Sam wondered why Tony hadn’t mentioned any of this to him. Seemed like something that would have come up over the last year and a half. Maybe it had been a rare effort at tact on Tony’s part. Maybe it honestly hadn’t occurred to him because Tony was convinced that sex addiction was a bunch of hooey. Sam resolved to ask him about it the next time he saw him. He didn’t get a lot of chances to make Tony squirm, but he thought this conversation might just do it.
“Should I pick you up in the morning?”
“That would be great. Ten-thirty in the morning is painfully early whether I worked the night before or not. Not having to drive would be great.”
Sam cursed himself silently. Somehow he’d forgotten her tendency to fall asleep on the drive home from work. After a rough night, even the few miles between their house and the hospital hospice center could seem interminable.
“Do you want me to drive you home from here? I can drive your car for you and walk back.” Their house—her house, he reminded himself—was just a couple miles away.
She smiled tentatively at him. “I rode my bike. Figured there was no chance of falling asleep that way.”
“Oh, geez. Definitely let me drive you, then. We can cram the bike in the back seat.”
“No, no. It’ll do me good to soak up some sunshine with the rest of you non-zombies. And it’s a nice day for it.”
With an effort, Sam dropped the subject. “All right. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” She stood, and he followed suit. A moment of hesitation, then she hugged him, quick, fierce, and awkward. She spun away before he could read the expression in her eyes. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Nonplussed, Sam wandered into the back kitchen. Every cell her body had touched, pressed against him, felt electrified, blazing, painfully sensitized. He couldn’t put a name to his own feelings, couldn’t tell whether he was anxious or happy or relieved or just desperately sad. Everything about this new relationship was so… mature.
“So?” Dani appeared, wiping her hands on a towel. She probably deserved some kind of award for self-control, Sam thought. It must have taken every ounce of will-power in her being to keep her from openly eavesdropping, or worse—kicking Melanie out of the shop the second she’d arrived.
Instead of awarding her, though, Sam decided to tease her.
“So, I have a date.”
Dani gaped at him, dropping the towel. “A date? With the nurse of death?”
“Funny you should mention that. We’re actually going to a graveyard.”
Dani blinked rapidly as she put together his meaning. “You jerk!” she scolded, retrieving the towel and smacking him across the chest with it. “More like two hypocrites who can’t face all those other hypocrites at a funeral alone.”
Sam waggled his head. “Yeah, that sounds about right. But Dani, just because Christians fall into the same sins as the rest of the world doesn’t make them hypocrites.”
“You’re absolutely right. That makes them human. It’s the fact that they either abandoned you or turned on you when you admitted that you’re one of the people who do still sin. That does make them hypocrites.”
Okay, well, he couldn’t argue with that.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Black suited Melanie, with her long dark hair pulled back in a high ponytail and her gray eyes glinting in contrast. That sucked, Sam thought resignedly. A short-sleeved cable-knit sweater and a loose, crinkly-looking skirt was hardly the stuff of fantasies, but Sam knew that wouldn’t matter when he was alone in his room tonight with nothing but this image of her to keep him warm.
Sam’s former working wardrobe had made appropriate funeral dress easy for him. He knew most of the other men wouldn’t be wearing a suit, but he figured it was the least he could do for Amy. Appearances had meant so much to her, after all. It only seemed kind to show her that respect now.
Somehow, all the questions surrounding Amy’s death and Amanda’s involvement had given the affair a sense of unreality, had allowed Sam to stay removed. This morning, though, that safe distance had shattered, and he felt bowed, impossibly heavy, with the weight of the truth. A beautiful young mother was dead, and whatever the reason, it could not possibly be good enough to merit this outcome. Two children were motherless, a husband was bereft, a community had been hollowed out not only by the loss but also by the incomprehensible violence, the hatred, that had preceded it.
