“Two possibilities. Either he asked her out and she said no, or she said yes, but now he can’t go because he’s sick.”
“Oh no.” Pam’s shoulders fell. “That sucks. I hope she didn’t reject him, but either way, he can’t go out tonight.”
“Agree.”
Pam shook her head. “What a shame.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Was he studying when you went up there?”
“I think he was trying to, but cut him a break, he’s sick.”
“That reminds me.” Pam looked over, suddenly businesslike. “You know we have that Eldercare Services dinner tonight, that benefit? I have to go. I can’t get out of it, they’re giving me some kind of award. Can you stay home with him?”
Jake hesitated, for show. “Sure.”
“I think you should. If he keeps throwing up, he’s going to get dehydrated, and I think we need to keep an eye on him.”
“Fine, right. What time do you think you’ll be home?”
“Late. I speak after dinner, and that’s when they present the award, so I’ll be there ’til the bitter end. Probably be home around midnight. Call me if he takes a bad turn, so will you?”
“Of course. Hopefully, he can get some sleep. I wouldn’t mind taking it easy tonight, myself. I started the day off with a bang, after all.”
Pam looked over. “So you have a good excuse for missing the rubber chicken.”
“I don’t mind the rubber chicken. It’s the weird black rice I hate.”
“That’s wild rice, and it’s classy.”
“Rice gone wild?”
Pam smiled. “Exactly.”
“Yuck. I like my girls wild and my rice tame. Is that so much to ask?”
Pam laughed, and Jake felt his heart lift. She had a great laugh, and he loved to make her laugh. He loved her, and he would lose her if she knew what he had done to Kathleen, and their son.
“So fill me in on the schedule,” Jake said, because he had some planning to do. “What time do you have to leave for your gig?”
“It’s at the Wyndham downtown, but there’s a VIP reception before the dinner, so I have to be there by five.” Pam glanced at the dashboard clock, which read 11:15. “I have to leave the house by three thirty, just to be sure. What are you going to do today?”
Jake had to think of a lie, because the truth was appalling. “Work.”
“You’re not going into the office, I hope?”
“No.”
“You’re not feeling too good, are you?” Pam patted his leg, and though Jake felt the softness of her touch, it gave him no comfort. He turned back to the window. After putting on a false front for the Wawa employees, the cop, and Ryan, he was running out of energy to put one on for Pam. He couldn’t wait to be alone, apart from her and anybody else, so he didn’t have to pretend anything anymore, so he could let the grief and guilt come.
“I’m just tired, is all,” Jake told her.
“Could you be having a delayed reaction to the crash?”
“No, really.”
“Should we go to the emergency room?”
“No, no.” Jake eased his head onto the headrest and closed his eyes.
“Did you get whiplash or anything like that?”
“Honestly, no.” Jake turned to her, trying to smile. “What kind of idiot has a car accident when there’s nobody around to sue?”
“An honest one,” Pam answered, smiling back at him, with love.
Chapter Eleven
Jake went about his task with grim purpose and he didn’t have much time. Ryan was sleeping in his bedroom, and Pam had just left for her benefit dinner, made up, perfumed, and sparkly in a slim black dress with sequins at the neckline. She’d come to his office to say good-bye, her face alive with excitement and a black lace shawl over her arm, which matched her lacy black high heels. Jake knew his wife well enough to guess that she had coordinated even that subtle touch.
Pretty damn sexy for a member of the judiciary, he had told her, kissing her on the cheek.
Don’t be silly, she had said, but he knew she was pleased when she kissed him on the lips, then hurried off.
Jake had made sure Pam was gone, when he’d locked the dog in the house, hurried out to the garage, and started looking for bits of plywood. He’d muddled his way through his share of home projects and had plenty of random lumber around, for when the table leg needed shimming or the window air conditioners had to be braced on the windowsill.
He collected a few pieces of wood, then rooted through the storage shelves and found some old soiled towels and rags. He grabbed some to-be-recycled newspapers, his bloody jeans, and the brown bag that held the bloody parka, then hustled out of the garage, glancing around to see if any of his neighbors were watching. Only his neighbor across the street, Sherry Kelly, was out, but she was already walking up her front walk, her back to him, so the coast was clear. Even so, Jake was about to do what plenty of suburban daddies did on a Saturday, which was burn some trash in a burn pile. Technically, he needed a permit, but the law was honored only in the breach.
He went down the side of the property, then let himself past their gate and into their yard, screened from view by their privacy fence. It was six feet tall, and it enclosed their backyard on the east and west sides, but left it open in back to the woods that surrounded the development. They owned a two-acre parcel, and neither he nor Pam had seen any reason to cut themselves off from the forest, a decision that would work to his benefit right now.
He hurried past their swimming pool, covered with a stretched green tarp for the winter, to the back where he kept his burn pile. He worried about a neighbor’s wandering by, or the off-chance that the police decided to start enforcing the law, or Pam’s having forgotten something, but he had prepared for all of those eventualities as best he could, using the other trash for cover.
Jake dumped the brown bag, rags, and wood on the cold ashes of the burn pile, where the lumber landed with a clatter. He bunched up the newspapers, reached into his pocket, pulled out the pack of matches, then struck the match. The newspaper began to burn, smoldering at the ragged corner at first, then catching fire gradually, curling the front-page headline BUDGET DEFICIT WIDENS before it burst into flames.
He glanced reflexively over his shoulder, but no one could see, and he reminded himself again that even if they could, nothing would look amiss. He burned trash all the time, probably once a month, and gray smoke rose from the burn pile like it always did. It didn’t even smell funny. A sharp-eyed neighbor might have noticed that he was standing closer to the pile than usual, but no one was watching.
Jake grabbed a stick and stirred the pile, encouraging the flames to creep over the plywood, and when it began to catch, he tossed the stick aside, bent over the paper bag, and rolled out his jeans and balled-up parka. He fed the parka to the fire, starting with the front, where the blood had been. He couldn’t get close enough to see the stains, but he knew they were there. The black nylon was stiff where the blood had dried, making shapes that reminded him of a map of the continents, so when the jacket finally caught fire, the entire globe was aflame.
He stood there, watching, waiting, and tending the fire, then threw in the bloody jeans and burned them, too, until wood, rags, newspaper, and incriminating evidence had been consumed, and all that remained were chunks of charred wood and the melted plastic zipper of his jacket, lying on the glowing ashes like the molted black skin of a snake.