“I don’t know, why would you be?” One hand against her hip, she leaned against the car. Her gaze probed him.
He couldn’t answer her question honestly. He
was
jealous. But admitting it would open not a mere can, but a whole barrel of worms.
“I’m not jealous,” he said. “Really.”
“So stop making fun of my man’s name. Or else.”
He raised his hands. “Okay, I’m sorry. I was kidding!”
“So was I. Fooled ya.” Smiling, she spread her arms.
He hugged her. But he knew her well enough to understand that she probably was half serious about her accusation of jealousy. Humor usually hid a kernel of truth. He was relieved that she didn’t press the issue.
Her body felt good against his. Warm and firm.
“You’re always picking on me,” he said in her ear.
“ ’Cause you always fall for it, honey.” She kissed his cheek.
“Hmmm. Your lips feel good. Nice and soft.”
“That so?”
He moved in closer. She turned her head away.
“Ouch,” he said.
“You know we can’t go there, Drew.” She slipped out of his arms.
“Not again.”
“So it was a one-time event, huh?”
“That’s right,” she said, with a tone of finality. She took her keys out of her purse.
He wished he were a contortionist. That way, he could kick himself in the ass. What was the matter with him?
It was his memory of the episode that had occurred between them a month ago. That was what was the matter with him. He could recall every pleasurable second of what had happened. In HDTV quality.
His body ached with frustrated desire. He was going to need a cold shower before he went to bed.
She touched his arm. “Anyway, Thursday’s fine. Call me.”
Hands in his pockets, he watched her drive away.
The night felt empty without her.
The vacant house felt as desolate to Andrew as the dark side of the moon.
Part of the reason why he enjoyed hosting parties was because the house was so big. With five bedrooms, four baths, a finished basement, and a full complement of rooms, the house offered over three thousand square feet of living space. He lived alone, and worked out of his home office. The solitude sometimes drove him a little batty. He loved to fill the place with laughter, life.
Upon selling film rights to his first three thriller novels for a hefty sum, he’d moved out of his town house, rented it to a tenant, and purchased the bigger house for its investment value. Truth be told, he’d also bought it in anticipation of some day having a family of his own to share it with. Some day.
Carmen’s perfume clung to his shirt, stirred a pleasurable heat in his loins. He definitely was going to need that cold shower before hitting the sack.
He made a circuit around each floor, verifying, for the last time, that everything was in order. The mere displacement of a magazine on the cocktail table was enough to send him on a cleaning binge, but everything was in its proper place. He checked that the doors were locked, too.
When he ended his rounds, he was thirsty. He found a half full bottle of chardonnay in the refrigerator. He went to the dining room, opened the china cabinet, and removed a wineglass. He took the glass and the wine upstairs, to his office.
Although it was ten-thirty and he’d been up since six in the morning, he wasn’t ready for bed. He had a new book in progress, and working on it for an hour or so would be a nice way to wind down.
The sight of his organized office soothed him. He settled into the leather desk chair, filled the glass with chardonnay, and powered up the laptop computer.
Sipping wine, he logged online to check his E-mail. A few readers had sent him messages: praise for his books, which was always appreciated; and questions about how to get published, which had grown tiresome. He zipped off thank-you notes to the readers complimenting his work, and filed away the questions to be answered later.
His literary agent had E-mailed him, too. In response to a message he’d sent her about the status of his recent manuscript with his publisher, she wrote that she expected to hear word on an offer sometime that week.
He thought about the pending deal as he opened Microsoft Word. His first three novels were selling briskly, and his latest project was more ambitious than ever. He hoped for, as his dad had mentioned earlier, big money. But who knew for certain whether his publisher would offer anything at all? It was a crazy business that had broken as many dreams as it had fulfilled.
His work-in-progress was a young-adult novel, an artistic departure for him. If he ever published it, he planned to do so under his own name. Mark Justice, his pen name for the thrillers, was a cash machine. But the books were too violent for younger readers. During the past year, he’d volunteered for a not-for-profit literacy foundation whose mission was to encourage young black boys—a group at a frightfully high-risk of illiteracy and juvenile crime—to read. The dearth of books that appealed to those kids alarmed him. So he decided to start writing the stories himself. He was having so much fun with the book that he considered retiring Mark Justice permanently.
You don’t have the balls to do that
, a stern man’s voice whispered in his mind—the inimitable Justice himself.
That’d be like flushing a winning lottery ticket down the toilet. Plus, you need me to save your ass when you get in tight spots.
“Sure, I need you, all right,” he said, under his breath. Pacified, Mark Justice fell silent.
Sometimes, being a writer felt like being a schizophrenic.
He was rereading the pages he had written yesterday when he heard a noise come from downstairs.
A clinking sound. Like glasses falling on a table.
He cocked his head, listened.
Clink-clink-clink.
He pushed away from the desk, left the office, and went to the head of the staircase. Below, darkness reigned. He’d turned off the lights when he came upstairs.
Clink-clink.
The sound came from one of the rooms off the hallway.
He flipped a switch. Light flooded the stairs and the family room below.
No one was down there. Of course. He’d just walked through the entire house.
Clink.
But where was that noise coming from?
