Page 84 of His Third Wife

But I kept seeing red. Coreen’s red hair. The red in her eyes.

I opened my eyes.

I’d promised Jamison I was going to stay in the room and wait for him, but I kept looking at the door. And then I’d look at my shoes. And then I’d look at the door.

I did trust him. He knew more about Coreen and her ways than I had. She wasn’t crazy. She wouldn’t do anything crazy.

I looked at the door and then at my shoes.

But what if she could? What if she had? Well, what was crazy? Was it showing up at the hotel? Was it demanding he see her when the sun was hardly in the sky?

I closed my eyes again and promised myself I wouldn’t look at the door anymore. I’d force myself to sleep. I’d wake up with Jamison back in the room on one knee with one ring.

I tried to keep my eyes closed that time, but there was the red again. Red like fire. Red like burning everything I loved.

And that was it.

I jumped out of the bed and into my shoes. I don’t remember if I closed the hotel room door behind me.

When I got up to the restaurant, there was nothing but a cleaning crew there. Someone told me that they didn’t open until noon and when I told him I was looking for someone he said that he’d seen a man up there and he was looking for a woman, but he left. I asked if there was another open section to the roof and he told me I’d need to take the stairs on the side of the restaurant where the rotator was that turned the floor of the spinning Sundial around over the city. “But you can’t go up there,” he said to my back. “It’s not safe.”

My heart was pounding as I climbed those stairs up the side of the spinning Sundial. It was early morning. The sun was up then and the wind was calm, but so high up the altitude had my head light and my skirt blowing up hurriedly. But I have to say, I wasn’t afraid for myself. I was afraid of what I’d find. What Jamison was facing. In my mind Coreen had grown into a big red monster, horns and fangs, anger and resentment.

I kicked a door open that led to the little flat landing on the side of the restaurant. Jamison’s back was to me. Over his shoulder was a woman in a dress. But it didn’t look like Coreen. The person was bigger, had broad shoulders.

“I don’t know who you are, but I came up here to meet Coreen,” Jamison said with his arms outstretched in a “T.”

“Well, that’s good, because that’s who sent me,” the person in the dress said but in a voice I could tell didn’t belong to a woman.

I tried to see why Jamison was standing back with his arms up and that’s when I saw it.

“No,” Jamison yelled. “Stay back!”

“What? What’s that?” I looked at the gun in the man’s hand pointed at Jamison and then at me. “He has a gun!”

“No! Don’t point the gun at her,” Jamison said, pulling me behind him. “She’s not the one you’re here for. It’s me.”

“Well, that’s the issue with these kinds of situations. You can’t have any witnesses,” the man said.

“I can’t let you do anything to her. She has nothing to do with this. If Coreen sent you here, that’s it, but you have to let her go.”

“Hurt you?” The man laughed. “You think I’m here to hurt you?” He cocked the trigger and straightened his arm. “I don’t get paid for that!”

“Oh, my God,” I screamed. “He’s going to shoot!”

Jamison fell back on top of me to shield me from the bullet, but where we expected to hear a bang there was nothing. He jumped up and when he saw the gunman getting ready to pull the trigger again, he rushed toward him.

“No!” I screamed, feeling so alone and helpless there was no way I could imagine I was standing on top of one of the highest buildings in the most beloved city in the South. I would’ve looked around for someone to help. Would’ve called for someone to help, but everything was moving too quickly. I was nowhere. On top of everything. All I could hear was the hum from the rotator behind me. “Jamison!”

Jamison and the man wrestled with the gun back and forth, turning it in every direction their muscles could will in the struggle and then back to one another, aiming it at their chests.

Soon they were locked in a fight at the ledge that came up just beneath their waists and I kept hollering Jamison’s name, but I knew he couldn’t hear me. I looked around to see if I could find something to hit the man with, but there was nothing there. Just tiny stones and air vents. The rotator humming.

And when I looked up, there was Jamison, finally looking at me. Finally looking into my eyes. His arms were held out to me. He was smiling. Maybe. And that’s when I realized what was happening. The gunman had Jamison bent over the ledge. And his arms reaching for me were just flailing at me.

He was falling.

Everything went white.

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