Page 162

My muse is a fickle lover. When she’s on, she’s heat and fire and lightning in a silo and she infuses my body with a sort of ethereal creative power that takes over, rules and defies time.

I’m cast into my story for hours. Lost. The words pouring forth in a creative rush, a frenzy of insight, inspiration, and prose. I feel like I’m in the center of the universe, the exact place I’m supposed to be.

When she is done with me, I’m wrung out and wasted, yet the taste of her leaves me longing for more. But she will not be cajoled, and I know when I’m spent.

The night has waxed into dawn, the finest string of rose gold creeping into my den. I am stiff, and when I rise, I groan.

I love being a writer, the triumph of finishing something that is at once raw and brilliant, almost more satisfying than the thumping gavel of justice. At least with a book, I can write the ending I want; an ending we all want.

This time.

My muse has given me her best. My imagination takes a quick jog and I let the thought settle. I just might have a bestseller on my hands.

When I get up and pad to the door of my office, I notice the voices are gone, but light pulses from the family room. I wander in and see the television has gone to sleep, just the screen saver scrolling up the latest news. Eve forgot to turn off the volume, however, and when I click off the power, the buzz of the late night station vanishes.

I’m tired, but my body hums with the still too vivid memories so maybe I just need a hot shower.

And Eve. But I don’t want to wake her at 5 a.m. Too early. There’ll be time to tell her everything later.

The den used to be a guest room, and the bathroom off the entry is equipped with a shower. I heat it up, get in and stand under the spray, my arms braced against the wall.

Images assault me. Burke, young and with hair, that stupid soul patch.

Asher, and his Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, it’s your funeral. Clearly my imagination is conjuring him up to play a role in my subconscious.

There’s Danny Mulligan and his warning. Maybe a remnant sliver of guilt. I did, technically, get her into trouble.

My mother’s voice, fresh and bright and unslurred on the phone.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Finally, John Booker. Alive, believing in me.

All pieces of my past, shattered, remade. My subconscious crafting a happy ending.

I soap up, rinse off and when I close my eyes, Ramses is there, his knife slicing into my kidneys.

My hand finds its way to where the wound was in the dream, as if it might be real.

I touch a rumple of flesh, and jerk.

What?

No. Not possible.

I twist my body to see it, but it’s behind me, just above my hip. My hand seeks it again, and yes, something is there. A ridge of flesh, puckered up, but smooth.

Turning off the water, I step out into the humid, steamy air. Take a towel, wipe the sodden mirror and turn around, looking over my shoulder.

I just stare, my brain looping round and round, trying to make sense out of the scar. It’s three inches wide, running at an angle from my hip into my back, thick and jagged and old. Nearly faded, reddened only by the spray of the shower.

Definitely a wound that could have been made by Ramses’ dagger thrust just above my kidney.

My pulse has found my throat.

I grab a towel and wrap it around my waist and take the stairs fast. Ashley’s door is closed, and I head straight for my bedroom.

I know Eve is asleep, but how can I not have a memory of being stabbed?

The bed is dark, just a form huddled along her side, Eve, as usual, wrapped up like a burrito. I tiptoe in and sit down on the edge. Put a hand on her shoulder. “Honey? Wake up.”

My hand sinks into the body-sized wad and it takes only a second to realize that these are pillows, mounded up, as if pushed into a row.

I flick on the light.

On my side of the bed, the pillow is sunken, the sheets a wreck. As if I’ve torn them out, tossing and turning.

I’ve shoved the pillows to Eve’s side of the bed.

“Eve?”

No answer.

The bathroom door is shut. I look for the thin strip of light that should be showing at the bottom of the door. Dark.

Where is she?

I grab a pair of jeans and get partially dressed, foregoing a shirt, and barrel downstairs, expecting to see her in the kitchen, maybe huddled up with a cup of coffee. She does that when she’s brooding over a case, and I remember last night how she left the house for a run, restless and perturbed over a missing teenager.

But the kitchen is empty.

I stand at the window, staring out at the backyard.

It takes me a bit, but what I’m seeing—or not seeing—is dawning on me.

The swing set I spent last weekend building for Ashley is gone. Vanished.

Just grass, wild and unkempt, needing a mow.

Huh?

Behind me, a clock chimes. 6 a.m.

Eve has to be out for a run. I think this even as my brain shouts outs an unintelligible answer. Like my dream, I look around for it, as if the answer might materialize.

The doorbell rings, and my heart restarts.

It’s Eve, and she’s forgotten her keys.

I open the door and a rush of relief swills through me at the sight of Eve standing on the stoop. Except she’s not wearing her running gear but a pair of dress pants, a crisp white shirt and she’s carrying her satchel over her shoulder. Her beautiful hair is pulled back, tight, and her eyes hold age, stress, and not a little weariness.

The image of the younger Eve flashes through my mind. Bright, her hair down and flowing through my fingers. “Did you go back to work?” I ask and shift to my right to let her come inside. “Why didn’t you text me?”