Blood pounding in his ears, he hurried downstairs. He searched the first floor, turning on lights as he moved.
He found the answer in the dining room.
One of the china cabinet doors yawned open. The five wineglasses—he’d taken the sixth only a few minutes ago—lay on their sides, as if they’d been knocked over by a careless hand.
Scratching his head, he stared at the stemware.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
There was a darting motion in the periphery of his vision.
He whirled.
There was nothing there. There was only the hallway, the walls adorned with colorful pieces of art. He was alone.
He realized that he was holding his breath. He let out a lungful of air.
He was creeping himself out. Fatigue had a way of causing your mind to play tricks on you. Instead of writing, maybe he should go to bed.
But first, he faced the china cabinet.
Unknowingly, he must have unbalanced the glasses when he’d taken the wineglass. They’d tipped over on their own. Gravity was the only culprit. He must not have firmly closed the door, either.
He carefully set the stemware upright, and shut the door. He waited.
The glasses remained standing. The door remained shut.
But it was the second strange incident of the day—the first being the water running in the bathtub, which none of the children had confessed to doing.
His writer’s imagination attempted to weave a connection, and failed.
There was no link, he decided. One of the kids had been playing in the tub, and lied to stay out of trouble; gravity tipped those glasses over; and it was his fault for not closing the cabinet door tightly.
Nevertheless, it bugged him. Something didn’t feel right. But he couldn’t articulate the feeling with words. That bothered him, too.
He returned upstairs. Repeatedly glancing over his shoulder.
Chapter 4
H
alf-past midnight, Raymond sat on a couch in the den of his house, watching ESPN and thinking about how much he feared going to sleep each night.
It wasn’t sleeping itself that frightened him. Hell, nothing would please him more than a good night’s sleep. He feared the uninvited guest that sleep invariably brought along these days: bad dreams.
The nightmares had begun to plague him after the accident.
Absently, he rubbed the bruise on his head.
SportsCenter—his favorite program in the world—was playing on ESPN, which happened to be his favorite station, too. Although they subscribed to nearly two hundred cable channels, when he sat down in front of the boob tube, he kept it locked on ESPN ninety-eight percent of the time. Watching seemingly infinite loops of the sports news stories of the day on SportsCenter was the perfect way to unwind, and it had become his preferred way to induce sleep. He’d sit there like a world champion couch potato, watching the program till his reddened eyes slid shut. When he’d awake—usually to find that he’d been drooling on his chest like a baby—it was all he could do to drag himself to bed and collapse on the mattress in a sound sleep.
Unfortunately, the watch-ESPN-till-you-drop method failed sometimes to protect him from the nightmares. It hadn’t rescued him last night. He hoped tonight would be different.
He nurtured a desperate, almost childish hope that he’d find a way to permanently end the tormenting dreams. He’d never dealt with anything like this in his life. Until the accident, his life had been normal: work at his real estate business, church on Sunday, leisure activities with his wife, and lately, golf with Andrew. Sleep had been an afterthought, something he’d always taken for granted, and dreams were merely things to be forgotten upon awakening.
He hadn’t told anyone about the nightmares. He liked to confront his problems on his own and brainstorm solutions until he found one that worked. That was how he did things—he hid out in his cave and discovered answers. His wife, though he loved her deeply, tended to worry far too much about matters. He didn’t see the value in sharing his troubles with her and inviting the additional stress that her involvement would create. He was going to fix this problem. On his own.
Another circuit of the day’s sports news kicked off. By then, he had memorized the stories and could’ve provided flawless voice-over commentary, but he honed in on the screen anyway, as if he were going to be tested on his knowledge of the events at a later date.
June poked her head in the doorway.
“SportsCenter again?” she said. “You planning to start a second career as a color analyst on ESPN?”
He only grunted, ignoring her jibe. She had her own programs she faithfully followed—hell, she’d used to watch
Soul Food
like those folks were members of her own family. The least she could do was let him watch what he wanted in peace. That was why he’d set up this big, flat-screen TV in the den, just for himself. She watched her shows in the family room or bedroom.
She came inside. She was dressed for bed in a flowing red nightgown and slippers. She’d also removed her makeup and wound a scarf around her head to protect her hair while she slept, but to him, she looked good with or without makeup, in pajamas or a silk evening dress. With her cocoa skin, bright smile, and honest, almond-shaped eyes, she had a wholesome beauty that had first attracted him to her fourteen years ago, and had kept him caught up in her web ever since.
People always commented on how they made a handsome couple, but he doubted that he was holding up his side of the equation. He still wore the clothes he’d worn to Andrew’s cookout earlier that afternoon. He needed to shave. And the last time he’d glanced in the mirror, the bags under his eyes had gained weight.
June sat on the arm of the couch. She smelled of soap and apple-scented lotion. Being near her heightened his awareness of how disheveled he looked and felt.
She touched his shoulder. “You coming to bed?”
“I’m watching TV.”
“That’s what you said last night. And the night before.”
“That’s ’cause I like watching TV.”
She watched him closely, her face lined with concern.
She wanted to know what was going on; the question was in her steady gaze. But he kept his mouth shut. He could deal with this problem on his own.
“Okay, Ray.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Have a good night, baby.”