He attempted a smile. “More complicated than a messed-up kid from Mississippi with daddy issues who was seeing nonexistent people?”
She slowly nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
His grin faded. “Can you at least tell me why? I’m a good listener. I’ll listen as long as you want me to.”
“It won’t take long, Robie, to tell you.”
“Then tell me.”
He seemed to sense the monumental moment that was fast approaching, so Robie pulled off the road again. The only sounds were those of the engine and the wipers flicking off the rain.
He turned to her.
Reel turned to him.
“The problem is . . . I love you, Will Robie. More than I’ve loved anyone. And that’s why you’ll never be able to help me through this.”
CHAPTER
51
Robie sat on his bed in the hotel in Grand.
His face was pointed directly at the floor.
And though his feet were firmly planted on the carpet, his thoughts were in another galaxy.
The drizzle had opened up into a hail of rain that pounded the single window in his room. Streaks of lightning popped and faded, as thunder rumbled consistently after each slash of light.
It was good to be indoors on such a night. And yet Robie was oblivious to the unruly elements.
The problem is . . . I love you, Will Robie. More than I’ve loved anyone. And that’s why you’ll never be able to help me through this.
It made no sense. It was a complete contradiction. But Reel had said it with total conviction, and Robie understood that there was nothing he could do to change her mind.
They had driven back in silence, as the weather and their moods had worsened.
She had gone to her room and he to his.
When he felt his hands shaking, Robie stood, went into the bathroom, and ran cold water over his face. When he looked up from the sink he caught his reflection staring back at him in the mirror.
He looked ten years older, he thought, than when he had started the day.
He gripped both sides of the sink and willed himself not to throw up, or pull his gun and go looking for something, someone to kill. Right now, it would have been too easy.
He looked to his left toward Reel’s room.
Is she as miserable as I am? But then again, she did say she loved me. More than anyone else.
Robie’s momentary flicker of hope was extinguished just as quickly.
He well knew that there was a steely resolve in the woman that even Robie could not match. If she had truly made up her mind, then that was that, whether she loved him or not.
So why am I still screwing around? Forget it. Forget her. I need to move on.
And Robie was going to start that journey right now.
He went downstairs and then outside. He glanced down the street.
Malloy’s police cruiser wasn’t there. She had probably gone to her house, wherever that was.
He pulled out his phone and called her. She answered on the second ring.
“You want some company?” he asked.
She gave him her address. It was about twenty minutes outside of town, tucked away off some little back road.
That’s all there seemed to be out here, he thought.
Back roads.
To nowhere.
Houses tucked away.
In nowhere.
The rain had slackened to a steady drizzle. He had just about reached his truck when Patti Bender appeared out of the darkness. She was dressed in the same odd assortment of work clothes she was wearing when they first met her. And a pistol was in a holster on her hip.
“What are you doing out this late?” he said, stopping with his hand on the truck door.
“I’m too old for curfews, Will,” she said with a smile. “You look troubled.”
“Story of my life, I guess.”
“Any word on Mr. Walton?”
“Nothing. But we have some leads.”
“Well, that’s better than nothing.”
“We went back to the cabin where Walton was staying. Malloy thought she recognized a boot print there. She’s going to follow it up.”
“She’s a good cop, and that’s not an easy thing to be out here.”
“How about your brother? Is he a good cop?”
“I was surprised, to tell the truth, when he put on the badge. He was a hellion as a teenager. More likely to be arrested than arrest somebody else.”
“Maybe he just grew up,” said Robie.
She looked at him strangely. “Do boys ever really grow up, Will?”
“I’m not sure I can answer that.”
“Where are you off to now, more investigating?”
He looked down. “No, just getting some fresh air.”
“Well, we have an abundance of that here. Your partner not going with you?”
“No . . . she’s tired.”
“Aren’t we all? Well, I won’t keep you.”
He watched her walk off and then climbed into the truck.
He got there in fifteen minutes, driving at a rate of speed that was above reckless on such an inclement night.
Maybe a part of him was hoping he wouldn’t reach the place at all. Too fast around a curve, an animal jumps out of the darkness directly in his path, then it would be over.
He would be over.
He pulled into the driveway of a neat story-and-a-half bungalow painted blue.
The skies opened up again and the rain poured down.
Malloy’s police cruiser was under a carport. A potted plant was on the front stoop, the flowers drooping under the barrage of rain.
She was waiting at the front door with a drink in hand. He took it.
And then up the stairs the pair went, undressing each other along the way.
By the time they got to the bedroom, they were both naked.
They hit the mattress hard and Robie used up every last bit of energy he had pleasing her, pleasing someone, letting her rising moans and groans and the prodding of her fingers against his body guide where she wanted him to go.
He increased his intensity of motion to the point where the bed was in peril of collapsing under them. Seeming to sense this, Malloy locked her legs around his torso. Right on cue, he lifted her off the bed and pushed her against the wall.
In his mind Robie sought to drive the both of them right through the drywall and out into the storm, to just let the rain engulf them. Wash everything he was feeling away. Gone.
For good. Never to return.
Climaxing simultaneously, she screamed and ripped at his hair and he cried out as though in pain, though he was feeling the exact opposite.
Totally spent, he carried her back to the bed and collapsed on top of her. Still gasping, she gently stroked the back of his head. Though the room was as cool as the outside, they were both drenched in sweat with their commingled efforts.
He could feel the smacks of her heart against his heaving chest and she could no doubt feel his as well.
Robie felt like he had just run a marathon, every nerve and muscle twitching.
He also somehow sensed that he had not yet finished the race. That he would never reach the finish line.
Robie finally rolled off her and put an arm over his eyes, blocking everything out.
“My God,” she whispered breathlessly into his ear. She slipped her leg on top of his stomach and lay curled tight to him. “My God,” she said again. “That was intense, Will.”
He nodded his head, trying to silently tell her that it was the same for him.
Though he had just finished having sex with a very lovely woman, the only image in Robie’s head right now was of another woman.
A woman who had this night, for the first time in her life, told Robie that she loved him. And then in the next breath, she had destroyed that astonishing admission before he even had a chance to react.
Or to tell her that I felt the same way about her.
“What are you thinking, Will?”
Robie blinked, came back to the room he was in, and turned sideways to stare at her.
I’m thinking about the woman I wish were here with me.
Of course he couldn’t say that, and he didn’t.
Guilt and shame were added to the swell of other emotions he was already feeling.
Guilt, shame, whatever you wanted to call it. The precise name didn’t matter. It was all bad.
“Nothing,” he said.
He could feel her relaxed body tense just a bit and then that tension was released.
Malloy replied, “You can talk to me, you know.”
“I’m fine. It was great. It was beyond great. Thank you. I . . . Thank you.”