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39
KIT
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
For a few minutes of the drive, I don’t speak. My heart is thumping with doubt. It’s like there’s a Ping-Pong match going on inside my head: One minute, I worry I killed my husband. The next, I’m certain I never could have done such a thing. Does even suggesting my guilt open doors I should keep shut? Maybe I should keep quiet?
Except that phone call. Someone’s trying to get to me. I need someone on my side.
So I look to my left to the man I’ve dragged out of bed at this time of night. Patrick. “Thanks for coming,” I say shakily.
He gives me a sidelong look but says nothing. It makes me uneasy. I climbed into Patrick’s waiting SUV because I thought he’d be full of concern and sympathy and comforting words with what I’m going through, but the vibe in the car is the opposite of that. Also strange: He hasn’t asked me yet what I want to talkabout.Is it possible he knows already? Is it possible the person on the other end of the line called him, too?
I eye Patrick cautiously. His eyes are vibrating. His hair is mussed.He looks like he’s been electrocuted. I clear my throat. “So, um, were you awake anyway, when I called?”
Patrick speeds through a traffic light without answering. Blue Hill is eerie this time of night, and Patrick’s white SUV, when reflected in the shop windows, looks like a drifting ghost. At the main intersection before the college, he reaches over and gives me a small nod of recognition. “Actually, yes,” he finally says. “It’s been a weird night.”
“Me too,” I say, the unsettled feeling in my gut sharpening. The callerdidreach him, then. That has to be what this is about.
And yet he still doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.
We take a sharp turn on a yellow light and head up a road I haven’t been on in years. It leads to a back neighborhood of newer homes, but we pass though the main entrance and head toward a sign that points to a wooded park with a running trail, an outdoor ice rink, and a dog run. I know this park. Years ago, my mother, Willa, and I used to skate at the rink. We were all terrible skaters, holding on to one another for balance, relishing the moment when we’d completed a few laps and could dive back to the benches and drink hot chocolate.
Patrick pulls into the lot and chooses a space by the entrance to the trail. After he hits the button to cut the engine, he climbs out of the vehicle swiftly and with purpose, as though he’s keeping to some agenda. He walks to the front of the car, hands on his hips, and stares at the towering trees.
I follow him, my sneakers crunching in the rough gravel. Wind snaps around us. The woods are as dark as death. “This sure is private enough,” I say, laughing nervously.
All I can see of Patrick is the edge of his profile, backlit by the moon. “I just figured we both needed somewhere quiet to think.” His voice is empty. Hollow. I think of those old horror movies where a patient’s brain has been removed and yet he can still talk, respond, react. But his whole essence has been removed.
It hurts to swallow. I walk around to face him, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Is everything all right? You’re kind of acting—”
But I’m interrupted as my phone lets out a beep. I glance at it, terrified it might be something from the strange caller, but, to my surprise, Lynn Godfrey’s name pops up on the screen.
Patrick notices before I can tuck the phone back into my pocket. His features darken, and he looks at me with disdain. “Why isshecalling you?”
“I-I have no idea,” I stammer.
“Are you guysfriendsnow?”
“No!” I stare at him like he’s gone crazy. “Of course not!”
“So she hasn’t spoken to you tonight?” His eyes are wild. “She hasn’ttoldyou anything?”
His face is so close that I feel the need to back up a few inches. What is hetalkingabout? “No,” I say. “Told me what? Did you and Lynn have a fight?”
Patrick turns away. His jaw is twitching, and he’s drumming his fingers on his thighs. “Lynn’s insane. Don’t believe a word she says.”
My stomach sours. I don’t like the way Patrick saidinsane. “Okay...”
“And she’s onto us. She knows.” His mouth twists into a smirk.
I bite down hard on my lip. “H-How?”
He rounds on me, admonishingly. “What possessed you to wear that bracelet to fuckingwork,right in front of her?”
I struggle to think. “The... bracelet? That’s how she figured it out?”
“Did you just want to rub it in her face a little? Need to mark your territory?”
