by Dianne Dixon
There was something in her eyes, the way she was looking at him. What was it? Accusation? Disgust? He knew he had to be imagining it, but she seemed to be staring at him like he was transparent, like she was seeing what he was remembering… Another night, in another place. A girl crumpled on the floor, a knife wound running the length of her back.
Matt’s knees buckled. He dropped into a sitting position, perched on one of the sealed moving boxes.
“Sir,” Officer Yamanaka said again. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“I told you everything. After the party ended at our new house, Ali came back here, and I gave a ride home to one of our guests who’d had too much to drink. It took about half an hour. Then I came straight here, parked the car, and came upstairs. When I walked in, I called out to Ali, saying how glad I was this would be our last night in the apartment and I couldn’t wait to get into bed, to hold her. Then when she didn’t answer, I went looking for her. I found her in the shower, crouched under a stream of scalding water. She was scrubbing her skin raw, rocking against the shower wall and crying. She was—” Matt stopped himself abruptly. “Like I said, I told you everything.”
Matt knew that wasn’t the truth.
He hadn’t told the attractive young cop everything.
He hadn’t told her how guilty he was.
Ali
Ali’s rape happened shortly before midnight. Shortly before dawn, detectives and uniformed police officers were wrapping up their investigation of the crime scene.
Ali had just gotten back from the hospital, where a doctor had examined her and sent evidence of the rape to the police lab. Now she was in a blue bathrobe, sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard and her knees drawn tight to her chest. Matt was beside her.
A stocky female detective, who had skin like leather and eyes that were drowsy and empathetic, said, “And nothing out of the ordinary in the days leading up to the rape? Unusual phone calls? Text messages?”
“There weren’t any messages that were out of the ordinary,” Ali said.
The mention of text messages had given her a little zap of guilt, even though what she’d said was true. The messages she didn’t want to discuss weren’t out of the ordinary. They were an everyday routine that had started when Matt disappeared into his work and Ali was hopelessly lonely. The messages had been delicious, flirtatious conversations with her old friend Levi.
The texts had continued right up until the day before yesterday—when Ali put a stop to them, because she loved Matt and knew what she was doing with Levi was wrong.
“You’re sure you’ve told me everything you can remember about the man who attacked you?” the detective asked.
Ali was still thinking about the text messages. They’d started a few months ago, right after Ali and Matt’s first wedding anniversary. Ali was looking at the patio door. Looking at the broken lock. Remembering the details of her anniversary.
• • •
Matt hadn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. The special dinner she’d prepared was on the coffee table in the living room, untouched. Ali was in bed. The drapes on the patio doors weren’t quite closed, and the broken lock was highlighted by the strip of light peeking through the slit.
Ali pretended to be asleep when Matt came into the apartment. “I know you’re awake,” he said.
“And I know it’s after midnight. It’s already tomorrow. You missed our anniversary.” She was weary, worn-out from being alone and lonely.
“Ali, I would’ve been here if I could. We got notes from the network. The script needed a total rewrite. I had to stay till it was done. I didn’t have a choice.”
Ali rolled away from him and refused to speak. Matt sat on the side of the bed, looking exhausted. “Al, this job is all about you. It’s me stepping up and giving you what you needed—the restaurant, the new house.”
“I never asked you for those things. I could have waited.” Ali was thinking that what she really needed was a baby.
Matt was insistent. “I didn’t want you to have to ask. Or wait. Ever.”
“This is crazy. It’s like you’re killing yourself trying to make up to me for something you never did wrong in the first place.”
There had always been a quality in Matt that Ali didn’t understand, a secret she couldn’t quite name, and she knew what she’d just said had touched a nerve. Matt had winced. The only thing that wasn’t clear was the nature of the secret he was keeping. And as much as she wanted to ask what it was, Ali didn’t know how. She should have asked a long time ago, at the beginning of their relationship. And now the silence had gone on too long.
