Perfect Strangers

27

It’sa full day before I speak again. A day I spend lost in thought, wandering aimlessly through the lavender fields that surround James’s beautiful, centuries’ old, cream-colored stone country mansion.

The low drone of thousands of worker bees harvesting their bounty of nectar from the fragrant purple blooms lulls me as I stroll between the uniform lines of flowering bushes, my arms wrapped around myself to quell the occasional chill brought on by the dark workings of my mind. My intellect struggles to adjust to this new reality, but it keeps stumbling and falling down.

I married a man who uses his powerful position to covertly sell weapons. I took a lover who kills people for money. And I suspected nothing of either of them.

I might be the worst judge of character who ever lived.

Beyond the obvious feelings of stupidity, betrayal, disgust, anger, depression, and guilt, there’s a sneaky little bastard of an emotion I wrestle with that takes the longest time for me to accept. I keep strong-arming it away as I traverse the long, undulating rows of vivid violet, listening to the comforting crunch of gravel underfoot and breathing in the fine, perfumed clouds that fill the air.

Vengeance is bitter and burning within me. A poisonous snake flashing its fangs deep in my gut.

I don’t want to admit I’m the kind of person who believes in an eye for an eye in the biblical sense. Justice is one thing…sheer bloodlust is another. I’m an educated woman, not some medieval peasant screaming for the accused town witch to burn, baby, burn.

It’s hard to look my own savagery in the face. But, as twilight descends once again over the lavender fields, I finally accept the truth.

Not only do I want James to kill the man who shot my daughter, I want him to kill that son of a bitch in the slowest, ugliest, most painful way possible.

I want him to suffer.

I know it won’t bring Emmie back. Of course it won’t. Nothing can. But the pain I’ve been carrying since her death is a living, breathing beast inside me, and I didn’t understand until now how pain can cut your legs out from under you one moment and the next grow you ferocious new sets of sharp claws and teeth.

Looking at the graceful stone estate set back against a stand of ancient pines that James calls his home, I wonder how I’ll recover from this. How can I keep putting one foot in front of the other in this world when everything I thought I knew about life—and about myself—has been proven wrong?

A peregrine falcon turns lazy circles in the deepening blue bowl of the sky overhead. I track her progress for a moment, admiring the elegant spread of her wings, feeling her piercing cry in a lonely corner of my heart. When she banks hard and dives like a rocket between two bushy rows of lavender then emerges moments later to climb back into the heavens with a small, wriggling bundle caught in her talons, it seems like an omen.

A dark sense of purpose fills me.

First things first: I’ll decide what I’m going to do about James, Christopher, and the rest of my ruined life once my thirst for revenge is slaked.

Dorothy, you’re a long way from home, indeed.

Feeling oddly calm after that decision, I make my way slowly back to the house. My hair and clothing are saturated with the sweet scent of the lavender fields. A fine, pale gray dust clings to my shoes. I slip the shoes off inside the front door, then pad barefoot over the cool, smooth travertine pavers to the place where I know James will be waiting.

When I enter the library, he looks up from his book. Our eyes meet. Whatever he sees in mine makes him close the book and set it aside.

I can read the title from where I stand: A Moveable Feast.

Hemingway again. I’m starting to sense a theme.

James asks, “Did you sleep at all?”

“Enough.”

We gaze at each other across the room. Dressed in a navy sweater and jeans so worn they’ve faded almost to white, he sits barefoot with one long leg crossed over the other in a battered brown leather chair. A matching sofa sits opposite him. Between the two is a wooden coffee table laden with a cut-crystal decanter filled with amber liquid and two glasses on a square silver tray.

He carried me into the house last night, as I found my legs unable to when we arrived. Shock has a way of undoing the normal workings of the body. He tucked me into bed fully clothed except my shoes, arranged the covers around me, and kissed me on the forehead before turning out the light.

He knew somehow that I wouldn’t run away or call the authorities or do any one of the million other things I could’ve done. I suppose it’s the same way he seems to know everything else about me. All my secret needs and longings, all the tucked-away thoughts in my head.

I say, “I’d like to talk now.”

Inclining his head, he gestures to the sofa opposite him. “Of course.” When I sit, perching on the edge, he inquires, “Whiskey?”

His tone is polite. His face is exquisite. His sweater is made of the finest cashmere. The killer with beautiful manners, a beautiful face, and a beautiful home in the French countryside who worships my body like a religious fanatic and is going to do for me what no one else has been able to do. The awful thing that must be done if I’m ever to crawl out of this hellish pit I’ve been living in for the past two years.

My dark knight in black, bloody armor, taking up his sword for my cause.

He couldn’t be more perfect if I’d conjured him from a dream.

“Whiskey would be good, thanks.”

He pours me a measure, pauses to glance at my face, then pours more. He hands me the glass across the table then settles back into his chair and waits for me to begin.

I sip the whiskey, savoring its smoky burn. Then I lift my eyes and look at him.

“This man, the one you said fired the shot that killed my daughter. How do you know it’s him?”

“He’s a colleague of sorts.”