Moments like this were the whole reason Sam had found God in the first place. He and Dani hadn’t grown up in the faith, like Melanie had—much the opposite. Oh, their parents hadn’t been atheists; that would have required some principled thought and consideration on their parts. They’d have said they believed in God if you’d asked them. But you wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking. Anger, hatred, violence, that was the language they spoke. The weight of all the daily horrors of a mortal life had been too heavy to bear for a young Sam. The battery of that brutal language falling on his ears, day after day, needed the relief of some stranger melody. He’d longed to make some sense out of suffering, to find a pattern he could follow in the hopeless beauty and irrational cruelty of life. And where suffering had convinced Dani that there was no God, it had convinced Sam that there had to be.
This morning, under a cloudy Indiana sky, that familiar weight felt like an unwieldy sack of rocks. The more Sam shifted, trying to balance beneath it, the more it tumbled and rolled over him, pushing him off-balance and forcing him to his knees. He supposed he should be thinking somewhere along the lines of when life forces you to your knees, all you can do is pray, but that sounded more trite than helpful.
Sam came around the car to open Melanie’s door for her. Her pale face was set, her eyes weepy. He knew better than to offer comfort; she’d just crumble and not thank him for the ruin of her mascara. Remaining calm and reassuring in the face of so many deaths in other people’s lives meant that she had no reserves remaining to deal with death in her own. Sam didn’t know how much she and Amy had kept in contact since she’d left the church—he’d always thought she was closer to Amanda, but there was no way not to mourn this story whether you knew Amy well or not.
Knowing she wouldn’t want to surrender to the maudlin demands of the day, Sam was prepared. The car radio was set to his favorite country station, just loud enough to break into consciousness after a few minutes of driving. He started down the quiet street toward the church and waited.
Some things never changed. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Ugh! What is this miserably whiny crap you’re listening to?” Melanie exclaimed with disgusted. Her fingers punched at the preset buttons to no avail. He’d set them all to either classic country, new country, or the news.
“Are you kidding me?” Melanie never had any truck for the old adage about the driver getting control of the radio. She maintained a strict musical tyranny as either driver or passenger. Amused by the predictability of her petulance, Sam allowed a grin to slide across his face.
She spun the dial, settled on what could only be characterized as soulless, obnoxious pop. She gave a visible sigh of relief and settled back into her seat.
“You’re really too old to listen to that nonsense,” Sam told her placidly. “Have a little respect for your age.”
She howled and punched him in the arm. His grin widened.
“When you’re forced to resort to violence, it’s generally considered a sign that you have no rational argument,” he suggested.
She tossed her ponytail haughtily. “I don’t need an argument. I make no apologies for my choice of music. Ed Sheeran is brilliantly talented. The violence was for your remark on my age, and thoroughly deserved.”
Sam shrugged. “Fair, fair. I was wrong to say that you were old. You’re no more than middle-aged.”
“If I’m dead by the time I’m sixty!”
Sam started to snap back, but suddenly the teasing conversation seemed to have run into a dark alley. Melanie turned up the radio, wh
ich had changed from what he could only assume had been the brilliant Ed to some female squalling. The last two minutes of the drive hung suspended in awkward silence till they pulled into the church parking lot.
Which Sam considered a huge win. He’d completely expected the entire drive to be awkward.
By mutual consent, they both remained strapped into their seats for a long minute, staring straight ahead even after Sam had shut off the engine. The lot was packed with cars; Sam had to park on the verge of the green lawn that edged the concrete. They both drew in a ragged breath at the same time.
“I guess the only way out is through,” Melanie muttered, a phrase Sam had often heard fall from her lips.
He unlatched his seat belt and opened his car door, still making no move to actually exit. “You know, there’s a great country song about that.”
She cast him a contemptuous glance in which he could nonetheless read her gratitude for his lame efforts at lightening the mood. “I’ll pass, thanks. We might as well do this.”
He nodded. They both exited the car. Sam came around the back of the Impreza to meet her. They walked across the lot toward the church doors side by side, almost but not quite touching. Sam felt naked, exposed, painfully on display. He tried chiding himself for his self-absorption, reminding himself that today was about Amy and not him and Melanie, but the sensation of a thousand watching eyes just wouldn’t fade.
