Page 35

Dinah

A marriage is a Swiss cheese block, with holes and tunnels for secrets. I end up storing the one about the IA investigation in a deep well that intersects with the last two weeks of history with Freddie. Two secrets now lodged inside my brain.

The first, which is that I’ve intentionally omitted the fact that I have a handsome trainee stuck like a burr to my ass during the investigation of Jessica Bishop’s disappearance, is something I’ll likely never share.

I don’t need to. It can go down as one of the minor actions a wife takes to keep the peace in her relationship.

The second is a ticking time bomb, a tunnel that cannot go unmined. I pull up next to Freddie in the ice-cream shop parking lot and practice the introduction in my head.

Something happened today. I need your help with it.

Giving Joe a problem will help deescalate his emotion. He will become fixated on the problem and temporarily lose track of how it originated.

“Look, we need to talk about this.” Freddie takes the passenger seat and pulls his seat belt across his lap.

“Nah, I’m good.” I pull out and into the exit lane, twisting around to see if it’s free.

“I want these girls to be found, Dinah. That’s all. We all want to bring them home.”

I almost choke on the stupidity of that statement. Pinning my lips together, I make the left turn and head toward the station. A mile until the lot. I’ll pull up in front, drop him off, then leave. If he refuses to get out, I’ll ... I’ll figure something out.

He doesn’t do anything that dramatic. The final mile is done in silence, the stiffness hanging in the air between us. I turn into the lot a little too quickly, and the car rocks a bit, then I’m braking in front of the building and gesturing him out.

The memory of Oley, the way he’d heaved his girth out of the car with an overly loud sigh, hit me.

Had he been thinking of the IA investigation when he’d laid in his hospital bed and said his goodbyes to me?

He had told me that he loved me. Hugged me.

Teared up as he’d gripped my hand and stared into my eyes.

Had he considered telling me then? Warning me? Confessing his betrayal?

“. . . call you.”

I realize that Freddie is standing beside the car, leaning in the open passenger door, his backpack in hand.

I pull forward, and the door swings closed and clicks into place.

I head toward the clinic, driving the speed limit and using my turn signals. I come to a stop at a yellow light and realize I’m stalling.

I don’t want to go to the clinic.

I don’t want to return Joe’s text.

I am not ready to tell him about the IA investigation.

Unlike my other secrets, this one I have to tell him. I can’t bury this one for years, can’t lie on top of another grenade each night, hoping that it stays buried.

A marriage may be able to handle one major deception—but not two. Not when this new one affects him also.

I park in front of the clinic. My movements are slow as I stagger out of the car and down the mulch-covered path to the back door.

The facility is quiet, and I walk down the main hall and open the door to Joe’s office.

He’s not at his desk, and I pause at the sight of him in the adjacent patient room, the view clear through the large double-sided mirror set into the connecting wall.

He’s seated at the room’s table beside an attractive young brunette.

The girl is animated, her mouth moving quickly, her hands jerking through the air.

I move closer to the window, until my breath fogs the glass, studying the young woman, her thin nose, her heart-shaped face.

Jessica Bishop.

She’s thinner than she looked in the photos tacked to the wall of her room.

Then again, most of the patients lose weight in here.

A week of drinking protein shakes and eating a low-calorie diet of fruit and snacks has likely dropped ten pounds from her frame.

From here, I can see the bright-red scar on one of her wrists and remember the night she came in, the quick work that was needed to close up the cut, her blood gushing out all over the admittance-room table.

She was incoherent, her words spilling over each other, tears flooding her eyes.

He’s already made so much progress with her.

She’s smiling, her head nodding, and I wonder how much they’ve talked about her mother’s death.

Her file is compelling, the evidence hard to dispute, and maybe she’s already confessed to the murder.

Maybe that’s why Joe is looking at her so intently, like he’s fascinated by whatever she is saying.

I watch them for a half hour, then leave. Walking out the door is like coming up for air. I have a stay of execution for at least an hour—maybe two—before I have to tackle this confession.

But it isn’t two hours. It’s past six by the time he pulls into the driveway.

I’ve already cooked dinner and am waiting at the front door with a smile and a kiss, just like he likes it.

He starts talking as he unknots his tie and hangs his jacket on the hook, his energy and enthusiasm high.

A breakthrough, he crows, and I pierce shrimp on my fork and twirl fettucine and smile and ask questions, and another hour passes before he is doing the dishes and I’m fixing us an after-dinner drink.

We settle into the two chairs beside the fireplace, and there is a moment, a break in his chatter, when he takes a deep sip of his brandy and sighs.

I hesitate, not sure where to begin, even though I practiced this all afternoon.

Then he is talking again, his words tumbling over themselves in a rush to get out, and I love his passion.

He’s a world-class chessmaster in the area of human psychology.

I sip my drink and wonder if he plans on recapping the entire four-hour session.

He does that sometimes, and I never mind when he does.

Tonight, I appreciate it, even though it means that we are heading to bed at ten thirty and I still haven’t said anything to him.

I can’t bring it up now, not while we are side by side at our respective sinks, brushing our teeth.

It’ll be a discussion that will take hours and require both of us to be alert, and throwing it on him with no warning and when he’s putting his mouth guard in—it’s not fair.

It’s not fair, and I don’t have the mental energy for the fight and the questions and his alarm.

So it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, we will drive to the ranch for the weekend, with no distractions and hours stretching out before us, open for nothing but discussion over my deception.

Tomorrow. It looms ahead of me, already waiting.

I try to sleep, but my stomach is one long tangle of knots, and no matter how much I reposition myself, I can’t get comfortable.