Will pulled on his jeans. ‘I think I’ll be okay if I can do that. Just tell myself that she’s not really gone. That way, when she doesn’t come back, it won’t matter. It’ll just be like all the times before.’
Sara turned off the water. There was a tremble in her hand, more like a vibration that was working through her body, as if a tuning fork had been touched to her nerves.
She asked, ‘Do you want to know what it was like when my husband died?’
He looked up from buttoning his jeans. Sara had told him the story, but not the details.
She said, ‘It felt like someone had reached inside of my chest and ripped out my heart.’
Will zipped his pants. His expression was blank. He really had no idea what Angie’s death was going to do to him.
She said, ‘I felt hollow. Like there was nothing inside of me. I wanted to kill myself. I did try to kill myself. Did you know that?’
Will looked stunned. She had told him about the pills, but not her intentions. ‘You said it was an accident.’
‘I’m a doctor, Will. I knew what to do. Ambien. Hydrocodone. Tylenol.’ Tears started to fall. Now that the words were coming out, she couldn’t stop them. ‘My mother found me. She called an ambulance and they took me to the hospital, and people I worked with, people I’ve known since I was a child, had to pump my stomach so that I wouldn’t die.’ Her fists were clenched. She wanted to grab him and shake him and make him understand that death wasn’t the kind of thing you could just pretend away. ‘I begged them to let me go. I wanted to die. I loved him. He was my life. He was the center of my universe, and when he was gone, that was it. There was nothing left for me.’
Will slipped on his sneakers. He was listening, but he wasn’t hearing.
‘Angie’s dead. Brutally murdered.’ He didn’t flinch from her words. Four years ago, if someone had said the same thing about Jeffrey, Sara would’ve been on the floor. ‘She was the most important person in your life for thirty years. You can’t just tell yourself that she’s on a vacation, that she’s going to come back from the beach with a tan. That’s not how it works when you lose somebody. You see them on street corners. You hear their voice in the other room. You want to sleep all the time so you can dream about them. You don’t want to wash your clothes or your sheets so you can still smell them. I did this for three years, Will. Every single day for three years. I wasn’t living. I was going through the motions. I wanted to be just as dead as he was until—’
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.