by Wendy Walker
“Finally they came, my sister and others from the party. They came seeping from the woods, their hands covering their mouths in horror as they saw Mitch bleeding on the ground. And saw me standing over him, holding the bat and screaming like a lunatic. Every last one of them, including my sister, came to the same conclusion—I knew right then and there, because they didn’t run to me, or to Mitch, to try to help us. To calm me down or stop the bleeding. They just stood and stared the way people do when they stumble upon a crime scene. I was surrounded by people—friends, and even family—and yet I was completely, painfully, alone.”
Jonathan stares now too. Scrunched brow. Open mouth. I know this look well. I seem to bring it out in people.
But I can’t stand seeing it. Not now—not on Jonathan Fielding.
I turn around so I don’t have to bear witness. I see my purse and pull it toward me. One hand reaches in, looking again for the phone and possibly a charger hidden, perhaps, among the debris I shoved in there from my other bag.
“Laura…” His voice is deep and soft. He stands behind me again, like he’d done before I finished my story. He wraps his strong arms around me. Just like before. He kisses the top of my head, not like Rosie does with Mason—a quick peck as he races off. His lips linger long enough for me to feel his breath.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” he whispers. And then I feel his cheek pressing against mine.
I close my eyes and let my hand rest inside the purse. I am the one who begins to melt now.
His pulse quickens. He kisses my neck.
Melting. Melting.
I am a woman on fire.
“Tell me to stop and I will.…” His hands run down the sides of my waist. Slow but firm. One of them finds the front of a thigh. The other finds the back.
“Tell me.…” he says again. He almost pleads. I am pulling him to that treacherous place. The point of no return.
Walk away.… It’s just an illusion. I know that now, and yet I am still helpless.
I feel the rush. The power over this man.
I am an invincible woman.
I am a helpless child, tugging on a sleeve, watching as the head begins to look down. Eyes from above are about to turn, about to see me.
I am so close, I can feel it in my bones.
My hand is still inside the purse, but it no longer feels for a charger. It wants to touch him, this man. Jonathan Fielding. I pull my hand from the bag and feel the metal zipper scratch against my knuckles. But my fingertips, they brush against something cool and stiff. A piece of paper, and a horrible thought rushes through me. A note?
He grabs my hips and spins me around. His mouth finds mine. I suddenly know nothing of the paper in the purse or the scrape from the zipper, as my hand is now free, reaching beneath his shirt to touch his body.
Both hands find his shoulders, then his head, sweeping through his hair.
Walk away, I try to tell that woman. But she won’t listen. She never listens.
She deserves what’s coming.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Rosie. Present Day. Saturday, 10 a.m. Branston, CT.
Gabe sat across from Rosie at the same diner where she’d met the woman from the bar. She’d sent Joe a quick text: Still in NY. Call if you hear anything. Then she’d turned off her phone.
She showed Gabe the notes and told him about New York. He was with her every step, not missing a beat.
“So the boyfriend was the shrink—the one she said she’d been seeing?” Gabe asked. He looked as tired as Rosie felt, cradling a ceramic coffee mug between two palms.
“It would be just like her to seduce her therapist,” Rosie said, then wished she could take it back. “God, that’s horrible, isn’t it? How can I say things about her when she’s in this much trouble?”
Gabe reached over and grabbed her hand. His skin was warm, comforting, and it suddenly occurred to her that she and Joe never held hands anymore.
“Rosie—nothing you do or say right now is going to be judged. Not by me, at least. It is like Laura to do something like that. She always went for the highest climb—the guys who seemed impossible to conquer, even if it was just because they were assholes.”
“Like Mitch Adler,” Rosie blurted out.
Gabe didn’t flinch even though she expected it. “Yes. Like Mitch Adler. And this man, Kevin Brody, he was off-limits for every possible reason. He was older. He was married. He had kids. And he was her shrink. That’s Mount Everest right there.”
“Christ, Gabe. I can see her, you know? Sitting in his office, being vulnerable but clever. She probably cried.”
“I know. I can see it too. Walking past him a little too close. Brushing his shoulder as she passed by, looking up with soft eyes.”
Rosie thought about that picture on her computer. Somewhere along the way, Laura had learned that sadness and longing didn’t get her what she needed. So she’d become sexual. Irresistible.
“She doesn’t know she’s doing it,” Gabe said. “I truly believe that. It just kicks in like a car shifting gears.”
“And now he’s dead.” Rosie pressed her hands to her face.
Gabe leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Wait a minute—you don’t think she had anything to do with that, do you? It was a robbery.…” He grabbed his phone and pulled up the article Rosie had sent him. “Okay … here—he was struck with something from behind. Knocked to the ground, where he hit his head a second time against the cement. It took over an hour for him to die.”
“Struck with something … knocked to the ground. Is it really that crazy? You’re the one who told us about that story with your brother—at the fort, remember? How she hit him with a stick? Looked like a wild animal?”
“Rosie…” Gabe stopped himself. Rosie could see that he knew—he couldn’t deny any of it. Laura had a history of violence going back to her early childhood.