Which is why her only question was, “Can’t you back off, just a little, on how much time you spend at work?”
“Al, I’m holding on to this job by my fingernails. And we’re too far in debt for me to slack off, even for a minute.”
“What do you mean…holding on by your fingernails?”
Matt seemed to be hurting as he said, “There’s a writing team on my staff, Jacobs and Karel. Jacobs quit last week. But Karel asked to stay. Aidan’s away, working on his new movie, so I talked to our co-executive producer. Want to know what he said? He said Karel was an outstanding writer, but he’s expendable. The idiot said good writing isn’t what we need. What we need is someone who can keep the banter coming.” Matt gave a bitter, mystified laugh. “I have a PhD in English literature, and I work for a man whose holy grail is banter.”
“I wish you’d never talked me into coming to California,” Ali murmured. “I wish we’d stayed home.” Matt crawled into bed beside her and cradled her as she asked, “Do you think we could ever go back?”
“Go back?”
“To Rhode Island. To you being a college professor.”
Ali could sense the ambivalence in Matt. It unnerved her. “Tell me you love me,” she said. “Tell me everything’s going to be all right.”
“I love you, Ali. Everything’s going to be all right.” Matt moved closer and put his hand on the flat of her belly, trailing his fingertips in slow circles.
Ali’s quiet moan was the sound of want—the wanting of a child. It was also the sound of unhappiness. There would be no way to have a baby for a very long while. The restaurant, still in its infancy, had left Ali without the time or the money for anything else. By rushing her into making the restaurant a reality, Matt had taken a baby away from her. By bringing them to California, he’d created a life where he’d vanished into his job and left Ali feeling completely abandoned.
As she was drifting into sleep that night, she’d gazed at the broken lock on the patio door. The lock she’d stubbornly left unrepaired to show Matt he wasn’t paying enough attention to her. And she had been consumed by a single gut-wrenching thought—I’m unprotected.
• • •
The same thought had been in Ali just a few hours ago, while the rapist was slamming her to the floor—breaking her open, shattering her.
Ali’s voice was hollow as she answered the detective’s question about the man who had attacked her. “All I remember are the clothes. Only his clothes. I never saw his face.”
“Why is that?”
“It was dark. I’d been drying my hair and, at first, the towel was over my head. Later, it slipped a little. I saw the shirt he was wearing, and the jeans.”
“Describe them for me one more time.” The detective checked her notepad. “I want to be sure we got everything.”
“The jeans were just regular jeans, I guess. But his shirt was like an old-time cowboy shirt…satiny…with snap buttons. They were black. The pocket and the cuffs had black edges.”
“Anything else?”
Ali touched the sore place on her hip. “His belt buckle. It was big, in the shape of a horseshoe.” Her eyes widened. “Wait. Shoes. I saw his shoes!”
The
detective looked up from the notepad. “What kind of shoes?”
“Cowboy boots. When he left, when he walked away, he almost stepped on me. The boot was dark, like maybe an eggplant color, and it was bumpy. It could’ve been alligator. Or ostrich. Something like that.”
“Okay. Good.” The detective flipped back through several pages, scanning her notes, before she asked, “And the attack itself—”
Ali had a quick, involuntary intake of breath.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to make you talk about it again. I just need to clarify one thing. When the rape was over…that’s when the attack stopped? Afterward, he didn’t make any attempt to hit you? Choke you? Harm you in any other way?”
“No,” Ali whispered. “It hurt so much. But it happened fast. Fast. And ugly.”
There was wildness in Matt’s eyes as he told the detective, “It’s my fault. I wasn’t here to protect her.”
The detective studied Matt for a moment, then asked Ali, “Anything else about the man who hurt you? Perhaps something he said?”
“I don’t think he said anything. No, I’m sure. He didn’t. I never heard his voice.” Ali frowned, puzzled by the information she was about share. “But I remember his breath. It smelled like mint but was still kind of sour…like maybe he’d just put a breath freshener in his mouth.”
