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Josie kept scrolling. The geo-fence results were a bust. The only phone at the Collinses’ home at the time of Claudia’s murder was Claudia’s. Had the killer turned off his phone? Left it elsewhere? He must have known the police could use it to link him to the scene and locate him.
Dead ends.
Without looking up from his phone, Noah poked the empty pancake box in the middle of the table. “I don’t understand. How hard can it be? I followed all the directions.”
“Story of my life,” Josie said, around a mouthful of eggs. “What are you watching?”
He didn’t look up. “Couples’ Corner With The Collinses. The one from yesterday. It’s on the WYEP website.”
He stood up and turned his phone toward her, pushing it across the table, together with one of his wireless earbuds. Josie pushed the earbud into one of her ears and pressed the play arrow. Under the table, Trout pressed his nose into the side of her leg. It was his way of letting her know that he knew she had sausage. Ignoring him, Josie turned the volume up.
“…anniversaries in the Collins house are always a huge event but this one is a big one,” said Beau Collins. He was seated at a small white circular table. Beside him was Claudia. Both of them smiled brightly for the camera. Behind them was a large screen that flashed photos of them in a slide show. Some looked fairly recent, but others were clearly from when the two of them were much younger.
“Fifteen years!” Claudia exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Her eyes were locked straight ahead. “I can hardly believe it.”
Beau looked over at her and then caught her hand in his. He gazed adoringly at her. A lot like Josie gazed at her coffee each morning. “Did you ever imagine, back when we were poor grad students, that we’d be together for fifteen years?”
Claudia laughed, long and loud, and then she covered his hand with her other one, making a pile between them. She turned to him, leaning in, and puckered her lips slightly, making him come in for the kiss. Keeping her eyes on him, she said, “I thought you would have dumped me long ago for someone far more interesting.”
He kept his eyes locked on hers for another three-count. “Never, my dear,” he said and then he turned back to the camera. “This brings up a great question, though. How do you stay interested in your partner after fifteen years?”
Josie pulled out the earbud. “I can’t watch this. It’s completely scripted. I can’t believe people buy into this stuff.”
Noah regarded her from across the room, his hip leaned against the counter. He sipped his coffee. “What stuff?”
Josie punched a finger against the screen. “This! That somehow marriage or a relationship is going to be perfect.”
“Nothing is perfect,” he said. “Well, except for the pancakes’ record against us.”
Josie laughed. She looked at the phone and exited out of the video. Using the internet browser, she searched for the Collinses’ website. Its background was all soothing creams and pinks and graphics of hearts. The home page was filled with stock photos of couples. Each one showed a different pair posed artificially in front of an ocean or a forest or a cornfield, of all things. The biographies of Beau and Claudia were the only believable things on the website. Josie scrolled through the description of their book, with dozens of glowing reviews from colleagues and testimonials from readers. Next were hundreds of short clips from their show, each one captioned with something that made Josie cringe: Play to Win: Pursuing Your Perfect Partner; Sexy Scavenger Hunts to Bring the Spark Back; Pre-Gaming Your Marriage Goals; Solve the Puzzle of Your Partner’s Innermost Desire.
Maybe Claudia had used her maiden name when she met Josie and Harris because she didn’t want to be associated with this.
“Look at this website,” Josie complained, turning the phone back toward him. He sat down again and scrolled through the site.
She said, “What are they trying to prove with all those hearts, anyway?”
Noah laughed. “I think you’re missing the point.”
“Am I?”
She leaned forward and touched the screen, stopping him from scrolling. On it was a photo of the Collinses, in profile, standing in front of a lake, a sunset in the background. Claudia’s hair lifted flatteringly in the breeze. Her head tilted upward toward Beau, whose eyes drank her in hungrily. One of his hands rested on her hip. They looked as though they were about to kiss, like there was no one else in the world but them. It could have been the cover of a romance novel. “Real relationships don’t look like that.”
Noah put his hand over hers. “Are you saying I’ve never looked at you like that?”
Josie rolled her eyes. “Of course you have. That’s not my point.”
“What is?”
She pulled her hand away and stood up, heading back to the coffeemaker for a second cup. “Real relationships don’t look like the cover of a romance novel. They look like…like standing next to one another while you bury a parent or grandparent. They look like being there for all the grief that comes after it, no matter how ugly and isolating it gets. They look like taking you to doctor’s appointments. They look like helping you on and off the toilet after you break your leg. They look like being okay with not having any closet doors in your house because your spouse has childhood trauma. They look like being your worst self to someone and knowing they’ll stay. They look like—” She gestured toward the mess on the counter. “Like making a thousand pancakes because you’ve become some kind of honorary uncle to your wife’s dead first husband’s kid and being totally okay with that.”
Noah smiled. He had a lot of different smiles. Josie had learned all of them over the years. This was the sexy one that set her heart aflutter. He stood up and walked toward her, slowly. Trout paid no attention to either of them, still rooting around on the floor under the table in hopes of a sausage scrap. Noah took her mug out of her hand and set it on the counter between a batter-encrusted spatula and a powder-filmed measuring cup. He leaned his body into hers. The edge of the counter bit into her lower back but she didn’t care. He was so close, his breath caressed her forehead. Josie felt everything between them all at once: electricity and comfort. Every muscle in her body loosened while every nerve ending on her skin buzzed with wanting him to touch her.
They’d never be the sunset photo, but damn if Josie didn’t feel like they were in one.
“You’re not helping,” she whispered.
He kissed the thin scar that started at the bottom of her right ear and ended under her chin. “You left something out,” he said. “Real relationships look like you seeing all your partner’s scars and loving them.”
