“Can I pet your dog?” Bennett asks.
“Sure. His name is Romeo.”
Bennett holds out his small hand to let Romeo sniff him. “His tongue tickles.”
“Do you want to take him for a walk?” I suggest. “Maybe your mom can help.”
Marissa nods; she’s in on my plan. I hand Romeo’s leash to Bennett.
Romeo ambles off with the two of them, looking back a few times to make sure I’m not going anywhere.
When they are out of hearing distance, I say simply, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Chris shakes his head. “I lost my son when he was sixteen and came home with blood on his shirt the night that girl was murdered. My wife went to bed early that night, but Matthew told her to say he and Skip watched a movie with her, so she did. She always covered for him.”
Chris knew all along what his son was capable of.
I take another good look at Chris, finally putting a face to the dark menace that has been looming over me ever since I blew the whistle on Acelia.
Chris knows where I live, and where I keep my prescription medication. He knows what kind of car I drive and where my doctor’s office is located. But Chris still doesn’t know the singular piece of information that led him to infiltrate my life in the first place: the name of the client who told me about the faulty Rivanux drug trials.
He’s never going to know that.
I’ve spent the past few days collecting more information on Chris than he’ll ever be able to amass on me. With Skip’s help, it has been easy. I know who many of Chris’s other secret clients are. I know where he lives. What keeps him up at night.
I stare at Chris for a long moment.
“Skip told you,” Chris finally says. “I can tell.”
I nod.
Chris spreads out his hands. “It was only business.”
“I understand your clients are important to you,” I tell Chris as he watches me with his flat eyes. “Mine are important to me, too. I know a lot about them and their families. For example, I know Bennett is allergic to shellfish. I know the parking lot at Bennett’s school gets busy at pickup time and can be dangerous if the children aren’t carefully monitored. I know random criminals break into private homes in expensive neighborhoods like the one Bennett lives in. And I know that in another year or two, Bennett will be old enough to take the bus to school all by himself.”
The most important bit of information I’ve gathered about Chris is his weak spot: his grandson.
Bennett is the only person in the entire world that Chris loves.
I would never hurt a child. But I’m good at bluffing.
“So, nothing is going to happen to my clients or their families, right?” I lean closer to Chris. “Any of my clients.”
He continues to stare at me.
In the distance, Bennett’s sweet, high voice calls out, “Grandpa! The ice cream truck is here. Do you want a strawberry shortcake?”
“That would be great,” Chris shouts back, still staring at me.
Then he breaks our gaze and replies, “Understood.”
I’m not done with him yet. “Someone contacted an insurance company and leveled a charge against me.” I shake my head, as if I’m bewildered by the very idea of it. “Apparently they got an anonymous tip that my husband’s death wasn’t due to natural causes.”
Chris folds his arms. “What do you want me to do about it?”
It’s not a challenge. It’s a question.
I smile. “Do what you do best. Make the problem go away, Chris.”
* * *
An hour later, I unlock my front door and tap in the code for my security system, then remove Romeo’s leash and give him a pat on the back. I don’t bother resetting my alarm. I’m sure I’ll need it again someday, but for now, the threat against me is gone.
“Go get your bunny.”
My fierce-looking dog’s favorite new toy is a fluffy stuffed rabbit. Instead of chewing it, Romeo has taken to carrying it around tenderly and sleeping curled around it at night.
Love is an eternal mystery, I guess.
There’s a lot I should do today. My voice mail is full; I’ve gotten media requests from as far away as Hong Kong, and offers from film producers, and messages from Oprah, Hoda Kotb, Jimmy Kimmel, and dozens of others who want an exclusive interview.
MAVERICK EX-THERAPIST KILLS CLIENT.
That headline does sound pretty irresistible.
I could keep turning down the interview requests, or put in the order for the dinner I’m having delivered to eat with Lana tonight, or answer emails from a surge of new prospective clients.
D.C. is a peculiar city. My notoriety has only made me more in demand.
Instead, I slip off my shoes and walk upstairs. I turn right at the top of the hallway, heading in the opposite direction from my bedroom.
I’ve been planning this short journey for a while now. It’s surprising how long it has taken me to get here.
I open the door and walk into Lana’s old bedroom, the one with bird feeders outside the windows and photographs of Paul, Lana, and me on the walls.
The old Crosley turntable is still in one corner of the room. I lift the lid and see the last record I ever played for Paul.
Miles Davis, Out of Nowhere.
Paul used to argue that the composition is Davis’s true masterpiece. Most people prefer Kind of Blue, with the legendary John Coltrane on the sax, but the first time Paul ever invited me into his home, he played this record.
I blow the dust off the vinyl and set down the needle, listening to it bump and scratch before it settles in.
The title song is the one we danced to at our wedding.
There aren’t any lyrics. The music is pure, magnificent emotion.
I look at the space that once held Paul’s hospital bed, remembering my husband’s final words to me. He’d mouthed them through dry, cracked lips, but they were unmistakable.
I’m ready.
I’d been amassing morphine in preparation for the moment.
I always do my research; I knew exactly how much it would take, and how to insert it into his IV. When the needle was empty, I’d climbed into bed with Paul and held him in my arms while the morphine seeped into his veins.
He was gone by the time the record finished playing.
Now I step into the center of the room and close my eyes and remember. I don’t see Paul as he was during his final months—bone thin and weak, a shadow of his former self. A man I’d stopped loving long ago.
I see the husband who completely captivated me, spinning me across the dance floor in my long white dress while our guests applauded, his dark eyes promising me everything.
God, I love you, he’d whispered in my ear. Then he’d dipped me down low and scooped me back up into the air.
The space Paul inhabited is empty. It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around that.
Maybe it will always be.
I sink down onto the floor and wrap my arms around my knees.
Miles Davis’s trumpet sings to me while I cry.
Grief isn’t linear. It isn’t logical. There’s no structure or civility to it; it grabs you when you least expect it and digs in its nails until you succumb.
So I give in to it, until the final notes fade away.
Then I get to my feet again.
I look around the room, imagining it not as it was, but as it will be: with a guest bed in one corner, and a pretty rug on the floor, and a potted tree by the window. Or maybe I’ll transform it into an exercise room, with a yoga mat and treadmill and wall-mounted TV.