“That’s it,” he says firmly. “I’m bringing you my gun. I’ll give you a quick rundown, but you need to take lessons.”
An idea that sounded good last night. Now I feel like I might shoot somebody and end up in jail. Like I might shoot Adam. Or worse, accidentally shoot myself. “Lessons first. Gun later. Thank you. Why are you even here? What is up with your knee?”
“It feels better. You know that’s how it does me. It attacks. It recedes.”
“Did you get your MRI results?”
“Yep,” he confirms. “The docs want me to have surgery, but I feel better, so screw that.”
“You know—”
“Eventually I will have to give in,” he says, holding up his hands. “All surgeons want to operate. And now that we’ve had this conversation, we can move on.”
“Okay. I won’t lecture.” I study him. “Why else are you here?”
“Jess stopped by my place, bribing me with muffins to do that whole dating-site gig for her. What the hell was that? She never stops by to see me, at least not alone. She uses you as an intermediary.”
“She told me she was going to go by your place, but I honestly didn’t believe her.”
“And you didn’t warn me?”
“I didn’t believe her,” I repeat. “It’s weird, but I guess her boss is pressuring her to finish the article, and after the Kevin thing, she didn’t want me involved.” Just saying Kevin’s name curdles my stomach again.
“Hmm,” he murmurs. “You know what I think?”
“Probably more than I’m capable of thinking right now.”
“I think she wants to marry me off and turn this threesome of ours into a twosome. She likes it being just you and her.”
“She and I are like sisters,” I say, “but we both have lives outside each other. Especially Jess.”
“Well then, test her. Tell her we’re dating.”
I snort. “Are you serious?”
“We’ve never actually tried, Mia.” He shifts, uneasy, his gaze lowering and then lifting. “You know?”
“We did try. We went out. We even joke about how we had, and have, no chemistry. And how can you bring this up right now, of all times, when I just threw up and look like shit?”
“Maybe that’s the best time.”
I’m confused, a jumbled mess, but I can have only one thought: I have to keep him far away from me. He could get hurt. A plot quickly forms in my mind. “Okay. I’ll make you a deal. Do the dating experiment for Jess. If you don’t find a perfect woman, we’ll try a date. And I promise not to throw up. I’ll even shower.”
He laughs. “That’s the deal. I have to do Jess’s experiment, and then you’ll go out with me?”
I don’t laugh. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”
“You won’t. We’re friends no matter what. Remember on Seinfeld? Elaine and Jerry had sex and became better friends. They just knew it didn’t work for them.”
“You’re comparing us to a nineties sitcom? You’re such a geek.”
“So are you. Why is your mother here?”
“I forgot I’m going to have lunch with my parents to talk about Lion’s Den.”
“Oh. Ouch. She still doesn’t know what he has going on then?”
“Nope.”
“All right then. I’ll leave you to your great afternoon. Need help up?”
“No,” I say. “I just need to sit here a moment.”
“Call me and tell me how it goes?”
I nod and wet my dry lips. “I will.”
He pats my leg, a friendly gesture that still feels just that, friendly. I mean, the truth is I’m just not sure the whole dating thing isn’t about that pressure his sister is putting on him over his love life. The odd thing, though, is he still didn’t confess the fact that he was on the dating site and deleted his profile.
Why does that feel off to me?
I shake away the thought. I’ve been through this with Jack. And right now, the truth is that everything feels off to me.
His steps fade down the stairs, and a thought hits me. The news. Kevin. What is happening? I grab my phone from the floor and tab for local news, careful not to look for anything specific enough to scream: Hey, I saw my ex get his throat sliced last night. There is nothing worth reading. I’m not sure if I should be relieved or worried. I mean, Kevin is a loner. Sundays are gamer days. He could easily lie on his floor, stiff and dead in a pool of his own blood, all day. It won’t be until he no-shows to work tomorrow that trouble brews.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Not once in five years has my mother visited my library.
Her interest in me is limited to what she wants and what she needs that I can help her achieve.
Yet she’s taken over my kitchen, where she fills a thermos with the warm, wonderful brew for me to consume on the ride to my parents’ place. Once we’re in her car, I sip the concoction, and I’m pleasantly surprised. She’s mixed hazelnut coffee, one of my favorite home flavors, with just the right amount of cream and Splenda. She’s a smart woman. She knows more about me than she lets on. She keeps tools in her arsenal and uses them only as she needs them.
For herself.
“About your father,” she begins, a stoplight away from my loft and three sips into my heavenly beverage.
“He doesn’t want to do the show, Mom.”
“And I certainly understand why, but—”
“We have to allow the people in our lives to be the people they are and accept them as they are,” I say, and not without the bitterness of a little girl whose mother tried to dictate her future.
“You also cannot allow someone you love to fall off the proverbial bicycle and live in fear of getting back on it. You dust yourself off and get back on the bike. We’ve let him live in fear.”
My defenses flare on his behalf. “Maybe he has another approach to getting on the bike again.”
“This show could change his life.”
“You mean your life?” I challenge.
“We share a life,” she snaps. “Something I hope one day you’ll understand.”
And yet they don’t share a life, I think. At least not the one my mother assumes they share. My father is doing one thing and telling her another. I don’t know if she deserves such behavior or if he’s the one out of line. At some point, does a daughter have a role to mediate with her parents, or is she out of line? It’s confusing, too confusing for someone who just witnessed a murder and has no idea when her stalker—and Adam is a stalker—will reappear. As if I’ve willed him into existence, my phone buzzes with a text message.
I dig it from my pocket, and my lips curl around my teeth, my stomach locking up as I read: Morning, Mia. Don’t worry about anything. That spill washed right up, never to be seen again. I’ll take care of it all. What are you doing today?
I just stare at the message. And stare some more.
“Honey?” my mother asks. “Is everything okay?”
I wet my dry lips. “Yes.” I glance over at her. “Yes. Of course.”
But I’m already reading Adam’s message again. How can he act as if nothing happened? And what is he telling me? That Kevin is gone, never to be seen, or found, again?
Mia? he prods.
I have to reply, I tell myself. If I don’t, who knows who he’ll kill. I quickly type: Going to my parents’ place for lunch.
His reply is as quick and sharp as the blade he used to kill Kevin: And how are you going to take control of the situation with your mother?
Panic punishes me, heat burning my cheeks. I told him she was cheating on my father. Is he threatening her for her perceived sins the way he did Kevin? Is he trying to get rid of any problem in my life, even the normal ones all of us live with, like family squabbles? I hate the way he forces me to engage with him as if we were still just as we were before, prospective dates, but I quickly reply with: I’m not sure everything is what it seems. She appears really worried about him. I think he might be trying to surprise her with his success.
Interesting, he replies. Call me tonight and tell me all about it.
It’s not a casual text like that one from Jess or Jack, who just care and want to know more. This message is a threat. Call or else.
Chapter Fifty-Eight