she said. “And you have no right to protect me from the truth.”
“I agree.”
“I consider this a solemn vow, Brady Coyne.”
“So do I.”
“You do whatever you need to do to find out the truth for me. Okay?”
“I intend to,” I said. “For both of us.”
She nodded and settled back on the sofa.
We finished our coffee and listened to the music, and an hour or so later I looked at my watch and said, “Well, I should probably get going.”
“So soon?” said Sharon.
“It's after eleven. It's been a long week.”
She followed me to the front door. I slid into my coat, gave her a hug, and stepped out onto the porch.
The snow on the porch steps came up to my boottops and was swirling in the streetlights. Sharon's street had not been plowed, and my car was a snow-covered lump in her driveway.
I turned back to the door. Sharon was standing in the foyer, watching me through the storm door. She pushed it open for me. “Bad, huh?”
“No way I can drive,” I told her. “I better crash on your sofa. Do you mind?”
“You can use the guest room upstairs,” she said. “The bed's all made up.”
“I don't want your neighbors talking.”
“Actually,” she said, “it would be comforting, not being
alone. This house feels awfully empty at night. And the hell with the neighbors.”
I remembered that somebody might be running around with a key to Sharon's house. I saw no reason why he'd come back. On the other hand, there were a lot of things I didn't understand.
“I'll try not to snore,” I said.
“I'd find that comforting, too,” she said.
S
haron's guest room doubled as Jake's office. It was lined with gray metal file cabinets, sagging book shelves, and an old oak desk with a Macintosh computer and an ink-jet printer and a rack of meerschaum and briar pipes on it. A twin bed was pushed against one wall. I wondered how many nights Jake had slept here instead of down the hall with his wife.
I kept the light on for a long time after I said good-night to Sharon. I flipped through some of Jake's books, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and thought about Evie, wondering if she'd tried to call. When I finally turned off the light, I lay there listening to the icy snow rattle against the side of the house and watching the light and shadows from the streetlight outside the window play on the ceiling.
The house groaned in the storm.
I thought of Sharon. She was trying desperately to get used to being alone. I wished I could tell her that her boy was alive, that one day soon she wouldn't be alone. But I didn't know how or when that was going to happen.
I hoped Evie was safely tucked in her bed.
And Brian. I hoped he was sleeping somewhere warm and
safe, missing his mother, understanding that nothing he had done could diminish her love. I hoped he was deciding that it was time to come home.
Maybe I dozed off, though it didn't feel as if I had, when I heard a floorboard creak outside my door. Then the knob turned and the latch clicked and the door squeaked as it opened.
I closed my eyes and breathed slowly.
I heard a faint silky rustle approaching my bed. Sharon's scent filled the room.
I pretended to sleep.
I sensed her standing beside me. My stomach clenched against the tension that was rising almost unbearably in my groin.
The candlelight, the music, the flowers, the food and wine. Sharon's perfume, her bare feet. It had all felt profoundly intimate. A prelude to something.
I realized I'd been repressing it all evening.
I risked slitting open my eyes. She was standing beside my pillow, so close I could've reached out and touched her. She was wearing a floor-length diaphanous gown. I could see the shape of her legs outlined against the light from the window.
I closed my eyes again and waited.
She stood there for a long minute. I sensed her bending over me, and then I felt her hand touch my cheek, hesitate, then move to my shoulder. She let out a soft, ragged breath. I thought she might be crying.
Her hand rested lightly on my shoulder for just a moment, but it seemed like much longer.
Then her touch was gone, and an instant later the door closed softly behind her.
I lay awake for a long time.
T
he aroma of bacon woke me up the next morning. When I walked into the kitchen, Sharon was unloading the dishwasher.
She was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt and white cotton socks. Her dark hair hung loose down her back.
She smiled at me over her shoulder. “The coffee's ready.” She jerked her head at the electric pot.
I poured myself a mug and sat at the table.
“How'd you sleep?” she said.
“Great,” I lied. “Like a baby.”
“So did I,” she said.
I figured she was lying, too.
Scrambled eggs, corn muffins, bacon, orange juice. A fisherman's breakfast. It would get me through the whole day.
Afterward, I helped her clean up, and then we had more coffee at the kitchen table. Sharon was quiet, and I didn't have much to say.
I finished my coffee, stood up, and put my mug in the sink. “Wellâ”
“Brady?” she said quickly.
I looked at her.
“I want to tell you something,” she said.
I sat down again.
“Last night,” she said. “It was ⦔ She lowered her eyes, avoiding mine. “It was nice.”
I nodded but didn't say anything.
“I'm trying to fight it,” she said, still looking down at her hands, which were gripping her coffee mug, “but I'm not as ⦠as tough as I thought I was. I'm feeling very alone, very vulnerable, very sad, very angry. Sometimes I manage to put it out of my mind, but then it all comes smashing down on me. This almost unbearable feeling of despair.”
“It's going to take a while,” I said. “You really should talk to somebody. You shouldn't fight it. You should confront it.”
“That's what Officer Benetti said. She gave me some names.”
“You should call one of them.”
“I know.” She looked up at me. “I came into your room last night.”
I nodded.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“I thought all I wanted was a hug,” she said. “But if you'd just looked at me, orâor touched me ⦔
I shook my head. “That's the last thing you need, Sharon.”
She reached across the table and put her hand on top of mine. “I know. You're right, of course.”
“You don't know how tempting it was,” I said.
She smiled. “That's sweet. Thank you for saying that.”
“It's the truth.” I glanced at my watch. “Well ⦔
“Yes,” she said. “You should go.”