He stole a glance at Melanie. Working as a hospice nurse had given her immeasurable practice at faking poise, and her performance now was flawless. Even in the heels that brought her nearly to his own height of 6’4”, she moved fluidly, without hesitation. Her jaw was relaxed, her gaze set forward, a faint, somber smile on her lips. If he didn’t know her so well, he’d never guess she was about to face a building full of gossips and curiosity-seekers whose conversation fodder she’d provided for months. Sam’s own self-consciousness vanished in a wave of shame, of terrible regret that because of his past behavior, this day would be harder for her than simple grief would merit.
They’d reached the entrance. He pulled the door open and tried vainly to control his start of surprise when she slipped her cold hand into his. “Let’s do this,” he heard her whisper, and they were through.
What was the smell that made this building so redolent with memory? Musty air conditioning, even though a gray drizzle had just started falling in the cool morning outside, cleaning supplies, hot coffee, a dozen competing perfumes. Without thinking, Sam took a step closer to Melanie and gently inhaled her familiar musk of vanilla and cinnamon and skin, and an unlikely calm settled over him even as several faces turned toward them wearing expressions that ranged from simple surprise to shock to disdain. The foyer was crushed with people—Amy had been a force not just in the church but in the community, plus the notoriety of the affair had brought out some press. Glancing around the room, Sam even saw Detective Nguyen leaning against the wall in a navy blue suit, nursing a Styrofoam cup of coffee and watching the show.
Sam resolved to speak to the man, but first, he had to make it through the first wave of the notorious Church Lady Gauntlet, which was naturally headed by none other than Chelsea Bromiglia. Even the sight of her husband Tony at her side, hands in his pockets, a welcoming grin on his face, couldn’t diminish the fearsome power wielded in the redhead’s officious snarl that Sam could only assume was intended as a smile.
“Sam! Melanie. How nice you could come. And together.” Chelsea held out her hands to them both. Sam knew her words were intended to put them in their place as outsiders, visitors, to a world she now controlled, and he was relieved to discover that he did not resent the effort at all.
Tony moved past his wife with a barely-perceptible shake of his head, wrapping first Sam and then Melanie in quick bear hugs. “Good to see you guys,” he said warmly. “Come on in. You can sit with me.”
Chelsea’s mouth clenched and she laid her hand on Tony’s arm. “We’re supposed to be greeting people,” she reminded him with a tight smile.
“That’s really your gig,” Tony told her easily. “I’m just standing here like a stump. I’ll take Sam and Melanie in, find a seat. You can come sit with us once the crowd thins out.”
Outmaneuvered, Chelsea acquiesced with an expression that clearly said Tony would pay the price later.
“See, she’s not that scary, is she?” Tony asked in a low voice as they nodded and smiled to familiar faces on their path into the auditorium.
“Just completely terrifying,” Sam responded.
Melanie choked back a snort of laughter.
The auditorium was already nearly full, but Tony led them to a pew near the front where he and Chelsea had laid out their coats to save a seat. Made sense, Sam thought. Chelsea would have wanted to be front and center at any event, even a funeral.
Melanie’s steps had slowed. A large maple and steel coffin rested on a bier just below the altar, decked with mounds and mounds of flowers. An easel held a smiling photograph of Amy Randolph, her young and careful loveliness now painful to witness. The casket was closed, a silent, screaming reminder of the horror of her passing. Sam rested his hand in the small of Melanie’s back and imperceptibly, she leaned into him.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her quietly as she took a seat next to Tony. “I need to talk to someone.”
“Seriously?” she protested weakly. Sam hardly knew what to do with the Melanie who might need him for something.
“Just for a minute,” he promised.
“No worries,” Tony reassured them both. “I’ll keep the biddies at bay.”
