Page 38 of Take Your Breath Away

And I would look her in the eye and I would say, “No, I did not.”

I was imagining that exchange as I sat in a bar, sitting alone in a booth, working on my second or third or fourth Sam Adams. I didn’t remember driving here after seeing Greg and Julie, or even coming inside. I felt as though I had always been here, that this booth was my past, my present, and my future. I existed entirely in this moment in time.

As I sat there, I engaged in one of my nervous habits, which was to tear off bits of a paper napkin, roll them up into balls the size of a pea, then flick them off my upturned thumb with my middle finger. Sometimes the ball would fall off my thumb before I could launch it, other times I could shoot one across the room.

When the waitress, a heavyset woman in her fifties, came over to see whether I wanted another beer, she glanced down at the half dozen paper pellets I’d fired off.

“Nice range,” she said. “Another?”

I was about to say yes, but any more to drink and I wasn’t going to be able to drive myself home. I was probably already in the danger zone.

“No, I’m good,” I said.

The waitress stood there a minute, looking at me.

“You been in here before?” she asked.

“Not sure,” I said, which was true. “Not in a while, anyway.”

“Because you look familiar to me. Pretty sure I’ve seen you somewhere. Although not lately.”

“Maybe I just have that kind of face,” I said.

“What’s your name?”

“Carville,” I said. “Andrew Carville.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, nodding. “I had you pegged as somebody else, but his last name was Mason.”

“Well, there you go,” I said, and slapped some bills on the table as she waltzed away.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. I went out, got in the Explorer, and headed for home.

I was almost there, not even a block away, when I saw that car again, the one I’d seen heading down the street to Max’s house.

Detective Hardy.

Coming from the direction of my place.

I watched her unmarked car disappear in my rearview, then hit the blinker to turn down my street.

When I got to my house, Jayne was sitting on the front step, waiting.

Looked like I wouldn’t have to tell Jayne much of anything, after all. I was guessing the detective had already filled her in.

Thirteen

“I brought flowers,” Isabel McBain said. “This room needs some color.”

Her mother, Elizabeth, turned her head wearily on the pillow to see what Isabel was up to. She was arranging a small bouquet in a foot-tall metal vase on the movable dining table that had been wheeled away from the bed. Isabel’s husband, Norman, tall, thin, and balding, stood back, watching his wife fuss about.

“What do you think of that?” she asked. “Don’t they look nice?”

“They look wonderful, Izzy,” Elizabeth whispered. “How are you today, Norman?”

“Fine, Elizabeth,” he said flatly while Isabel continued to arrange the bouquet. She took a step back, studied her handiwork, concluded they were not quite right, then repositioned several of them. “Norman, what do you think?”

“That one in the front seems a bit droopy.”