He had showered and changed into some clothes from the closet. A pair of tan corduroys and a blue button-down shirt. An undershirt. Underwear. Socks. They all fit perfectly. The pills had hit him in the shower, and the body aches and pain in his liver had subsided to be replaced by a white noise that felt soft and comfortingly familiar. It wasn’t like it used to be. There was no more euphoria. But the pills dulled his sensations enough that he felt almost pleasant.
It was fully dark outside by the time he returned to the living room.
Gretchen had moved to the leather couch. The fire had died down a little, but still bathed the room in a warm orange glow. Archie sat down on the chair Gretchen had been in earlier. The laptop was gone.
“Do you want another drink?” she asked.
“Why not?” Archie said.
She got up and moved between the couch and the chair, brushing his arm with her fingertips as she did. He kept his eyes straight ahead, trying not to look at her. He could hear her behind him, putting the ice in the glass, pouring the Scotch. The liquid crackling on the ice. The ice clinking against the side of the glass. She returned and handed him the glass and then sat on the arm of the chair he was in. His body tensed. He couldn’t disguise it; his hand tightened around the glass, his knees went rigid.
She laughed lightly and leaned against him, stretching an arm along the top of the back of the chair. He could feel the cashmere of her sweater lick the back of his neck. The glass stayed frozen in his hand.
“It will happen faster, the more you drink,” she said.
He focused on the glass. It was heavy crystal with a silver lip. He took a sip of the Scotch, this time slowly, letting the alcohol sit on his tongue, savoring the taste.
“The liver failure,” she continued. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
He felt his body relax a notch, and lifted his glass at her and said, “To my health.”
She picked up his free hand and turned it over in hers. His nail beds were white, his skin a shade too yellow. “It won’t be long now,” she said softly.
He needed enough time. Maybe days. “How long?” he asked.
“A few days, a few weeks,” she said. She reached across him, her breasts against his chest, her pale neck at his chin, and lifted his glass from his other hand and then sat back. She smelled different than he remembered. Like some other flower. Roses. Maybe she had never smelled like lilacs. Maybe he had imagined it. He smiled at that, as she took a sip of the Scotch from his glass.
“You smell nice,” he said.
She handed the glass back to him and he took it.
“It might be faster,” she said. “It depends on how efficiently you poison yourself.”
He looked at the exquisite glass in his hand. Not the kind of glass you’d find at a rental house. A vacation house then. She had rented it. Or killed the family. His stomach tightened. He couldn’t think about that now.
The glass. If it all worked, his team would find it later. Both sets of the fingerprints on the glass. Drinking buddies. “Were you really an ER nurse?” he asked.
Gretchen tilted her head and smiled and then unbuttoned the third button down on his shirt and reached under the fabric, her fingers tracing his undershirt, quickly finding the scar where she had sliced him open to remove his spleen. She raised an eyebrow. “You doubt my medical prowess?”
Archie could feel his breath quicken, his chest heave. He took another drink. “Practice makes perfect,” he said.
She kept her hand in his shirt and lifted her right leg over his left, so their thighs were touching.
He searched for something to say, anything, and remembered the laptop. “What were you working on earlier?” he asked.
She didn’t seem surprised by the question. He knew she’d been waiting for him to ask. “A present for you.”
“Your autobiography?” he asked.
“Something like that. You’ll have to wait and see.” She reached up and moved a piece of his hair, smoothing it back behind his ear. “Do you still think about me?” she whispered.
Archie could barely speak. “Yes.”
She put her face right in front of his, her eyes sparkling in the firelight. “Do you think Henry suspects?”
He drained the last of the Scotch and set the glass on the arm of the chair. “No,” he said. It felt strange to talk about it. He’d kept the secret so long. Sat across from her in the prison, knowing what she knew, and wasn’t saying. It ate away at him. “Henry thinks too highly of me to suspect anything.”
“He never asked you about all those late nights?” she said, smiling. “How I had your cell phone number?” She raised an eyebrow. “He never asked why you really came to my house that night I took you?”
Archie shrugged weakly. “I wanted a psych consult about the latest body.”