She returned his laugh. "Getting along with one of you is difficult enough. Getting along with two of you would be impossible." She hesitated, as if nervous about asking him her next question. "So, why the time off?"
He had an easy enough excuse at hand, and he used it. "I think I need some time away from you. It'll make it easier for us if I take some time off. Anyway, God knows I've built up enough vacation time."
"That's probably a good idea. I was thinking about taking a vacation myself. Maybe go to Jamaica for a week. Work on a tan."
He tried not to think of her on the yellow beaches of Jamaica, in the mauve string bikini she'd worn last summer. So many men…
He slipped out of bed and started the process of dressing. She said, "I'm sorry about the way things worked out."
"I know."
"Do you really believe I'm sorry?"
He thought a moment. "Yes."
"Come here a moment."
His trousers on but not buckled, one sock on, the other foot cold from the hardwood floor, he knelt on the edge of the bed and met her as she rose naked to kiss him.
Her mouth was cool and tasted of toothpaste. She'd brushed while in the john.
He tried to keep everything platonic. No sense of getting turned on again. He felt as if this house-and even her arms-had become a tomb. Anyway, his crotch felt as dead as his heart.
"After a while I hope we can be friends again," she said. He said nothing, withdrew from the wonderful tangle of their kiss.
As he was tugging on his other sock and reaching for his shirt, she said, "I appreciate how you're handling this."
"That's me, all right. Exemplary behaviour."
"I know it's not easy for you."
He hung his necktie under his collar, but he didn't tie the two ends. "Good night."
"Should I walk you downstairs?"
"No. That's fine."
"Take care of yourself."
"Thanks."
The shoes were the last to go on. Then he was ready. He wanted to leave very quickly, yet something made him linger, too.
He had to say it. "If you change your mind-"
He left the rest unsaid. She was a smart girl. She could figure that out. If she changed her mind, he'd be happy to take her back.
"Good night," he said again.
He went through the dark house, with its antiques and high ceilings and its Persian rugs.
He went out the same side door he'd come in. The cold air seemed to freeze his nostrils on contact.
He went out to the bottom of the drive, careful of how he was walking because it was so icy, and opened the door of his car and was just putting one leg in when he noticed it-a car across the street, a dark shape behind the wheel, clearly watching him.
He recognized the car right away.
A silver XKE was not the kind of car you should use if you were trying to keep yourself hidden.
He wondered what his ex-boss, Richard Cummings, was doing there anyway.
He closed the door on his own car without getting in and then started down the steep slope of the drive. Moonlight gave the ice and snow a silver surface.
He was about halfway to Cummings's car when the XKE's lights suddenly shone like awakening eyes, and the-car pulled jerkily from the kerb, heading in the opposite direction.
What the hell was going on-had Cummings been following him, or was he there to see Kathleen?
Brolan raised his head to look at the Gothic house outlined against the moon. It was dark, forbidding, unknowable. And inside was a beautiful young woman just as dark, just as forbidding, just as unknowable.
Shaking his head, he walked back to his car, got inside, and left.
22
The laughter startled Brolan. Music, a voice from the television, maybe even a conversation-all of these would have seemed reasonable coming from Greg Wagner's duplex. But somehow laughter seemed odd.
Brolan raised his hand and pushed in the doorbell. This late at night, there were just a few yellow-glowing windows along this prosperous-looking middle-class street. People up late watching Letterman or Arsenio Hall, most likely. On the slopes of some lawns you could see plump, happy snowmen, scarves wrapped around their thick necks, top hats cocked at jaunty angles. Maybe they were standing sentry, keeping ill from their owners' houses. In a few yards sleds had been left on lawns, which made Brolan flash back to his own kids, their cold red cheeks as they frolicked in the snow, the way they'd moved so cumbersomely and cutely in their little snowsuits. It was near midnight; the snow was blue, the tranquil and ideal blue of a sentimental Christmas card, and blue-grey smoke coiled up from chimneys to make everything seem that much cosier. Brolan wanted to be one of those people sitting at home watching Letterman, a bowl of popcorn on his lap and a Diet 7 Up in an ice-clinking glass. And no dead women. No; no dead women at all.
Inside the laughter stopped abruptly.
Brolan could hear Greg Wagner's wheelchair coming across the hardwood floor.
Apparently a trusting man, Wagner didn't ask who it was. He simply pulled the door back.
"Hey, Frank, c'mon in!" Wagner called.
The festive mood, like the laughter, surprised Brolan. The last time he'd seen Wagner, the man had been lamenting Emma. Something had obviously happened in the meantime…
As soon as he got inside and closed the door behind him, Brolan saw the girl. She was maybe sixteen and very pretty in a sad sort of way, one of those wan beauties who seem to be all the more appealing because of their very wanness. She wore a blue button-down shirt and a grey pullover sweater and designer jeans, and very white tube socks that made her seem very comfy on so cold a winter night.
Brolan noticed immediately how anxiously Wagner was watching the girl. Almost as if he were awaiting some kind of answer from her.
"Well?" Wagner said to the girl.
She looked Brolan up and down, so carefully and obviously that he felt self-conscious standing there.
"So, what do you think?" Wagner said to her.
But the girl wouldn't be rushed. She continued to tilt her head this way and that, considering Brolan from a variety of angles.
Finally the girl said, "He isn't the one."
"I'm not the one what?" Brolan said.
"Not the guy who tried to kill her last night," Wagner said.
"Gee, am I supposed to tell her thank-you?" Brolan said.
"Hey, Brolan," Wagner said, spreading his hands in an gesture of friendship. "It wasn't anything personal."
The girl said, "You want some hot chocolate?"
Before Brolan could say anything, she said, "He's got these little teeny marshmallows. They're really good."
Brolan felt as if he'd walked into the middle of a very private and very intimate party, where outsiders could never possibly know the ground rules.
"Yes," he said hesitatingly. "Hot chocolate sounds good."
"Great," the girl said, half jumping to her feet and snatching up both her own white ceramic cup and Wagner's as well. "I'll get us all another round."
She put out a slim little hand. Brolan took it. "I'm Denise, by the way."
"Hi, Denise."
"Be right back," she said.
Instead of merely walking across the hardwood floor, she got a little steam up and slid across the well-varnished boards. Her sudden enthusiasm played nicely against her young-Garbo countenance.
After watching her disappear into the kitchen; Brolan glanced down at Wagner. Glowing was the only word that could possibly do the look in his eyes justice.
"Where'd you find her?" Brolan asked.
Wagner, love-struck or what ever the hell he was, looked up from his reverie and said, "Oh, Denise, you mean?"
"Yes, Denise."
"She tried to break in."
"She tried to break in?" Brolan shook his head, still feeling as if he'd landed somewhere in the middle of Alice's adventure down the rabbit hole. "Maybe if I'm a good boy and take off my shoes on this throw rug and go over there and sit down-maybe you'll explain all this to me."