A car door slams and beyond her Silas is coming up the walk.

He has a scowl on his face, but I’ve secretly always thought that Silas wanted to kill me and bury me in a dumpster. What’s strange, however, is that usually he hides it.

“Are you working from home today?” She isn’t coming in.

“Stop it, Rem,” she says, and her tone could peel skin.

Huh? I make the sound and she sighs.

“You can’t keep dodging me. Grow up. I shouldn’t have to ambush you to get you to accept these.” While she’s talking, she’s dug out a manila envelope. She hands it to me. “Take them.”

I admit that because of the way she says this, I’m slow to reach out and take the envelope. But I do, because she’s Eve and I’ll do just about anything she asks. I look at her and she glances away.

Her eyes glisten.

Silas stands behind her, glares at me, and I have the strangest sense he’s here to protect her.

Ignoring the urge to put a hand to his chest, push hard and drag Eve off the stoop and into the house for a private chat, I open the envelope. My breath leaks out as I read the header.

“ Divorce papers? What the hell, Eve?”

She wipes her hand across her cheek. “It’s time, Rem, and you know it. I’m tired of waiting for you to get better, to snap out of it. We’re both hurting, but you—I can’t watch you destroy yourself.”

Her words are like fists, each one slamming into me. “What are you talking about?”

“This.” Her jaw tightens as she waves her hand at me. “The fact you won’t admit you have a problem.” She shakes her head. “I can smell the whiskey on your breath, Rem.”

“That was hours ago.” I’m not sure why, but I’m so desperate to find the Eve I know inside all that anger that I say, “I think I finished my novel. And it’s good—really good.”

She wears a strange expression, then her face crumbles and she presses her hand to her mouth, turning away.

“What?”

Silas moves a few inches closer to Eve. “Do you work at being the jerk of the century, Rembrandt? Or does is just come naturally? Please. Stop dreaming and start living in the world you created.”

He puts a protective arm around Eve, my Eve.

I stand there, feet nailed to the cold entry way floor, bare chested and wet, the world spinning off its axis.

Especially when Eve looks up at me. “Just sign the papers, Rem, and let me go. Let Ashley go. It’s over.”

Ashley. The name rushes through me like wildfire. “Let her go? What are you talking about?”

I’m about ready to turn and sprint up the stairs to Ashley’s bedroom when Eve gives me such a horrid, broken look I freeze. She draws in a breath and for a second, looks like she might slap me, venom in her eyes.

“I really hate you, Rembrandt Stone.”

My jaw tightens, my throat raw. “Hate me all you want, but you’re not taking my daughter away from me?—”

“You’re sick.”

“Where is she, Eve?” My voice is louder than I want it to be, but fear is sneaking up from my gut and I can’t help it.

“She’s dead, Rem. She’s dead , and you can’t bring her back. So wake up!”

Her words sear through me.

No. No — “What are you talking about?”

She shakes her head, turns away.

“Rembrandt,” Silas says, and his voice is oddly soft, as if I might be a hostage taker and he the friendly negotiator. “Ashley’s murder was two years ago now. It’s time to let go. I’m sorry.”

My mouth opens, but nothing emerges. The urge to hurt him is gone, leaving me with nothing at all.

“Sign the papers,” Eve says softly, tears cutting down her face. Behind her grief, I see the Eve I know, the Eve who has gone missing, the Eve I left behind last night. Strong, beautiful Eve who loves me, believes in me. Who sees exactly what this impossible news has done to me.

I stand there, mute, as Silas turns her, his arm curling around her shoulders, and walks her down our front steps. Helps her into the car. Drives her away from our home. Our family. Our life.

Taking the answers with her.

I back away from the door, glance at the envelope, then drop it onto the floor.

I take the stairs two at time.

I stop at Ashley’s door, my hand on the knob, and close my eyes. Please, no.

My breath shudders as I swing the door in.

The shade is pulled, but the morning light cascades into an empty room. No wrapping paper from yesterday’s gifts. No ponies cast about on the floor. Her stuffed animals are piled up on her bed, as if wondering, too, what happened.

My gaze falls on a teddy bear. Black, with a white star on its chest, the fur not yet rubbed off, the eye still intact.

Gomer.

My knees buckle and I crawl to the bed, yank it from the pile. Press it to my face.

No. No… no…

I’m shaking now, the world coming at me in splinters.

The wound.

The missing swing set.

My empty bed.

Eve on the porch with Silas.

And, on my daughter’s shelf, a picture of my mother and father, grinning in a cruise line photo frame. They look happy, not a hint of my mother’s stroke in her eyes, her smile.

She’s dead, and you can’t bring her back.

No.

I close my eyes and cling to the only fragment of all of this that makes any sense.

The only thing that offers the slimmest filament of hope.

Oh, God, please .

Let the watch work.

The End

Thank you for reading Cast the First Stone .