Diners had been hallowed ground to Gibson’s father, and they had in turn become hallowed to Gibson. As he got older, he was realizing that he hadn’t fallen far from the tree himself. Those things that his father had cherished, he found growing in significance in his own life. Being able to make peace with his father’s death had only accelerated the process. Did he even love diners at all, or did he just like the way they made him feel because they reminded him of his dad? Could he even separate the two at this point? He wondered what he would pass on to Ellie that she would one day mistake for her own. Would he give himself the chance to find out?
While Ellie inhaled the rest of the banana split, Gibson caught up with Toby, whose daughter, Maissa, a graphic designer living in Palo Alto, had been laid off in a wave of corporate restructuring. Toby was worried about her. Sana was more circumspect about it, which made Toby worry all the more. There was no new news. Maissa was job hunting, and Toby wasn’t sleeping. Sana was about ready to banish him to the couch because he was keeping her up too. Gibson had seen Maissa’s work; it was very good. He couldn’t imagine she would stay unemployed for long, but telling that to Mr. Anxiety was a lost cause.
Gibson worked up the nerve to say what needed saying. He wanted to test saying it out loud to Toby. See how his friend reacted. He lifted his cap off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “I took a job.”
Toby, busy making faces at Ellie, began to congratulate him, but something in Gibson’s tone stopped him. Toby stared levelly at him. Although his friend wore glasses, there was nothing wrong with Toby’s vision.
“What kind of job? Like before?” Toby didn’t know the half of what Gibson had done to find Suzanne Lombard, but he knew enough to be wary.
“No, different. I’m just looking into something for someone,” Gibson said, trying to keep the note of apology out of his voice.
“Oh, something for someone. Foolish of me not to have guessed. When will you start to do something for yourself?” Toby’s eyes narrowed. “Is it the same people?”
Gibson shook his head. “No, it’s just a little job. Might not be anything. I’ll probably be back in a couple of days.”
“Have you told Nicole?”
“I’m not married to Nicole anymore.”
Ellie glanced up at her father. He winced and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, but his daughter set down her spoon and looked away.
“Gibson . . .” Toby trailed off, but Gibson knew the rest. He’d berated himself with some version of it for the last couple of days—what are you thinking? So far he hadn’t found an answer that mattered to him more than doing right by Judge Birk.
“I know,” he said lamely, and when that wasn’t enough, “I know.”
Last year, during the hunt for Suzanne Lombard, he’d called Nicole in the middle of the night and sent her into hiding. It had been a precaution, but it had strained his already-fragile relationship with his ex-wife. When he came back, she’d waited for an explanation that he couldn’t give—there was no way to tell her some without telling her all of it, and there were parts that he had sworn not to share with anyone. Too much was at stake. Nicole understood how important Suzanne was to him and hadn’t pressed him on it. But she had made it absolutely clear that if he endangered Ellie again, there would be consequences.
Yet here he was.
Across the table, Toby spread his hands in a gesture that said, I cannot help you if you will not help yourself.
“I know,” he said again.
“Then why?”
“Because I owe.”
Nicole met him at the door when he dropped Ellie off at home. She ushered Ellie inside and told their daughter to go upstairs. That should have tipped him off to trouble, but he was too taken aback by the transformation in his wife. Ex-wife. Her fledgling catering business was starting to take off, and tonight had been an audition for a new client. It was the first time he’d seen her dressed for work. Gibson tried and failed not to stare. His ex-wife had always been effortlessly beautiful, never working too hard at her appearance. She was working at it now.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in heels. She wore an understated, elegant pencil skirt that flirted with her knees, topped by a tailored white blouse. She’d always hated necklaces, but a silver pendant sparkled on her breastbone. Her makeup, although subtle, made her features pop in a way that was new, framing her eyes and accentuating her high cheekbones. Since he’d seen her last, she’d changed her hair, which for as long as he’d known her she’d always worn below her shoulders. Now it was at least twelve inches shorter and fell in a sleek, styled line along her jaw. She looked sensational, but he felt strangely melancholic at the change. He felt a stab of irrational possessiveness—her hair looked great, but what was wrong with how she’d worn it when they were married?
He mustered up a smile for his ex-wife. “Your hair looks great.”
She thanked him, her voice as despairingly barren as it always was when speaking to him. A studied indifference that she’d perfected in the time since his affair had ended their marriage.
“Any word about the job?”
He should have told her the truth. He could have brushed it off and said he was still waiting to hear. Lying to Nicole had always been a waste of breath—they’d known each other since high school and married while he was in the Corps. She was the one person he could never fool. Instead, he launched into a lie. A stupid, unsustainable lie. Spectrum loved him. The job was a go. How excited he was to get started. What a great opportunity it would be. Talked about how busy he was likely to be as he got up to speed, figuring it would give him cover while he was in West Virginia.
“Maggie called,” Nicole interrupted.
That stopped him dead in his tracks, and his mouth went silent as if she’d reached out and snatched language from him. Maggie was Nick Finelli’s wife. She and Nicole were friends from back when he and Nick were in the service together. Gibson could tell from her eyes that Maggie had told her everything. A fragile second passed. Caught in a lie, the smart thing to do was own it. Nicole was angry, but it was still salvageable once everyone cooled off. He could have pled humiliation and embarrassment at being thrown out of the polygraph. All of which was true. Instead, he went the other way, picking the fight that often grew out of the faulty logic of liars after they’d been caught out: Nicole had played along with his deception, encouraged him, so if you really thought about it, it was her fault. She’d made him lie to her, which seemed in this blind moment to be the more outrageous of the two deceptions.
“Oh, what the hell, Nicole?” he exploded at her. “You knew? And so what . . . you’re trapping me now? Is that what this is? That’s such bullshit.”
Nicole didn’t take the bait, her voice striking an even more neutral, dispassionate chord. The tone that always infuriated and then broke him. “So now it’s my fault that you’re a liar?”
“Fuck you.”
“Were you in Atlanta last summer?”
“What?” He tried to stop the question leaving his lips. There was no sloppier admission of guilt to a hard question than feigning momentary deafness. It was the question that he’d been steeling himself against ever since the Suzanne Lombard investigation. He just hadn’t been expecting it now, on top of everything else. Nicole should have been a boxer.
“What have you done?” she asked.
“What?” he heard himself say again.