“Do you remember if he was wearing any jewelry? A watch? A ring?”
“I don’t know… I guess he could’ve been wearing a watch. I don’t remember.”
The detective closed her notebook. “Okay. I’ll let you get some rest.” She reached out and patted Ali’s shoulder. “What you’re going through right now is awful, but it gets better. I promise.”
Ali shook her head. “You couldn’t even imagine what I’m going through.”
“I don’t have to imagine. I know.” The detective held Ali’s gaze for a beat, then walked out of the room.
The instant the woman was gone, Matt moved closer to Ali. She shot away, repulsed by the thought of being touched. “Don’t come near me, Matt. I don’t think I ever want anyone to come near me again.”
Matt’s voice was thin, ragged. “Please. Al—” That’s as far as he got. A shout was echoing in the living room.
Peter Sebelius—calling Matt’s name, and Ali’s.
Ali was immediately in a panic. “Don’t say anything! Don’t tell him. I don’t want anybody to know. Ever.” She grabbed Matt’s arm hard enough to leave marks. “Promise. Promise you won’t tell anybody.”
It was as if something inside Matt was shifting, compressing. Ali saw unexplainable darkness in him as he said, “I won’t breathe a word. I promise.”
Ali kept looking at Matt’s eyes, wanting to see into his soul, into whatever the darkness was. But finally, she understood it was impossible. She let go of him, and he walked away.
Then the thought came again—I’m unprotected.
Ali quickly got out of bed and went to the doorway to watch what was happening in the other room—to be sure Matt was keeping his promise.
Peter Sebelius was just inside the apartment doorway. Wearing hospital scrubs, a stethoscope draped around his neck, telling Matt, “I saw cops leaving here. What happened?”
“Nothing,” Matt said. “No big deal.” He had crossed the living room and was standing directly in front of Peter, keeping him from coming any farther into the apartment.
“A bunch of cops at six o’clock in the morning? That’s more than ‘no big deal.’ Are you guys okay?”
“Just a prowler. Somebody tried to break in.”
It was apparent Peter didn’t believe Matt’s story. “You’re sure everything’s all right? Nobody’s hurt?”
“Yeah. We’re both fine.” Matt flashed a tense smile. “Hey, man, you have circles under your eyes like somebody punched your lights out. It must’ve been a long night at the hospital. Go get some sleep.”
“Actually, I’m on my way back to work. Just got a call to come in on an emergency consult. A newborn with a severely deformed hip.” Peter still sounded concerned as he went out the door and said, “I’ll check in with you later.”
Ali edged into the living room, positioning herself behind a stack of moving boxes so that she was out of sight but could see into the hallway.
Peter was heading toward the elevator that would take him down to the garage. As the elevator doors opened, he stopped short and looked back at Matt. “Wait. You won’t be here later, will you? You guys are moving today. I forgot.”
Ali had forgotten, too. The movers would be arriving in an hour, and there was no way she could stand being in this apartment for another minute. And with every fiber in her body warning her not to do it, she told Matt, “Call Morgan.”
Morgan
Her ringing phone startled Morgan out of a deep sleep. In a stuffy motel room. She was disoriented, groggy. Groping into the folds of the blanket, pushing aside crumpled tissues and wrinkled magazines.
She finally found her phone and mumbled, “What? Who is it?”
“It’s Matt.”
At the sound of his voice, the bleakness of his tone, Morgan immediately tried to wake up, but she’d taken a sleeping pill last night. Her brain felt heavy, foggy.
“Morgan, I apologize for calling so early. I need a favor.”
“Sure. What do you need?” Morgan sensed something was wrong but couldn’t think straight. She was struggling to clear her head.
Matt told her, “The movers will be here at seven. We’re all packed, but Ali’s exhausted. She needs to go over to the new place, get some rest. And I’m wondering if you could—”
“Wait a minute. You woke me up at the crack of dawn because my sister needs a nap? You’ve got to be—” Morgan stopped speaking. She was so angry she could spit.
