The Sinner (Notorious 1)

And from the angle of the sun shining directly into my eyes, I’d overslept. I pulled on clean clothes and filled my thermos. At the last minute, I grabbed a notebook and pencil so I could sketch out the final pattern for the maze.

I’d been thinking in terms of right angles. Squares in squares. But last night I’d dreamt in circles.

Harder to pull off, but infinitely more interesting.

Once outside, I saw my kingdom had been overrun. The shed doors were open, the tools haphazardly laid out and Savannah, in cutoffs and a black tank top that hugged every curve and muscle in her body like a shadow, was in jeopardy of cutting off her own hand with the bush trimmers.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She whirled, slicing the air with razor-sharp blades. “Hey, Matt. Since someone decided to sleep in, I thought I’d do a little work—”

I yanked the trimmers from her hands and put them on the ground, arranging things so they lay between the hoe and the ax.

It was stupid, this irrational proprietary urge I had. It wasn’t even my courtyard. It was hers. She could pave the damn thing if she wanted.

“I only trimmed the cypress,” she said, annoyed. “I’ve managed the middle courtyard for twenty years, it’s not like I’m going to ruin anything.”

You’re ruining everything.

“I’m used to working alone,” I said, trying to sound as unfriendly as possible.

“I understand,” she said, putting her hands on her impossibly thin waist. She really was like a willow. So beautiful, but strong. “That’s how I work, too.” She grabbed a thermos of coffee that had been resting in the grass and held it out to me. “Here. Peace.”

Part of me resisted, knowing that if I wanted her to keep her distance, this wasn’t exactly the way to go about it.

“It’s just coffee,” she said, again as if she could read my mind.

A great ache yawned inside of me, a loneliness.

I missed having friends and people in my life. My father, the prince of thieves, sitting in the visiting room at Martinsville Prison so eager for company. Erica, bringing me coffee and office gossip while doing the job of twenty people.

“You all right?” Savannah asked.

I blinked, coming back to earth. “Fine.” I took the coffee. “Thank you.”

“So,” Savannah said, looking around at the cleared-out courtyard. “What’s the plan, Mr. Architect of the Year?”

Winning that award seemed like a million years ago. Almost as though it had happened to a different guy. It had been so important, coming as it had right before the opening. Publicity, I’d thought, for the project of a lifetime.

“How’d you find that out?”

“It’s on your Web site,” she said, shaking her head. “Boy, you’ve really dropped right out of your life, haven’t you?”

I took a deep drink of the hot black coffee and didn’t answer. The answer was all too obvious.

I wonder how many voice mails I have from Erica, now?

I was stunned to realize I wanted to check.

Something was happening here now. I was growing back into my old skin.

“I finished my research work two days ago and I’m not scheduled to be back in the library until tomorrow, so I thought I’d lend a hand. And—” she smiled “—I’m guessing you probably don’t want or need my help and are trying to figure out how to get rid of me. But sadly, my daughter gets her stubbornness from me.”

And I’m not going anywhere. The words rang in my head as if she’d yelled them rather than implied them.

I wondered if she was here with the foolish idea that she could save me, and I wanted to tell her not to bother.

“I’m building a maze,” I said. I set down the thermos and pulled the pencil and notebook out of my back pocket. “I was thinking something…” I began sketching. Beginning with the cypress in the center, I worked my way out, creating blind alleys and hidey-holes that went nowhere. All in a circular pattern. “I was thinking box hedges, but that won’t really work with the form. I’ll need to—”

“Lilacs,” she said. “Here.” She pointed to my sketch, the dark outer perimeter of my circles. “And honeysuckle, for the inside.”

It clicked. “That would be—”

“Smelly?” she asked, with a laugh.

“Perfect,” I said, getting lost for a moment in her eyes. “Totally perfect.”

I didn’t know how long we stood that way. A second, ten minutes. But time collapsed, disappeared, and all there was were her eyes, blue as the sky and bottomless.

“Matt,” she breathed. “Tell me about the accident.”

I stepped away, throwing the sketch on the ground and reaching for the tools. She got in my way, her hands, so delicate and clean on mine, and I recoiled from the contact.

“You didn’t know about the floors,” she whispered.

I took tiny sips of air because there was suddenly a shortage.