Catherine shifted her weight, stretched an arm out to her side. Philip clasped the condom in his hand and moved up to the bed to sit beside her.
“Catherine,” he said, “are you awake?” He laid his free hand on her arm, resisted an unexpected urge to shake it. “It’s me. Philip.”
“Philip?” she mumbled, still half asleep, leaning into his touch. Her eyes parted just slightly. “It’s too early, Philip, it’s—” Her body tensed, her eyes opened wide, she looked up at him bewildered. “Philip?” she said again, sitting up sharply. The sheet fell away from her bare breasts, and it struck him that Buddy had seen her nakedness too, and probably not just long ago. He watched her glance toward the clock, saw her confusion deepen. “Where...? It’s seven in the morning. I thought you were—”
“You said you were sick,” he began, and despite himself he could hear the accusation seeping into his tone. “I came home because—” But even before he said them, he knew the words weren’t right, that disguising the truth would make him no better than her. The very next moment would determine everything that came after. “I never left,” he began, sternly, pridefully, measuring his anger. “No, I’ve been in Raleigh the whole time. I’ve used up a whole tank of gas, Catherine. I’ve been driving, I’ve been thinking... I saw him, and I don’t know what to make of it all, don’t know what to make of you.” He caught her glancing again at the clock, at the place where the condom no longer stood, and he felt his hand clenching tighter, the foil wrapper crinkling within. “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked with a sneer, and he flicked the condom onto the bedspread with his freshly washed hands. The evidence was there. She would have to admit the truth, confirm that he’d been right. Unopened or not, it was still proof. Intentions were—
But as he watched her face, her expression betrayed little. She stared down at the condom for a moment and then pushed her hair behind her ears, lifted her head to meet his gaze. As with everything else in the house, Philip had the vague sensation of seeing Catherine now for the first time: the cleft dividing her chin; those faint clusters of freckles across her cheeks, usually masked by powder; the uncommon color of her eyes. Her irises were a deep, impenetrable green, her pupils unfathomably opaque. He thought of the painting above the mantel, those swaths of color brushing against one another, connecting, parting. “Oh, Philip,” she whispered, gently shaking her head, “why did you go away? Why did we need to do this?” and in her wry, pained smile he glimpsed the ragged edges of her secret life, forced open, unable to be hid. My God, he thought, did I make this? — his anger fleeing him now and some other dull feeling taking its place. The next step was inevitable, he saw then, already written, and he wanted desperately now to go back and mend things — everything that he’d opened up, to hide his own secret life, to leave everything hid.
“Philip,” she said again, reaching out to take his hand in hers, “I have something to tell you.” It was too late to stop it now, and he knew that whatever she said next he would try to believe, but he would never believe. And it was clear to him that no matter what happened, the most difficult and complicated part of it was likely just beginning.
©2007 by Art Taylor
Lost and Found
by P. J. Parrish
© 2007 by P. J. Parrish
Kelly Nichols, aka P.J. Parrish, is the author of the critically acclaimed Louis Kincaid mystery series, coauthored with her sister, Kristy Montee. The books have made the bestseller lists of the New York Times and USA Today, and been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus awards. Their latest novel, A Thousand Bones (Pocket Books, July) is the debut of their spin-off series featuring Miami homicide detective Joette Frye.
He sat alone in the dark cruiser, staring out the windshield into the shimmering darkness. It was just starting to rain, more of a mist really, tiny glittery drops that seemed to fall from nowhere and disappear before they hit the ground.
He turned off the wipers and after a few moments the glass began to blur, the rain working like a slow silver paintbrush to erase his view of the bridge and the man on it.
A.J. sighed softly, tiredly. The car was a comforting coc-oon of drifting shadows, blinking red radio lights, and the familiar hug of the old leather seat on his back.
There weren’t many moments like this, so he held on to it for a while, maybe another full minute, before he hit the wipers again. In the wet glow of the cruiser’s headlights, the bridge and the rookie standing on it came back into focus.
The rookie was young, with an awkward, bent-stick way of walking. His face, with his crooked Alabama smile, was eager, anxious, and hopeful. Not a whole lot different from the last rookie A.J. had. Or the one before him or the one before that one.
The bridge was old and plain, too big, really, for the trickle of brown water that flowed beneath it. The bridge’s face, a stretch of plain, bleached concrete, was chipped and scarred by too many drunks, and smeared in more recent years with red and yellow slashes of gang graffiti.
The bridge seemed to be the only thing standing still in the drifting night. Maybe it was just the distant city lights as they played off the underbelly of the low-hanging clouds. Or maybe it was the fog slithering around the rookie’s feet. Whatever it was, it was the kind of night that held something A.J. had felt before. It was the kind of night he always thought could crawl inside you and suck something out, something you couldn’t see leaving but you could feel.
A.J. glanced out the side window, his mind drifting with the trickle of raindrops down the glass.
Lorraine liked these kinds of nights, but she never saw them like he did. He recalled her saying more than once, usually on one of their anniversaries, that it had been raining like this — this weird glittery kind of mist — when he proposed to her.
He smiled slowly. It was like they were being sprinkled with love dust, she said.
She had a special word for this kind of night, but right now he couldn’t remember that, either. What had she called it?
Londonesque. Yeah. That was it. Must be what London is like, don’t you think, A.J.? Do you think we could go there on our honeymoon, A.J.?
He never understood the word Londonesque, but he didn’t tell her that. Never told her he didn’t understand most of her fancy words. Didn’t tell her he suspected she even made some up. They didn’t go to London on their honeymoon. In fact, they hadn’t gone anywhere on their wedding night. But Lorraine kept planning other “honeymoons” to other places. Places, like her made-up words, that she thought could make her someone or something else. Something smarter or prettier or better than what she was. A cop’s wife.
A.J. had never been much farther than St. Louis, but for the moment, in this weather, and maybe because he was feeling a bit lonely lately, and a bit kindly toward Lorraine right now, he could imagine, if things had gone differently, that he and Lorraine might be in England. Strolling around the outside of one of those grand old castles, taking pictures of the stiff-lipped, fuzzy-hatted guys standing guard outside.