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“But—?” She started to sit upright, but he grabbed her calf, massaging the muscle.
“What do you mean, ‘but’? She’s a widow and will become a single mother, she was almost killed and her husband was, not that long ago. She’s getting disturbing notes and some douche bag has been in her house, terrorizing her. Of course I’m happy that she’s going to be a mother, I just wish . . . I just wish that for once she would catch a break and she’d have a normal life.”
“A normal life?” Olivia said with a chuckle. “Is there such a thing? What do you call normal, the old fantasy about a house with a picket fence, fully employed father, mother at home with two point five kids and a family dog, maybe a cat for good measure?”
“You know what I mean,” he grumbled. That was the thing with Olivia. She could see things others couldn’t. When he’d first met her, he’d thought she was a kook with a capital K. Turns out the insight he’d scoffed at had really existed and he’d fallen in love with her, head-over-damned-heels. As he rubbed her leg, he remembered that as twisted and messed up as their family was, it was theirs. Uniquely theirs. He only wished it didn’t have to be so rough.
“Is there anything wrong with wanting the picket-fence thing for your daughter?” he asked, and she laughed again, a sound that still warmed his heart.
“’Course not. But reality is—”
“What it is, I know. I just wish I could make it better.”
“Oh, you do.” Her eyebrows knitted in consternation. “You know that, right?”
“I try.”
“All you can do, Grandpa,” she said, teasing, her lips curving into a taunting smile.
“Grandpa? I’ll show you Grandpa.” He captured her leg then and as she giggled, rolled over on her and caught her lips with his.
“Promises, promises,” she breathed into his mouth, and then kissed him back. Hard. Wanting. Willing.
And for the next few hours, he forgot about the evils of the world and lost himself in her.
* * *
Over the sound of crickets chirping and mosquitoes humming, he listened to his radio, hearing the familiar strains of an old song. “Midnight Confessions.” The original song was old—over half a century—and yet she played it, some homage to the past, he figured, and the name of her show that started during the witching hour, just as the clock struck twelve.
Fitting, he thought, as water lapped softly beneath this tree house.
Lying on his hammock, suspended over the bayou, he listened to the smooth, calm intonation of Dr. Sam’s voice. She was signing off forever in about a week. Tonight, she mentioned it again as she asked those of her listeners who were in need to call her, those asking for her advice. After that, she would be hosting a podcast.
He felt the bitterness rise, bile roiling in his stomach, the bitter taste of her malignant prevarication in the back of his throat.
She needed to be stopped.
He flicked a look over to the peg where his cassock and cincture band draped down the pinewood wall.
Not tonight, he told himself, though he itched to don the robe and feel the clerical collar around his neck. It would be too risky. However, wasn’t risk a part of the game? And besides, he couldn’t stop himself, felt compelled.
So he picked up the phone he’d stolen, one for which he knew the password, and climbed off the hammock, hearing the nails on which it hung creak a bit as he stood. He’d boat through the swamp, to the spot where he’d hidden his car, and then he’d drive to another place, twenty miles away, make the call, then drop the cell into the water and make his way into the city.
He couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
Don’t do it.
It would be foolish.
They will be waiting for you.
Bentz will be waiting for you.
Stick to the plan.
Stay the course.
Wait, damn it!
