“No, thanks, I’ll get him back home.”
Brian threw an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, we’re fine. Jake and me, we’re like brothers.” He grinned. “I’d get him home if he’d had a few too many. You know—share and share alike.”
“Let’s go, Brian.”
Luckily, Brian remembered directions, since he was in a new apartment. The flight attendant’s name was Norma. She seemed like a decent woman, coming to the door with concern in her eyes when Brian couldn’t quite work the key. Brian managed to introduce Jake without making snide comments. She was nothing like Nancy. Norma was short, fair and incredibly soft-spoken. Jake realized that he’d met her once on a trip upstate; she laughed and told him she remembered him, as well.
“Well, hell, why not?” Brian muttered. Those words brought a frown of confusion to the young woman’s brow, and Jake was tempted to deck him again.
“I’ll get him into bed for you and get his shoes off,” Jake said instead.
“The first door upstairs,” Norma said. “I think I’ll get him a few aspirin and some water. That might help him tomorrow morning. Did he fall?”
Jake pretended he didn’t hear. Brian was leaning on him heavily. He tripped up the first step. Jake shifted his arm, lifting Brian’s feet in the air, and moved quickly. Brian grinned at him when they hit the landing.
“Did I fall?” he said, laughing, but the sound was pathetic, bitter, and directed against himself. “Hell, yeah, I fell. Into your fist, right?”
“Brian, give yourself a fucking break,” Jake muttered.
Jake dropped Brian on the king-sized bed and did as he’d said, getting his shoes off. He was about to walk out when Brian said, “So…you know Norma.”
“I saw her on a flight, Brian.”
“I bet she’d rather sleep with you, too.”
“Quit being such a royal pain,” Jake told him. “You’re one lucky bastard. You had a great wife, and now…seems this girl loves you. Don’t mess this one up. You’ve got another chance. Don’t be an idiot.”
He started out.
“So what’s it been like for you, Jake?” Brian called to him.
He turned back. Brian was smiling ruefully. “The D.A.’s assistant. She was a real beauty. That lasted, what, three months? I hear there was a Hooters’ waitress—girl who was pure body. Ten dates, maybe? You’re still pining after Nan, too, aren’t you?”
“Brian, sleep it off. Five years is a long time.”
He went down the stairs as Norma was coming up them. “Thanks for bringing him home.”
“Sure.”
“Something like this went down last year, too. His wife’s birthday…that’s really all he ever says. I knew, soon after we met, of course, that she had died in a tragic accident. He must have really loved her. Anyway, thanks. A man who’s dealt with something like that needs help now and then. Hey, would you like coffee or something before heading out?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Well, thanks again. This was really good of you.”
“No problem.”
“Hey, I do remember you from a flight, you know. You’re a cop, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“So you knew his wife.”
“Yes, I did. I was her partner.”
Jake didn’t say anything more, just continued down the stairs and let himself out. When he returned to his houseboat, he discovered that Nick and Sharon had left him a covered dish of shrimp and pasta.
Good. He was hungry. The long weekend had allowed him a day off, but moving the boat had given him plenty to do. He ate, realizing he was starved.
He fell into bed, exhausted, but knew damned well it would be a while before he slept. Nancy’s birthday. She would have been thirty. Hell.
It was usually good to sleep on a houseboat. The light rocking of the waves. Ocean air. Both usually eased his tensions.
Not tonight.
He tossed around for a while, thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have opted to spend the night alone. And he thought about Brian’s words.
The D.A.’s assistant.
The waitress.
Yeah, there had been women in his life. But still, he would go so far…and back away. Hell, yes. He’d been in love with Nancy. Then. And now…
Now she was a ghost in his life. A phantom. A memory, a scent. Sometimes, he would swear he could still hear her laughter.
He compared every woman he met to her. And he’d never found anyone even remotely like her.
Around two, he fell asleep. He awoke later in a sweat, having slid into the nightmare again. He’d been in the water. The clear ocean water. It had been a beautiful day. Light shone through. Then clouds covered it. The water grew murky. It was canal water, and he was in it, trying to backpedal, knowing what he was going to see. And he’d heard her voice….