“She could be more psychotic than we know, Gabe. I love her, but sometimes you can love someone, think you know them, and then suddenly you find something out and your eyes open to a different world.”
His name was Joe. Rosie could still hear Kathleen saying those words.
“Let’s just back up,” Gabe said. “Step one—find Laura. That’s it. That’s all we have to do. Then we can figure out what’s been going on with her.”
“Okay,” Rosie said, pulling herself back. She wanted to tell Gabe about Laura and Joe, but she didn’t even know what there was to tell. Was it an affair? A flirtation? Why the hell was her husband calling her sister? Why had he gone to her apartment weeks before she’d come back home? If it was anything other than an affair, if Joe was helping her, counseling her somehow, maybe for the murder of her boyfriend, he would have told Rosie. Nothing would have been worth the fallout if he kept it from her—the fallout that was now upon them.
“The way I see it,” Gabe began, “we now have three possibilities. First, Laura found out about this guy being a player and can’t face whatever it is she did that night. Second, something went wrong when she found out and one of them got hurt. But there’s a third one now. And it has to do with those notes.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Rosie said, thankful Gabe didn’t use the word “dead.” Even though they both knew that was a possibility.
“If this guy is more than just a womanizer—if he’s a professional con man—then it’s possible he targeted Laura in connection with Mitch Adler’s murder.”
“But why now, Gabe? I mean, she lived an hour away in New York. It’s not as though she’s been in hiding. And who would have gone to all this trouble? Who would even know she was on a dating website?”
“It could be anyone affected by the murder—a family member, a friend—and what about Lionel Casey? Maybe he had family and maybe they have a vendetta because he spent his life in a mental facility against his will. If they were all just going about their business, and then one day someone saw Laura in town—it could have broken the dam.”
“Or…”
Rosie’s eyes opened wider. “Gabe—what if she was on this date last night and that’s when someone saw her—someone close to Mitch Adler or Lionel Casey who believed she was responsible for the death? What if this has nothing to do with Jonathan Fields or Laura finding out about him and freaking out? What if we’re chasing the wrong lead?”
Gabe agreed all of that was possible.
“We should tell the police, Rosie. About those notes, about the connection to the past. They can find people faster than we can.”
Rosie wasn’t sure. That would mean bringing everyone back to that night in the woods. She hadn’t heard from the two officers since yesterday evening. She’d assumed that they hadn’t put the pieces together about Laura Lochner, past and present, because if they had, they would have called her. Telling them about the notes would make that inescapable.
“Rosie,” Gabe said, “why didn’t Joe show them to the police when they were at the house?”
Rosie shrugged. “I think he didn’t want them to focus on the past. To not take it seriously—finding Laura.”
“Okay,” Gabe said, nodding a little too hard. She could tell he wasn’t buying it.
And Rosie had no patience for guessing. “What? Do you think it’s something else?”
“No … I just … Look—don’t take this the wrong way. But sometimes when I’m at your house, and you’ve gone upstairs with Mason, we all keep drinking and talking. And then sometimes I leave, and they pour another round.”
“What are you saying?”
“That sometimes they stay up talking. Alone. I have no idea what it’s about. But maybe Laura confided in him about something. Maybe about the notes or something else. Maybe Joe’s afraid to expose her to the police.”
His name was Joe.
First Kathleen, and now Gabe, telling her things about her husband and sister. This could not be happening. Not to her own family. Was there no end to the trouble? Would it follow them forever?
“He went to see her, Gabe,” Rosie blurted out then. She couldn’t be alone in this.
“What do you mean?” Gabe looked surprised. Shocked, even. And something else—territorial, protective. His alliance had always been with Laura, and Rosie was now putting the pieces together. That story about his brother. That had to have stayed with him. Made him feel responsible for her and whatever damage Rick Wallace had caused.
“Laura’s roommate heard them on the phone, and saw Joe with her at the apartment in New York. Before she moved. Before the breakup with the shrink—if there even was a boyfriend. Maybe that was all a ruse. A distraction.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gabe said, thinking. “You don’t believe…”
“I don’t know, Gabe.” Rosie let the tears come now. It was too much. Too fucking much.
“No way!” Gabe shook his head as though he could erase the thought from both of their minds. “Not Joe. He loves you. He always has. Always. And Laura—she would never do that to you, even if she did have feelings for him after all these years.”
Rosie wiped her eyes and gathered herself. She was in an alternate world now, where nothing was known or unknown except the facts. Joe had been seeing Laura behind her back. Joe had been having secret conversations with her at the house. Joe had found the notes, conveniently, after the police left.
And Joe had found the car.
This last fact suddenly jumped out above the rest.
“He found the car,” Rosie said. “Joe—and in less than an hour.”
Gabe was silent, his eyes fixed on Rosie. He took her hand again and pressed his lips against her palm. Then he squeezed it hard between his own, and she imagined that he didn’t believe it. But then he also did, and now he was going to be her protector, even from his best friend. The man he’d known since childhood.
His phone buzzed on the table right beside their hands. Gabe broke away from the embrace and picked it up.
“It’s a message,” he said, pulling it up to the screen. “Shit! From findlove.com. From secondchance.”
