“Good on gas, though,” she said.
Two dirt ruts with a strip of grass down the middle carried on beyond the barn and into the field. I took the left rut, Trixie the right.
“How’s Sarah?” she asked.
I grimaced. “Things could be better.”
“How much of it’s my fault?”
I appeared to be doing calculations in my head. “I was going to say about seventy-five percent, but that’s not fair. The fault is all mine. I have to accept responsibility for the decisions I’ve made, including those to help you.”
“But those are the ones that have landed you in the doghouse.”
I smiled. “Pretty much.”
“I’ve told you more than once that Sarah’s lucky to have you, even though, at times, I’d have to concede, you are a bit of an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, all the polling we’ve done would seem to indicate that.”
We walked a bit further, and I stopped and looked back at the house in the distance, so tranquil.
Reading my mind, Trixie said, “I wish I could stay here forever.”
I looked up at the sky, and a large bird caught my eye. “Look at the wingspan on that one,” I said, pointing. “That’s a huge bird.”
“What is it?”
“I think it’s a hawk,” I said.
“Looking for field mice, anything else it can find,” Trixie said.
We stood out there a few more moments, not saying anything to each other. Finally, I said, “You have to come back, you know.”
“You think?” Her response was laced with sarcasm.
“The police, I’m not sure they’re convinced you killed Martin Benson. They told me he’d probably been zapped by some sort of stun gun before his neck was slit. We know it was Merker, and we know he’s got stun guns. He’s been trying to sell them to the cops.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got reasons for your actions. I’m sure, you get a good lawyer, you can work things out.”
“I’ve got one,” Trixie said. “Guy named Niles Wagland. He’s pretty good.”
“Okay,” I said. “I mean, look at your situation. You were scared for your daughter’s life. Running away, making sure she was safe, it’s not totally unreasonable. And there’s got to be plenty of evidence against Merker. The note he wrote, for one thing. They’ll test it for prints, do handwriting analysis, who knows, but they’ll be able to figure out it was him. And once they’ve got him in custody, they’ll reopen those murders in Canborough. The guy’ll spend the rest of his life in jail. And then you’ll be able to get on with yours.”
“I don’t know, Zack. There’s a small matter of five hundred thousand dollars.”
“Is Merker going to tell the cops about that? Could he even prove it’s his? That you took it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Trixie, you can’t keep running. From Merker, from the police. You need to face these things, sort them out. You need to do it for Katie.”
Trixie stepped over the grass median and into my rut. “Maybe,” she said, “if I could spend my life with someone like you, I’d think about it.”
I said nothing.
“All I’ve ever known are bad men. My father was a bad man. Even Katie’s father—he tried, you know? There was a lot of goodness in him. But he was no poster boy for stability. If he hadn’t ended up getting killed by Gary, he’d have died some other way before long. You can’t live that kind of life and expect it to go on forever. My sister, she got a good one. But my luck, it doesn’t run in that direction.”
“I’m sure there’s someone out there for you. Someone who’d treat you right. Treat you with the respect you deserve.”
“What can I really expect, Zack? Look what I do. I’m a step up from a hooker. I torture men. You know why I think I do that?”
Again, I said nothing.
“I think it’s my way of taking it out on all the men who’ve treated me like shit all my life. My father, Merker, the others. When I abuse those men, when I demean them, when I hurt them, I’m getting even.”
“But,” I said, “they like it.”
“They have their fantasy, and I have mine.”
Back at the house, we could hear Katie laugh about something in the kitchen. Trixie glanced back, and the wind blew a lock of hair across her face. She looked beautiful, but in a more natural, almost innocent way.
“So what about you and Sarah? How bad is it?”
“Not so bad that I’ve given up on it,” I said. “I love her.” I took a breath. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone else.”
Trixie studied me. “I’ve thought about you a lot since I left you in my basement. I’m sorry. I’d like to make it up to you.” She took a step closer, and for a moment, I felt dizzy. “Did you like it when I kissed you? When you were handcuffed to the railing?”
“It took me somewhat by surprise,” I said. “A simple peck on the cheek would have sufficed.”