She hugged me at the door.
“Every day will be a little better,” I said.
She shrugged. “That's what I keep telling myself. You'll keep in touch with me?”
“Of course.”
“Come for dinner again?”
“Sure.”
T
he two-day storm had passed during the night. The sun was bright and warm. Clods of wet snow were falling from the trees and shrubs in Sharon's front yard. They hit the ground with a muffled thump, and the branches that had been bent over were springing back up.
I brushed the snow off my car and managed to ram it through the pile the plow had left at the end of the driveway and drove out into the street.
It was a little after ten on this Saturday morning. I drove over to the camera shop. Sandy Driscoll was behind the counter toward the back of the store talking with a white-haired man. A middle-aged woman stood beside her, talking on the phone.
When Sandy saw me, she frowned. I arched my eyebrows at her, and she shook her head.
I looked at the display of camera bags and tripods, and a few
minutes later the white-haired man left the store. Sandy came around the counter and stood beside me. She darted a quick glance at the woman behind the counter, then said, “Can I help you with something, sir?”
“I needâ”
“Oh, right,” she said quickly. “You wanted an album. This way, please.”
She led me to the front of the store, pulled a photo album off a shelf, and handed it to me.
I pretended to examine it. “I need to talk to you,” I said quietly.
“Please. Leave me alone.”
“Brian has disappeared again. We've got to talk.”
She shook her head. “No way.”
“I'm sorry, Sandy,” I said softly. “But I'm prepared to go to the police, tell them that Brian's alive and you know where he is. It's not what I want to do. But you're not leaving me any alternative. Is that what you want?”
She shook her head.
“Talk to me, then.”
Sandy glanced over her shoulder. The woman behind the counter was still on the phone. She was looking at us.
“I don't want her to recognize you,” Sandy murmured. “It's almost time for me to run out for coffee. It'll be about ten minutes if we don't get a gang in here. Leave now. I'll meet you out front.”
“Fine,” I said in a normal voice. “Thanks, anyway.”
I went outside and waited in my car.
About fifteen minutes later, Sandy came out and slid into the passenger seat. “Drive somewhere,” she said.
I pulled out onto the road. “Which way?”
“Left, I guess,” she said. “Head for the college. I'll get coffee at Drago's.”
“Do I make you nervous?” I said.
“It's a small town, Mr. Coyne. You were on television a few nights ago.”
“I was?”
“You killed a man. They showed you coming out of your office.”
“Oh, that.”
“I know about Brian,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “You scare him.”
“He's okay?”
“He's alive, if that's what you mean. He's depressed and frightened.”
“He called you the other day, right?”
She nodded. “I picked him up at Jason's. He's pissed at me for telling you where he was. He doesn't want anybody to know where he is now, and I'm not saying anything else about it.”
“But you know where he is.”
“I told youâ”
“Okay,” I said. “I'm sorry.” I blew out a breath. “Sandy, just tell me, what's going on around here?”
She laughed quietly. “You want me to tell you things that nobody in this town wants to know. When it all comes out, I don't want anybody connecting it to me.”
“So you
will
tell me?”
She hesitated. “I've been thinking about it. Thinking I should tell someone. You've got to promiseâ”
“You can trust me,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you promised you'd leave Brian alone. I trusted you on that.”
“Things changed.”
“That man you killed?”
“Yes. But I've kept your secret. Yours and Brian's. I had dinner with his mother last night. She has a right to know that he's okay. But I didn't tell her. That was painful for me.”
She was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Most of what I know is secondhand. Hints I've gotten, things kids've said to me. Secrets, Mr. Coyne. I don't know how it all fits together.”
“Let me ask you something about photography,” I said.
“Photography?”
“I have these photos,” I said. “They're kind of grainy, and they're printed on paper that seems thinner than regular photo paper. Not what you'd get if you took a film to your shop to be developed.”
“Maybe someone printed them in a home darkroom,” she said. “Maybe they're photocopies. Or they could've been scanned on a computer or taken with a digital camera and loaded into the hard drive. Then you could print them out on any kind of paper.”
“I don't know anything about that technology,” I said. “Would that make them grainy and blurry?”
“Depends on the equipment and the quality of the paper,” she said. “Maybe the photos were poorly exposed in the first place.”
I remembered what I'd seen in Ed Sprague's office. A computer. Digital cameras. Scanners and printers. “I want you to tell me about Chief Sprague,” I said to Sandy.
I heard her let out a long breath. I glanced at her. She was looking out the side window.
“From my personal experience,” she said softly, “he was just a nice man who cared about kids. It's not like we were friends or anything.” She hesitated. “But that's because I'm notânot young-looking and attractive and skinny and athletic. Some of the kids ⦠he was, um, closer with.”
“Like Brian Gold?” I said.
“Yes. Like Bri. And Jenny and Mikki. There were a few others. His favorites.”
“What do you mean, he was closer to them?”
“He had them over to his house all the time. He had a swimming pool, they had cookouts, they paddled his canoe around his pond. Their parents thought it was cool. What better place for kids to be than the chief of police's house? There's nowhere in Reddington for kids. We don't even have a mall. Ed's house
was a place where kids could go, relax, have fun. Nothing organized. Ed let them do anything they wanted.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just left them alone,” she said. “Except he didn't allow drugs or booze. He said he'd arrest anybody who was breaking the law.”
“So what do you want to tell me, Sandy?” I said.
She exhaled deeply. “You remember Mikki?”
“Sure. The girl who was with you that day by the river.”
“She told me that Ed didn't mind if the kids ⦠used his bedroom.”