Rick had told Bob about it in a moment of weakness. Now he wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. Bob knows him better than anyone, and he is a damned good detective. The next thing Rick knows, he’ll have guessed that Rowan was his lunch date yesterday.
I don’t want to talk about that. Not even with him.
Rick tries to change the subject, but it isn’t easy. Bob is sincerely concerned about his well--being and thinks he should be dating.
“I think it’s healthy for you to move on, after . . .”
“Vanessa and I had both moved on,” Rick feels obligated to point out. “You know, long before she . . .”
“Died,” Bob supplies when he trails off.
“That’s one word for it.”
“Rick, I know it has to be hard. You don’t need to—-”
“It’s not as hard as it could have been, though, right? She wasn’t my wife, she was my ex.”
“Look, I get that. I have twice as many exes as you do, remember? That might make it slightly less complicated, but it doesn’t make it easy. In some ways, it might even make it harder. You and Vanessa were together for a long time. I’m worried—-”
“Don’t worry.”
Ignoring the interruption, Bob goes on, “I’m worried you’re in denial. I know you loved her. She was the mother of your children. The way she died was horrific.”
Remaining silent, Rick reaches for a spoon and stirs his coffee.
Bob talks on, asking questions but not forcing the answers, and talking about the past; about all the positive things that had come out of his marriage to Vanessa. “For what it’s worth, I always thought you guys were a solid -couple.”
“And that is why you’re a lousy detective. We were never a solid -couple, unless you count the very beginning.”
“You mean the first night, or . . .”
“The first year after we were married, maybe even longer. But we weren’t right for each other.”
“What about that woman—-your neighbor?”
“She’s ancient history,” Rick says quickly. “Anyway, I’m talking about long before I met her.”
“So then . . . Look, I know it’s none of my business, so you can tell me to go to hell if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No, it’s fine. I haven’t seen you since she’s been gone, and . . . I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. It’s probably good for me to get some of this out in the open, and I already told you I can’t afford therapy right now, and there really aren’t very many -people in my life who want to listen.”
“I’ll listen.”
There’s a long silence.
“You’re not talking.”
Rick shrugs. “I guess I’m thinking about things I could have done a little differently.”
“You mean before—-”
“When Vanessa and I were still married.”
“Like what?”
Rick thinks of Rowan. Thinks of how he told his wife, in considerable detail, how he felt about her. “I made a really bad decision on a really bad day.”
“Who hasn’t?” Bob shakes his dark head. “Listen, I’ve made plenty of good decisions on good days and bad decisions on good days based on good information that turned out to be bad . . .”
“And here I thought I was going to be the only one who was incoherently hung over today.”
“Hey, I may be jet--lagged, but I’m not hungover. I’m trying to help you see that we do the best we can in any given moment. Don’t beat yourself up because of what happened to Vanessa, Rick. It wasn’t your fault.”
Rick says nothing, just stirs his black coffee, biting his tongue to keep from telling Bob that he’s wrong about that.
Dead wrong.
Gazing down at the nude, violated corpse of a young female, Detective Sullivan Leary shivers as much from the grisly sight as from the bitter chill. She clasps her bare knuckles against her mouth, blowing on them, and her breath snakes misty wisps into the gloomy air.
“I told you that you should’ve grabbed your gloves.” Her partner, Detective Stockton Barnes, shakes his head. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here today.”
“Is that any way to talk in front of a lady?”