Now here she was, reading the same numbers in a victim’s hideaway provided by the same group that had published the flyer.
“Gwen, are you listening?”
She closed the folder and looked at Matthew across the small table off the kitchenette. It was six o’clock in the morning, still dark outside. She’d kept every light on in the apartment overnight.
“Do you understand what we need to say?”
“We’ve been sleeping together,” she said. “For about three weeks.”
“Since early October.” He seemed so tired. “Russell found out about a week ago, and that’s why he…that’s why it was so much worse this time.”
Something about seeing Matthew in street clothes instead of his uniform reminded her of what she’d found so sweet and appealing about him. It had grown harder and harder to remember, these past few days.
“I guess I don’t understand,” she admitted.
“We need to say that he came to the store to confront you, and I intervened. That’s what set him off.” Matthew closed his eyes and rubbed them with the backs of his fingers. “The parking lot cameras will back that up.”
She hadn’t told him how close to the truth that part of the story actually came.
“I mean, I don’t understand why you want to say we’ve been sleeping together,” she said. “It makes it sound…it makes you sound involved.”
“That’s what it needs to sound like now.”
Because they needed a way to explain, Gwen realized. To other people. They needed a plausible explanation for why Tony Briggs and Ray Salcedo were coming after both of them, and not just her.
It made no sense otherwise. Why would Briggs and Salcedo think Matthew had known anything about the money Russell had been carrying? He was just the police officer who had driven her to the hospital and filed the reports.
Unless the two of them had been having an affair. That made things different.
“But we’re changing our story,” Gwen said.
He nodded. “It actually helps. It looks like we tried to hide something small.”
If you let somebody catch you lying about something small, it’s that much easier to lie to them about something big.
He was a cop; he would know how it needed to look. Gwen imagined he’d probably run across every kind of liar in the world.
Still…
“All the pieces are there,” he said. “We just need to put them in the right light. And we need to do it first.”
“Nobody will be suspicious?”
“Everybody will be suspicious,” he said. “But there’s more evidence to support our story than theirs.”
“As far as you know.”
He didn’t have an answer for that.
They sat in silence for a minute.
Gwen said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What happened between you and your wife?”
He looked at her like he didn’t understand the question. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, why did you get divorced?”
Silence.
“She wasn’t happy,” he said.
“Why wasn’t she happy?”
“Probably because I wasn’t happy.”
“Why weren’t you happy?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Did you ever hit her?”
“Jesus.” Matthew got a look on his face like she’d asked him if he had some kind of a thing for little kids. He leaned back in his chair. “No.”
“Really?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Why did you ask that?”
“I just keep thinking,” she said. “Sitting here in this apartment, it’s like I can’t stop thinking. Even when I try.”
“Gwen…”
“And I just can’t figure it out.” She paused, not sure how to say what she wanted to say. “I mean, I’m thinking, maybe this guy accidentally slapped his wife once, and now he’s trying to make up for it?”
“Look, let’s just—”
“Or if this story we’re telling now was true? If we really were screwing each other’s brains out? Maybe I could see it. But I can’t….”
Matthew leaned forward, finally looking at her for the first time in minutes.
“I believe you did what you had to do,” he said. “That’s all.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
You didn’t do this for me. That was her thought, but she couldn’t say it. What did it matter anyway?
So she said, “They haven’t called since midnight.”
Matthew said nothing.
“One or the other of them has been calling every two or three hours,” she said. “Now all of a sudden it’s been six.”
“It’s okay.”
“What do you think that means?”
He shrugged. “They’re feeling like they’ve got us conditioned. At this point, not calling keeps you on-line as well as calling every two or three hours. Maybe even better.”
An individual uses a pattern of abusive behavior—phsyical, psychological, even economic—to establish power over his or her partner. She’d practically memorized the “truth” by now. According to the flyer.
But Matthew was right. She’d been awake all night, waiting for the phone to ring. In fact, she’d been listening for it all this time they’d been sitting here.
The abuser maintains control through fear and intimidation.
If Matthew was right about that, maybe he was right about everything. Maybe he really could fix it, if she trusted him.
Didn’t he deserve that much?
Why hadn’t he told her about the money?
Did she trust him?
Just then, as though she’d summoned it, the telephone rang.
It seemed loud as an alarm bell in the quiet apartment. Gwen jumped half out of her skin. Matthew calmly reached out, touched her arm. It’s okay.
She took a breath, picked up the cordless receiver by her hand, and answered.
“Hello.”
“Kenna,” a cool voice said. “I’m downstairs at the door.”
Gwen closed her eyes, exhaled. Marly.
“I’ll buzz you in,” she said.
After she hung up, Matthew came around, bent down, and kissed the top of her head.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I need to go hold up my end.” He touched her arm with the back of his hand. “It’s almost over.”
“Tell me again.”
“Tell you what?”
“That it’s going to be okay.”
Matthew took her face in both hands and looked down into her eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”
He was such a bad liar. How could this work?
Why did she need him to tell her anything?
A knock sounded at the door. Matthew went over, undid the locks, and pulled the door open.
Marly Kenna stood there, bag on her shoulder, coat open, cheeks lightly flushed. There must have been a breeze outside. Her hair looked like feathers.
She smirked at Matthew, shaking her head slowly. “Officer Worth.”
“Detective Kenna,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
She blew that off, came into the apartment, and pointed a finger in Gwen’s direction.
“I’ve got a bone to pick with you, girl.”
Tony and Ray made it down to the riverfront two and a half hours before dawn.
Sunday morning, after the snow, Uncle Eddie had pissed and moaned about his boat. He hadn’t winterized it yet. Who the hell expected a foot of snow before Halloween?
They parked Ray’s Expedition on Eighth Street and hiked down to the boardwalk on foot. There were three other boats still moored at the marina: two runabouts and Eddie’s forty-foot cruiser. Joan’s Arc.
The smaller boats dipped low in their slips, covers laden with unmelted snow. It hadn’t felt cold in the city, but the air on the river froze the hairs in your nose. Out beyond the landing, the three-quarter moon danced in place, rippling on the wide, slow current.