Sara caught herself at the last second.
‘Until what?’
Her hand went to her throat. She felt like she was dangling over a cliff.
He repeated, ‘Until what?’
‘Until enough time had passed.’ Her pulse jumped under her fingers. She was angry. She was terrified. She was breathless from the rawness of her words and she was a coward for not telling him exactly what had turned her life around.
She just couldn’t do it.
She said, ‘You’re going to need time to grieve.’ What she really meant was, You’re going to need time away from me, and I don’t think my heart can take it.
Will carefully lined up his socks. He folded them in two. ‘I know you can never love me the way that you loved him.’
Sara felt blindsided. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Maybe.’ He tucked his socks into his back pocket. ‘I think I should go.’
‘I think you should too.’ The words came unfiltered from her mouth. Sara recognized her voice. She just didn’t know why she had said it.
Will waited for her to step aside so he could pass.
She followed him into the living room. Her equilibrium was gone. Everything had shifted, but she couldn’t figure out how.
‘I don’t know if I have a job anymore.’ He was talking to her as if nothing had changed. ‘Even if I do, Amanda won’t let me near the case. Faith’s following up on the Palmer angle with Collier.’ He scooped up Betty. ‘I’ll probably be stuck at my desk processing paperwork.’
Sara struggled for composure. ‘I won’t have the tox screen back on Harding for another week.’
‘Probably doesn’t matter.’ He took Betty’s leash off the hook and snapped it onto her collar. ‘Okay. I’ll see you later.’
He shut the door behind him.
Sara leaned against the wall for support. Her heart was battering her ribs. She felt light-headed.
What the hell had just happened?
Why had he left?
Why had she let him?
Sara put her back to the wall. She slid down to the floor. She looked at her watch. It was still too late to call Tessa. Sara didn’t even know what she would say. Everything had escalated so quickly. Was Will having some sort of mental breakdown?
Was Sara?
She had said too much about Jeffrey. Sara had always walked a fine line with memories of her husband. She didn’t want to deny their time together, but she didn’t want to rub Will’s face in it either. Did Will really think she was telling him that she couldn’t get over losing her husband? Four years ago, Sara would have believed that was true.
Until she’d met Will.
That was what she’d stopped herself from saying in the bathroom: that Will had changed everything. That he had made her want to live again. That he was her life and the thought of losing him terrified her. The shame of her cowardice was equal to her regret. She had been scared because there was no point in telling him that she loved him if he was just going to leave.
Sara leaned her head back against the wall. She stared at the dark sky out the windows. She’d seen death too many times to believe that there was such a thing as angels, but if there were demons in the afterlife, Angie Polaski was out there cackling like a witch.
This was the revelation that finally moved Sara; not love or need or even desperation, but the absolute conviction that she was not going to let Angie win.
Sara stood up. She found her purse. The dogs stirred, hoping for a walk, but she brushed them aside as she left the apartment. She didn’t bother with the lock. She pressed the elevator button. She pressed it again. She looked up at the lighted panel. The car was stuck on the lobby level. She turned toward the stairs.
Will was standing by her door.
Betty was beside him.
He asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
Of all the idiotic questions. ‘I thought you left.’
‘I thought you wanted me to.’
‘I only said that because you said it.’ She shook her head. ‘I know that sounds stupid. It is stupid. Was stupid.’ She wanted to reach for him. To hold him. To make the last ten minutes go away. ‘Why are you still here?’
‘It’s a free country.’
‘Will, please.’
He shrugged. He looked down at his dog. ‘I don’t have a lot of quit in me, Sara. You should know that by now.’
‘You were just going to wait out here all night?’
‘I knew you would have to take out the dogs before you went to bed.’
A bell dinged. The elevator doors opened.
Sara was fixed in place. She felt the tingling in her nerves again. She was back on the cliff, her toes dangling over. She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t love you less than him, Will. I love you differently. I love you . . .’ She couldn’t describe it. There were no words. ‘I love you.’
He nodded, but she couldn’t tell if he understood.
She said, ‘We have to talk about this.’
‘No, we don’t.’ He reached out to her. He cupped his hand to her face. His touch was like a balm. He smoothed her brow. He wiped her tears. He stroked her cheek. Her breath caught when his thumb brushed across her lips.
He asked, ‘Do you want me to stop?’
‘I want you to do that with your mouth.’
He gently pressed his lips to hers. Sara kissed him back. There was no passion, just the overwhelming need for reconnection. Will pulled her close. Sara buried her face in the crook of his neck. She wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt him relax into her. They clung to each other, standing outside the open door to her apartment, until her cell phone chimed.
Then chimed again.
And again.
Will broke away first.
Reluctantly Sara picked up her purse from the floor.
They both knew that Amanda sent rapid-fire texts, just as they both knew there was only one reason she would be reaching out to Sara after eight o’clock at night.
She found her phone. She swiped her finger across the screen.
AMANDA: NEED YOU NOW ANGIE’S CAR FOUND 1885 SOMMERSET.
AMANDA: CADAVER DOG FOUND SCENT IN TRUNK.
AMANDA: DON’T TELL WILL.
Sara told him.
EIGHT
Will sat beside Sara in her BMW. She was being strong for him. Silent, but strong. They hadn’t talked about more than logistics since she’d read Amanda’s texts.
Do you know where this is? Do you want me to drive?
Sara turned onto Spring Street. Night had fallen. The instrument panel cast her face in white tones. Will gripped her hand as tightly as he could without breaking something. He still felt numb, except for the places where he didn’t. There was an elephant standing on his chest. The pain was physical, suffocating. His arm hurt. Or maybe it only hurt because Faith had asked him before if his arm was hurting. Or maybe he was unraveling because that was what everyone kept saying he was going to do.
Cadaver dogs were trained to find the scent of decomposition. They had alerted on Angie’s trunk. That meant that everyone was thinking that Angie was dead.
Was it true? Was Angie dead?
The most important person in his life for thirty years.
Angie had been the only person in his life for thirty years.
That was the only incontrovertible fact.
Will tried to summon that moment in the basement, all those years ago, when Angie had held him, comforted him. Nothing. He tried to remember the one time they went on a vacation together. They had argued about directions. They had argued about where to eat. They had argued about who was being more argumentative.