“I’m five years older. I’m male. And there’s a lot of wear and tear on me. Look at an actuarial table. There are also people trying to find me and kill me, which kind of adds to the odds. Remember that I’ve gotten you several false identities, and hidden money for you.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, and invented something that she needed to be doing—dusting some books he remembered. “It makes me depressed, and we don’t know any more about the future than we did the last time.”
He persisted. “I also want you to remember that when I die I want you to find a man again. Get married. Preferably to somebody better than I am.”
“Of course,” she said. “And I want you to do that too, if I die. I don’t expect you to be celibate. That’s just stupid.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Maybe I’ll start scouting the talent out there just in case you’re no longer with us.”
“You do,” Anna said, “and I guarantee you’ll be the first to die.”
He could see the expression on her face as she punched his arm. He wondered what she’d say about Zoe. He thought he knew, but he wondered if he was just telling himself to believe what made him happier. Zoe was exactly the sort of woman Anna always admired—pretty, elegant, accomplished but not overly proud about it. He frowned. The one thing that would have disgusted Anna was that he had not slept with Zoe for some straightforward reason—a crush, or even simple sexual attraction. He’d been using her as a blind, for his own protection.
“You’re thinking about her right now, aren’t you?”
He turned to look at Zoe.
“Your wife. It’s okay. I was thinking about my ex-husband after I got up this morning. The sex made it inevitable. I’m pretty sure we weren’t thinking the same things, though.” She frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“That was scary.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were exactly right. It’s like one of those magic tricks that’s just a little bit too good.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I warned you that I’ve been thinking about you.” She took out her phone and looked at the time on the display. “Do you think Dave and Carol have had enough for now?”
He looked at the dogs. They had stopped paying attention to the squirrels and were lying on the grass a few feet away. “They look that way.”
“Then let’s start back. I can get in a couple of hours of practice and do some chores while you do whatever you need to do.”
“Okay,” he said. “Do you want to stop on the way home to pick up some take-out food for lunch?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m starting a diet today. Salad for lunch.”
“You don’t need to go on a diet,” he said. “You look—”
“Shush,” she said. “You’re going to be my diet inspiration. For the first time in quite a while, I’ll know there’s somebody who will see if I have a fat ass.”
“It’s always nice to be of service.” They began to walk, and the dogs waited a few seconds and then got up to overtake them.
The first thing Caldwell had done when he moved in to the apartment was to lock his bedroom door and go through his belongings to pick out things he didn’t want Zoe to see. He didn’t know much about her at the time, but he’d been fairly sure she was not someone who would go up into the crawl space above the ceiling. The access trap was in the ceiling of his closet. He stood on a chair, pushed up the square of wood that closed off the crawl space, and placed a few things up there—the two pistols, the spare ammunition and magazines, money, false identification packets.
He knew that curiosity about him was something that came with intimacy. She would be tempted to look around in his room, maybe when he wasn’t present. She might even feel that she had the natural right.
He was sure he had made himself reasonably safe from her curiosity, but when he came home from the walk, he got up on the chair again and checked to be sure Zoe had not opened the crawl space. Then he and the dogs went out into the living room and listened to her practice. His daughter, Emily, had played, but the only practice she had time for now was the medical kind. Emily had played in that way she had of doing things well because she did them hard. Zoe was the sort of person the piano had been invented for.
He sat back in the big chair and read while Zoe played. The dogs seemed to like the sounds except when they were too loud. From time to time Caldwell would look up from his book and let his eyes linger on Zoe as long as he could do it without her noticing. She was intent on her playing. It was a difficult Mendelssohn piece he remembered her telling him was called Variations sérieuses. And she was serious. She kept at it for a couple of hours, taking on one passage at a time, repeating it over and over until she owned that passage, and then moving on to the next.
When she stopped, she looked up and caught him. “Do I look weird when I practice?”
“Not at all. Actually, when you’re in your head and forget you’re not alone you look your best.”
“My daughter is coming to visit.”
“When?”
“Friday night. As soon as she finishes an exam, she’s taking a plane to Midway. I was afraid to tell you.”