Page 22 of Wrong Mail

"He'd like a medal?”

"Sure would," David agrees. My ankle gets a squeeze. We don't say anything for a while, and it's the good kind.

The lamp buzzes faintly. The heat of the day still hasn't lifted off the house. I'm happy, and happiness makes me careless.

So I say it.

"Can I tell you something strange?"

"Always."

"That package. The one that came to us by mistake." I keep my voice light. I keep my eyes on the ceiling. "There were old Oregon murder cases inside. Clippings. I read them before I realized they weren't mine."

David's thumb slows on my foot.

"And?"

"I can't shake them," I say. "They were spread over years, different counties, different papers. But they felt connected. Like whoever wrote each one never knew they were looking at pieces of the same thing."

His thumb keeps moving on my ankle. He doesn't stop, and he doesn't stiffen. Whatever my words do to him, none of it reaches his hand.

"That's our neighbor's business," he says. "Not ours."

"That's not really the point I'm making."

"No, I know." He pauses. "But it's Oregon."

"So?"

"We've talked about this before." He says it too smoothly. "Listen, I just don't love that every time something pulls you back in, it's Oregon, that's all. We left that behind, right? That was the idea."

"I'm not talking about the crash, David."

"I didn't say you were."

"You did a bit."

He laughs, but it's the wrong laugh. It's the courteous one he uses on people at hospital functions. Then he's moving, leaning forward, reaching for the wine, and his voice changes gear so fast I almost don't catch the seam.

"Oh, that reminds me. Sophie sent me a photo of the new dog," he says. "You have to see this cutie. She put a bandana on it."

And then he's got his phone out, holding it up, showing me a dog in a bandana. It is, admittedly, a wonderful dog. I laugh, and we are past it.

Past it in about a second and a half.

It stays with me into the dark. I lie awake beside him, the heat pressing on the house, Luna's tail thumping once against the floor in her sleep.

It's not that he changed the subject. Everyone changes the subject.

It's that the moment Oregon came up, he didn't have to look for a way out.

It was already in his hand.

Chapter Eight

My husband has a voice he keeps for people who can end him. At half past seven the next evening I hear him put it on in the hallway before Helen Mercer is over the threshold.

"Helen. You found us.”