“Morgan, I want to take Ali to the new house right away. She really needs to get out of the apartment,” Matt said. “Somebody has to be here to deal with the movers. Please. We need your help.”
There was a quality in Matt’s voice that was so strung out and desperate that it sent Morgan stumbling out of bed, groping for her clothes. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do it.”
• • •
After the move was over, Morgan stopped in the late afternoon to pick up a pizza. Then she went straight to Ali’s new home.
The heat from the pizza box was burning her hand as she entered Ali’s kitchen. She needed a place to set the box down as fast as possible. But all the countertops were covered with packing containers and stacks of dishes and cooking utensils. The only open space was a chair seat—empty except for a neatly folded, crayon-yellow apron.
She moved toward the chair, still enjoying the high-flying sense of elation from earlier in the day, when one of the movers had assumed Morgan was the Mrs. Easton listed on the work order and said, “Your husband’s a lucky guy. A lot of women have no idea how to organize a move.”
Morgan was thrilled by the compliment. She really had brought organization to Ali’s chaos. Wading into the maze of jumbled moving boxes, quickly labeling them. Sealing them. Lining them up in tidy rows. She’d let herself dream she was a happy, young wife, moving to a beautiful new home—the kind of wife who really appreciates my husband, and our love—not somebody like Ali, who has life handed to her on a silver platter and takes it all for granted.
Morgan had completed Ali’s move feeling proud of the meticulous way she’d managed every little item. Right down to washing out the inside of the refrigerator and getting the Salvation Army to pick up a pile of odds and ends in the parking garage—details Ali had obviously overlooked.
She had walked into Ali’s new house with a sense of efficiency and purpose. And as she put the hot pizza box on the chair, on top of the apron, Morgan was startled by what sounded like a polite but firm criticism. “If you please…do not do that!”
Ava, the stunni
ngly beautiful woman who worked at Ali’s restaurant, was kneeling in front of the kitchen’s center island, lining the cabinet shelves underneath it. She rushed to the chair, lifting the pizza box away from the apron. “The grease. It will stain.” She indicated the oily splotch on the bottom of the box.
Morgan’s fragile bubble of happiness was instantly annihilated, replaced with something more familiar—hurt and defensiveness. “I put a pizza box on an apron. Isn’t catching stains what aprons are for?”
Ava slid the pizza box onto the stove top, then picked up the apron. Shaking it out. Holding it so Morgan could see it was embroidered with the name of Ali’s restaurant, JOY, and with the date of the restaurant’s opening. “This is not used for cooking. It is precious to Ali. The only one there is. Her husband had it made for her special, as a present.”
“Of course he did.” Ava and the apron had sucked Morgan back into being nothing more than Ali’s bumbling sister. And she was already halfway to the back door. Her face flushed and hot. Her fingers roaming the places where the cuts had been—the invisible traces of ugliness.
Morgan was almost out the door when she was stopped by the sound of bells and a tiny, delighted laugh. Morgan suddenly realized that Ava’s baby was in the room, with a cascade of miniature silver bells dancing above the rim of her portable playpen.
The baby and the playpen, the coziness of it, triggered a wicked stab of jealousy in Morgan.
Ava, someone Morgan had only met once, was completely at home in Ali’s house, while she, Morgan, was a stranger here at 76 Paradise Lane.
Morgan looked from the baby to Ava, her jealousy resentful and possessive. “Very cozy. But I’m confused. At the housewarming, I thought I heard somebody say you were one of my sister’s restaurant workers.”
“I am. But I am also her friend.” Ava calmly went back to lining the cabinet shelves. “Ali’s husband called me today and said she was not well.” Ava stopped to gaze at her dark-eyed, strikingly lovely baby. “I told him Sofie and I will come and make the kitchen ready.”
