His shoulder brushed mine. “It’s a slow process, but it will happen. I’m confident in that.”
“Feel free to shove some of that confidence my direction,” I muttered.
He nodded as he reached into his pocket to silence his phone. I tried not to consider who could have been texting him this late at night.
“About the other night,” I started, though I wasn’t sure where to go from there.
Noah’s head moved in acknowledgment. “I’m sorry I walked out the way I did. I should have stayed and talked out whatever it was you wanted to discuss with me.”
My teeth ground together. There were times Noah talked to me in the same lilting tone and key phrases I imagined he used with his clients. I wanted to talk to my husband, not Dr. Noah Wolff.
“It’s not that,” I said, still failing to bring the correct words to the surface.
He waited, his whole demeanor reflecting patience and understanding. The doctor was in.
While I choked on the right words, all of the wrong ones bubbled to the surface. So I kept my mouth closed.
“Grace, what is it?” Patience embodied him; in his tone and eyes and body language. It was a coveted trait in a partner—so why was it so maddening to me?
“The late nights,” I said, stacking my words as I was my thoughts. “You’re rarely ever home. When you are, you’re distant—distracted.” Before continuing, I gauged his reaction. “We barely share a bed anymore and we haven’t had sex in so long I really hope it’s like riding a bike because I’m not sure I remember how it works.” I turned toward him, noting the gap he was maintaining between us. “And when we do share a few minutes together, you maintain this space between us—both physical and emotional.”
It was impossible to tell what he was feeling. He’d had years of practice hiding his gut reactions from hearing accounts that would churn the insides of most.
“There wasn’t a question in all of that.” His voice spread into the air around us. “If there’s something you want to ask me, do it. But don’t expect me to guess your thoughts or suspicions.”
My mouth opened. Then closed. If I asked him what I wanted—if he answered the way I guessed he would—there was no going back to the cozy state of denial I could occasionally bury myself in.
I wasn’t sure it was worth the cost, but I had to know.
“Are you having an affair?” The words blurted from me.
Now that they were finally out, spanning the space between us, I waited. There was no way he could answer that would surprise me anymore. Pain, yes, but shock, no.
Noah rubbed his mouth, the outside corners of his eyes creasing. It had been so long since I’d witnessed actual emotions from him, I couldn’t recall which one this was.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” His words were slightly muffled coming through the filter of his hand. When it dropped back at his side, I recognized the emotion playing on his expression.
Amusement.
Noting my reaction, he reined in his smile. “I have one woman in my life who can attest to the fact I can’t keep up with her needs given my work schedule.” This time when his shoulder touched mine, it felt decisive. “I certainly have no interest in finding another one whose needs I can neglect.”
I studied the sidewalk while processing his response. “Just so I’m clear—was that a no?”
“That was an emphatic no,” he replied, shaking his head. “Paired with an apology for somehow carving out a career that demands most all of my waking hours.”
As we came to the end of the next block, we turned to head back at the same time, as if our thoughts were synchronized.
“You’re not the only one guilty of that crime,” I said, not meaning to follow it with a sigh.
Noah didn’t miss it. “How have things been at work?”
Our pace slowed on the return journey, the fog having thickened into a vaporous wall. “Today started out great. Took an abrupt detour after that.”
“What happened?”
“You know that Skovil case I was trying?”
“He was acquitted?” he guessed.
“Well, yeah, last week he was, but this morning, I learned he’d been found dead in his apartment over the weekend.”
Again, Noah switched sides with me when we approached the yard with the dog. “Found dead? From natural or unnatural causes?”
The stirrings of anxiety rose for the second time in one day. My prescription was back at home in my purse, which meant I had to manage this one on my own. Shit. I’d become so conditioned to reaching for a pill when something unpleasant clawed at me, I wasn’t sure my natural coping skills were still in commission.
After taking a deep breath, I answered. “Unnatural.”
There was a brief pause. “Suicide? Murder?”
Another deep breath and I felt the panic siphoning back into its hiding place. “They’re going to be investigating it as a homicide.”
Noah’s expression pulled together briefly. “And I’d imagine there won’t be a short list of potential suspects given this man’s history?”
“It will probably include a quarter of the city,” I admitted. “Though I’d chance a guess that most everyone in the whole metro area would want a man like Skovil dead.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Darryl. Darryl Skovil.” The name felt heavy in my mouth. “Heard of him in your neck of the woods?”
His brows drew together in concentration. “No. Not that I recall. An offender of minors, I assume.”
My nails dug into my palms; we spoke different dialects of the same language. “Yes, he’s a child rapist.”
“How many victims?” he continued.
“Three who came forward, though we both know for every one who speaks out, there’s another dozen that stay quiet.”
His silence was Noah’s way of agreeing.
“All we had was circumstantial evidence against him, but it was considerable. No jury in their right minds should have been able to look at the case stacked against him and issued an acquittal.”
“But you wound up with a jury not in their right minds,” he stated.
“A jury of his peers acquitted a beast incarnate, thus serving to further dissolve my belief in the righteousness of our justice system.”
Noah stopped moving. “You? Doubting the infallibility of the rule of law?” He caught up to me in a few long strides. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
A note of laughter escaped me. “Don’t broadcast it to the world, please. I’d like to keep my job.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” There was a lightness in Noah’s voice I’d forgotten existed and a look on his face that reminded me of the boy I couldn’t stop staring at the night of that fateful frat party.
I wasn’t sure who reached out first, but our fingers tangled, palms coming together.
“Here’s the problem with the whole jury of peers idea. You get a man like Skovil, who absolutely needs to be imprisoned for his crimes and to keep him from committing future ones, and we trust the welfare of society on the decision of twelve people who don’t know anything about the law and were the unfortunate few who weren’t able to get dismissed from the jury pool. It’s a joke.”