Melanie smiled in spite of herself.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Navigating the crowds back into the foyer took a little longer than Sam had anticipated, sans Tony’s determined bulk to keep people at bay. Sam had to stop and talk to several people on his way, and he was surprised to find that most seemed genuinely glad to see him again. He hadn’t allowed himself to miss anyone, to miss that outpouring of fellowship and affection that wrapped around him now. Maybe some of his role of outcast was all in his head. Maybe most of it was. A few scandal-seekers and lonely old gossips did not define a church, he thought consideringly. Maybe his notoriety had been all of his own making, more proof of his damned pride.
Then he caught sight of Chelsea’s perfectly-coiffed head bobbing along in an intense-looking feminine huddle, caught the snap of her eyes as she stared him down unrepentantly across the crush of people, her lips moving like a jackhammer, and he decided maybe his new-found perspective was still a little skewed.
But she wasn’t the one he was looking for. He scanned the room, found his target, and strode that way.
“Detective,” he said, looking down at the slighter man. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
Nguyen smiled at him, all innocence. “Just here to pay my respects.”
“Do you come to all your victims’ funerals?”
“More often than you would probably think.”
“Is this some kind of Law & Order schtick, where you show up to watch the crowd and suss out a suspect?”
“I have a suspect in custody,” Nguyen rejoined calmly, sipping his coffee and grimacing. “Gone cold,” he explained.
Sam walked over to the carafe with him for a top-up. “And I don’t see your partner.”
“Nope, he’s not here. Just me. Some cases get under your skin more than others, you know? Beautiful, hardworking, young mom who, as far as I can see, never did any harm to anyone, taken from her children, and no one will even tell me why.”
Nguyen’s voice didn’t change inflection, but Sam sensed the anger coursing under the words. For all of his previous irritation with the man, he was suddenly very glad that Amy Randolph was not just another body to the cop investigating her death.
“You really care.”
Nguyen huffed, tossing back the slightly-warmer coffee and then dropping the cup in the trash bin located by the table. “Of course I care. You don’t th
ink people do this job because they’re looking to punch a clock and take home a paycheck? Believe me, the money’s not worth the nightmares.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Do you need me to introduce you to anybody?”
Nguyen shook his head. “I’m just a fly on the wall. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
Sam had a feeling that was true. “All right, then.”
Chelsea’s avaricious gaze was still fixed on him, so he smiled cheerily in her direction and waggled his fingers in what he hoped was an obnoxiously friendly wave before scooting back into the auditorium. The service should be starting soon.
He slid back into the seat beside Melanie. She didn’t take his hand again, but he could have sworn her shoulder leaned into his, ever so slightly. This baby friendship thing they were starting was going to be the death of him. He resisted the urge to groan as his body registered every inhalation and exhalation of her breath.
Sam could see the back of Clay Randolph’s head, on the front row where the family was seated. A few people he didn’t know were there, too, maybe family from Clay’s side. At the opposite end of the pew, Sam spied Amy’s parents and her daughters. He’d met the parents a few times, but couldn’t remember their names for the life of him.
“Does that seem strange to you?” he whispered to Melanie.
A shiver ran through her as his breath grazed her ear. She followed the direction of his gaze. He watched as her white teeth emerged and sank into her bottom lip as she considered, clearly connecting with his line of thought. “Very strange,” she whispered back. “Maybe her parents blame Clay for some reason? But you’d think the girls would want to sit with their dad. They haven’t seen him for days, and he’s all they really have now.”
Chelsea slid into the pew beside Tony, their twin teenagers Nathan and Alessia tucked against her in appropriately subdued attire as the music from the pianist on stage shifted, signaling that the service would soon begin. Chelsea glared reprovingly at Sam and Tony both, for no apparent reason. Tony patted his wife on the knee like she was just a cranky puppy and grinned irrepressibly at Sam. Sam knew Tony wasn’t a cold or unfeeling guy; he thought Amy’s death was sad and senseless, but they’d hardly spoken to each other when she was alive. He wasn’t the sort of man to look for griefs to cry over.
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