“I am. I think I’m ready to talk. How about coffee tomorrow morning?”
“That works. When and where?”
“Do you just want to come by the house? I’m afraid I might get emotional about my parents and I really don’t want to be around people if that happens.”
“Eight?”
“Eight.”
“And I understand you getting emotional, but we’ll get through this.”
“Thanks,” I breathe out and when I hang up, I’m pretty sure I’ve misjudged him for a really long time.
I reach for the radio, but it starts to rain and I listen to the thrum of droplets on the windows. I love the rain but tonight, it feels like I’m in an empty hole. Alone.
And it doesn’t ease up. In fact, the rain is heavier, and the night pitch dark when I pull up to my house, and I am hollow inside except for a stabbing pain. I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t know why I wanted to come here. I almost turn around and leave, but I set up meetings. And I have random things in there. And I really need things that feel familiar.
I walk up the steps, key in my security code, miraculously getting it right the first time, and enter the house.
Nick
The rain is making me crazy. It taunts me. It repeats Faith’s words: Liar. You hurt me. You made sure I will never trust again.
I dial Beck, desperate for anything I can share with Faith. “I’m going to see her. Your time is up.”
“I’m onto something,” he says. “One of my CIA contacts has a ping on that mercury, and flag boy got a hit. There’s a connection there.”
“Where is he now?”
“Hanging out in a cabin on the outskirts of Sonoma. He tells locals he is having a Zen retreat.”
“The autopsy report.”
“Nothing yet but I’m working on it. I’ll be in touch.” He hangs up.
Fifteen minutes later, in an absolute downpour, with adrenaline surging through me, I pull into the driveway of Faith’s house. Our house. I’m going to fix us. I park behind her car, and shrug out of my jacket and tie. The rain doesn’t ease up and I toss them in the back seat, and just say screw it. I exit the car and take off running, stomping a path up the stairs, and I am literally so drenched I might as well have stood in the shower. But I’m here. She’s here.
I ring the doorbell and nothing happens. I ring it over and over, and then start pounding on the door. “Faith! I know you’re here. Talk to me. Faith!” Still nothing. I stomp back down the stairs and into the rain, the real storm raging inside me. I face the house and look for a light in her studio that I don’t find. “Faith! I’m not leaving until you talk to me. Open a window. Anything. Faith!”
The front door opens and I run up the stairs to find her standing in the doorway, behind the screen. I reach for it, but it’s locked. “Open the door sweetheart.”
“I need you to leave.”
“I’m not going to leave. I need to touch you again, Faith. I need to kiss you.”
“You will never touch me again. Leave or I’ll call the police.”
“Nothing your uncle told you about me is the truth.”
“Nathan Marks isn’t your father?”
“He is, but it’s complicated. I’ll explain everything. Let me come in.”
“No. You’re still you. You still affect me and that just makes me angry. I am not as stupid as you made me. And I’m not ever going to be stupid again. Leave, Nick.” She shuts the door.
I press my hands to the door frame, and lower my chin. “Damn it.” I sit down next to the door. Eventually she will figure out that I’m not leaving.
Fifteen minutes later, it’s clear that she gets that point when a police car pulls into the driveway.
I stand up and walk to meet the officer, and after some smooth talking, I get in my car and drive to my rental house down the road. I don’t dry off. I walk in the door, skip the lights, and head to the huge brown leather chair in the living room, where I sit down to think through what comes next.
Because I’m still not leaving. Because I have to touch her again. I have to hold her close to me in our bed. I have to put that ring on her finger and call her my wife. And I want to watch her paint every day for the rest of my life. I need to think. I can figure this out. I know I can figure this out.
Time ticks by: seconds, minutes, an hour. I’ve been in this damn chair an hour with no good plan when my cellphone rings. Hoping like hell it’s Faith, I yank it from my soaking wet pocket to find Abel’s number. “The autopsy report,” he says immediately.
I sit up straight. “Tell me.”
“It’s not logged yet, but my insider says it’s being sent to the DA. It wouldn’t be sent to the DA if they didn’t come to the same conclusion we did.”
“My father was murdered. I need to call Beck.”
I end the connection and knowing I can’t get close to Faith right now, I auto-dial Beck, with one thing in mind. Making sure Faith is not next.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Faith
I wake Saturday morning with the same thought I fell asleep thinking, and the same thing I’m thinking now standing at the kitchen island: I can’t believe I called the police on Nick. Just seeing him made me weak in the knees, and he stood in the rain for me. I wanted to believe that meant we had something real, but he lied to me. Over and over, he lied to me. That is not the kind of “real” I want in my life. But Lord help me, I wanted to open the door and feel him, taste him one last time.
The sound of rain pattering on the windows sends a chill down my spine as I walk to the bedroom to pull a V-neck black sweater over my black tank that I’m wearing with black jeans. Apparently, I’m back in funeral mode. The doorbell rings and I race down the hallway and inhale on a rush of nerves before reaching for the door. I open it to find Bill standing there in khakis and a button down, a jacket over the top that has rain droplets all over it.
“Come in,” I say, backing up, but he shrugs out of his jacket and leaves it on the porch rail.
He joins me inside and I motion toward the kitchen, hurrying that way. He shuts the door and follows, his footsteps heavy behind me. I round the island and he claims the spot across from me, and his tall frame and broad shoulders, paired with his blue eyes, which are so like my father’s that it hurts my already broken heart.
“Coffee?”
“I’d love some, but you stay where you are. I can see your supplies here. I’ll mix me up a cup.” He rounds the island and I have this odd sense of claustrophobia, but maybe it’s not odd. I have spent a lot of years distrusting him, hating him. That won’t go away overnight.
It’s not long and we are sitting on stools across from each other. “What have you done about Nick?”
“I left him.”
“What about the winery?”
“It’s mine,” I say. “It’s handled.” But as I assure him of this, I realize I’ve not thought about this at all myself. Nick doesn’t own the winery, but maybe he just did that to seem honorable and planned to convince me to sell?
“Really?” Bill says, pulling me back into the moment. “It was that easy?”