Rosie gasped. The woman from the website who’d gone quiet. The woman who’d told them to RUN.
“What did she say?”
“She gave us a phone number. She said she’ll talk to us.”
Rosie stared at him, eyes stinging now, from the exhaustion and the tears. She’d already heard one story about this man, this Jonathan Fields, from Sylvia Emmett, a woman he’d picked up at a bar and then lied to and mistreated. Now they had the woman from findlove.com. What story was she about to tell? Rosie was afraid to find out.
“Are you ready?” he asked her, looking at her with steadfast resolve.
It didn’t matter if she was ready or not ready. They had to find Laura. Everything else would fall into place.
She opened her mouth, but it was bone-dry. So she didn’t speak. She met Gabe’s eyes and nodded. Yes.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Laura. Session Number Three. Four Months Ago. New York City.
Dr. Brody: Do you worry when you’re here? When you’re with me?
Laura: No.
Dr. Brody: You don’t wonder if maybe you’re doing it again? With the wrong man—a man who will never love you.
Laura: Well, now I am. Thanks …
Dr. Brody: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put thoughts in your head.
Laura: Isn’t that your job, Kevin?
Dr. Brody: I suppose it is. Hopefully good thoughts. Or correct thoughts, I should say.
Laura: I would only be worried if I thought you were going to break my heart.
Laura: You’re not going to do that, are you?
TWENTY-NINE
Laura. The Night Before. Friday, 12 a.m. Branston, CT.
It’s over in minutes.
Mere minutes.
I’ve thought about this before. How it can take hours, days, weeks to arrive at this place. Clothes littered on the floor. Arms, legs now limp and twisted together like a pile of dead trees in a ravaged forest. I feel his heart, wild against my chest. Breath coming and going in quick bursts. Panting. Our naked skin sticks together from the drying sweat. The residue of the heat that is cooling fast.
Mere minutes. A tornado. A tsunami. So much drama before its arrival. Then it comes with a force that was fully anticipated, yet we are still unprepared. Taken by surprise. Swept away. It leaves us forever altered. The shape of our bodies, the way they respond, the way they move—these intimate details cannot be unrevealed.
Mere minutes and everything is over. I am stunned.
I press my closed eyes into the nape of his neck. I don’t want to see his face.
“That was incredible,” he says. And he follows it with a dramatic moan.
I think now that it was no more or less incredible than every other time. It’s so predictable, and yet I never seem to learn.
Another moan, this one manufactured. I know because his heart has quieted.
Then the same hand that—moments before—clenched my ass to pull us together, harder, deeper, now lightly pats my back. Three quick pats that say, We’re done here.
I can’t bear to face this newest failure. It is bigger than the others because this time I knew. This time I understood. Dr. Brody made sure of that.
Don’t invent him.
Don’t fill in the blank spaces with intimacy that does not exist.
Don’t mistake sex for power.
Jonathan Fielding. I made you my confidant. I made you my hero. I let you fill me with love then take it away. I clench my eyes tighter, but I cannot pretend I don’t see the injury I have inflicted upon myself. It’s painful. And so familiar.
Another pat on the back and this time he pulls his head away, so I have nowhere left to hide my eyes.
“Hey—I have an idea,” he says. His voice is lighthearted now. “Why don’t I order a pizza? I’m starving. We never got dinner.”
We lie side by side on top of his black-and-gray comforter. We lie at an angle across the bed. We have barely made a ruffle. I slip my
arm out from under his body, pull out a leg from between his knees. He makes adjustments for me so I can leave him quickly and without any hesitation.
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I roll off the bed, leaving him propped up on an elbow, watching. I feel his eyes on my body as I walk across the room. I enter the bathroom and don’t turn around until I can hide behind the door. He’s seen my ass now, in the light, and I can’t get that back. But he hasn’t seen the rest of me, and I guard it now with the passion of regret. Behind the door, I turn on the light and push in the lock. Then I run the water. A towel hangs on a hook and I grab it and wrap it around me like a life preserver. But I cannot be saved. I know that now.
I sit on the edge of his ceramic bathtub and let my head fall into the palms of my hands.
I try to sort out the moment it all got away from me. God help me, but I find Dr. Brody in my memory. Kevin. Asshole.
He used to tell me to close my eyes and see myself as another person. A woman doing the things I do. Feeling the things I feel. So I close my eyes now and picture her, that stupid woman, in Jonathan Fielding’s kitchen. I hear her tell her story to this stranger and I ask her why. She makes excuses, but finally faces the truth and makes her confession. She cannot wait for this man to know her. She cannot wait to see if he will love her. She needs to know now. She needs to make it happen. So she takes out her toolbox and looks inside. The story of Mitch Adler is now a hammer. Her body, a wrench. She knows how to use them.
I see her standing by the counter, wrapped in his arms. There is still time to walk away. He’s said as much. He’s offered to take her home. She tells me she can feel love just below the surface. A few more strikes. A few more twists. Almost there.
Can’t you just taste it?
Dr. Brody used to ask me what I would say to her if I could. I did say things. I remember them. I said them moments ago in the kitchen.
