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Katrina turned the key and switched off the motor. She sat for a few moments, blinking at the tiredness in her eyes, in silence broken only by the ticking of the engine as it cooled. She was just so tired, and so much had happened, and she couldn’t wait to tell Randall all of it. She smiled at that thought. It was just so damn good to have somebody to come home to, somebody who would listen and care . . .
She climbed out of the car, stepped from the garage into the cool bright morning, and walked up the path to the house. The rosebushes were bare, of course. Winter had stripped all the greenery from the yard, and the gray and brown of the trees and the stems of the roses were a stark contrast to the bright sunlight of the frosty morning. She stopped for a moment halfway up the path, yawning hugely. Two nights with almost no sleep—or was it three? She couldn’t wrap her exhausted mind around the arithmetic. And it didn’t really matter. But in any case, she could not remember when she’d been so tired.
That didn’t matter, either. She would be in bed soon enough—and with Randall. She smiled as she thought that he was probably sleeping, and she could quietly slip in beside him, and softly, gently, put her ice-cold feet into the small of his back—
Still yawning, still smiling, Katrina went into the house. She hung her coat and scarf on the hat tree in the atrium and headed for the stairs. Up to bed, to Randall and sleep. Mmmm, she thought happily. Perhaps not sleep—not right away.
She was halfway past the double-sized doorway to the kitchen and breakfast nook when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye, something on the breakfast table that was not normally there. She walked backward, turned, and went over to the table.
The salt and pepper shakers had been dragged to the near edge of the table. Propped up against them was a buff envelope. Beside that, on the table’s surface, was a single white rose. It wasn’t fully opened, and drops of dew glistened on the flower.
It was so very much like Randall, so thoughtful, to bring her a rose. No special occasion, just a small token to say “I love you.?
?? Again she felt the glow of happiness and fulfillment that came from having somebody who cared. Katrina picked up the rose, sniffed—it had a full and wonderful aroma, not like the cheaper hothouse flowers you usually get in the city, especially during the winter. For a moment she closed her eyes and drank in the smell, thinking how lucky she was to have Randall. Then she remembered the envelope.
Puzzled, she opened her eyes and put the rose down on the table. She picked up the envelope, noting that it was beautiful stock, the kind that came with the very best stationery. Centered on the front in green ink was her name, Katrina.
Still wondering what Randall might be up to, she opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of stationery that matched the envelope. She unfolded it and began to read the neat letters, also in green ink.
Dear Katrina,
I’m sorry, but I have to say you have really terrible taste in men—
Katrina frowned. It was a strange beginning, clearly some sort of joke—but what kind of joke? What was Randall thinking? What did he mean? Shaking her head, she went back to reading.
—you have really terrible taste in men. Michael was bad enough. But at least he was only a simple pedophile. To go from him to somebody like me . . . Well, like I said, you have awful taste. I guess there really are some things money can’t buy.
If it’s any consolation, our marriage was totally invalid—I don’t really exist! You can even pin Michael’s murder on me. That should make Brilstein happy. And you don’t really deserve to go to prison.
By the time you read this, I will be long gone. But after all we went through together, I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.
Good-bye, Katrina. Don’t bother trying to find me. You won’t.
It was a joke. Some kind of stupid joke, it had to be. Katrina felt horrid, sickening panic flood into her. She crumpled the letter and threw it to the floor. She ran from the room and yelled, “Randall!”
At least, she intended to yell. The sound that came out of her was nothing she recognized as her voice—it didn’t even sound human. It was an animal screech, a yowl of agony ripped from her throat that echoed through a house that sounded so empty it killed her hope even as she looked for some small sign to feed it. “Randall!” she screamed again, and again there was no answer.
She went from room to room in the huge house, even the very faintest hope flickering dimmer and finally dying into bleak cold ashes as the last room proved to be empty.
Gone. He was really gone. Randall was gone.
Katrina felt all the air and light go out of the world, and for a while there was nothing there at all—no trace of sight or sound or touch or anything but a dark and excruciating blankness.
And then, without any idea how it had happened, she was sitting on the kitchen floor. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even see anything except the dark fog across the whole world around her, slowly oozing back and letting in a thin trickle of awareness. And that consciousness was much worse than the darkness had been.
Gone. Randall was gone . . .
She had no way of knowing how long she had been sitting there like that, completely wrapped in darkness, inside and out, clutching the crumpled letter in both hands. But at long last she was able to take a single, deep, painful, rasping breath. She looked around her, completely numb, and sunlight began to seep back in at the edges of her world. It shed light on the room, but none at all on Katrina.
What had happened? What did the letter mean? It had to be some kind of horrible joke—except Randall really was gone. She smoothed out the letter and looked at it. It seemed to be his handwriting—and down at the bottom, in place of a signature, he had put his initials with a flourish. R.M.
But no, wait—those were not his initials. She frowned at the letters, trying to make sense of them. The R was definitely an R. But the M—it seemed to be reversed, upside down. A W, not an M.
“R.W.”? What the hell did that mean? She didn’t know anybody with the initials R.W.
And apparently, she didn’t know anybody named Randall Miller, either. The letter said he didn’t exist. She had been sleeping with a figment of her imagination.
And it didn’t matter if he was Randall or R.W. or totally imaginary. Whoever or whatever he was, he was gone.
