He told himself he wished they could throw away the script for once, but he also knew he had come here counting on the script to be followed. With her hand moving against him and her scent filling the darkness, he suddenly wanted only that the script be played out as written. She would not kiss him but he could touch her, so he laid one hand between her breasts and slipped his other between her legs. He was always surprised by how wet she was when he touched her, always wondered what it was about these infrequent nights that excited her. Was it the thought of how much he needed her? The thought of the grief he would feel afterward when he drove home alone?
She touched him without words until touching was not enough for him. Then he rolled away and stood and removed all of his clothing. When he eased onto the bed again, she rolled onto her side and presented her back to him, and when he entered her and gripped her waist, she sucked in a quick breath but otherwise remained silent.
Because of her passivity he always tried to go slowly. Now and then a nearly inaudible moan would escape from her, but she would give him nothing more, would never lay her hand atop his or say a word to him. He concentrated on being gentle and slow and hoped he would feel the muscle on the inside of her right leg begin to quiver, hoped that her back would arch toward him and that she would let herself go the way she used to before the accident, back when she would cry out so loudly that they had to close the windows in the summer, and after Ryan was born had to press her mouth to the pillow so as not to wake him.
But of course it did not happen that way anymore. As per the script she had written a long time ago, all that happened now was that her breath quickened and her stomach muscles went rigid and she held herself hard against the mattress. Then he came too, and he tried to be as quiet and controlled as her, but he felt himself falling and falling and disappearing into blackness.
Half a minute later, he opened his eyes and felt her stillness beside him. He ran a hand up her stomach and felt her arms crossed at the wrist atop her breasts, both hands clenched.
Finally he pulled away and lay there looking at her. When he touched her spine between the shoulders, she jerked and went stiff.
He knew he should not talk, but he hoped it might be different this time. He hoped that maybe she was ready now and that this woman who loved words and who taught the beauty of words to eleventh-grade boys might permit him a few words to attack the circles of sadness rippling through him.
“Laraine,” he said.
She pulled away and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“Laraine, wait.”
She went into the bathroom and locked the door and turned the hot water on so that it gushed and splashed and steamed into the tub.
When he drove home that night, he played a Paul Winter CD filled with songs that had no lyrics, no voices, no heartfelt, useless words.
Thirty-Five
Morning brought the kind of clarity that only a chill November morning can. At a few minutes after eight, DeMarco stood sipping coffee on his front porch, using the bite of the air to wash the heaviness from his eyes. The grass in his yard shone neon green in the new sun and sparkled with frozen dew. Shadows from the slender poplars around the perimeter striped the grass. Everything looked clean and new to him in the morning and he hoped the illusion would last. He was determined not to beat himself up anymore over his weaknesses; he needed to stop sapping his energy and concentration with regret. A woman and her three children had been slaughtered and the primary subject was still at large, a man DeMarco knew and had liked. It was DeMarco’s responsibility to bring the suspect in, not to determine his guilt or innocence. He did not want to let another day pass without making some progress on the case.
With enough caffeine and sunshine, maybe he could have a productive day.
When he first entered his office that morning at the barracks along Route 208, he stood for a while at the window behind his desk. Across the road, the digital sign outside Citizen’s Bank registered a temperature of thirty-seven degrees. Behind and on both sides of the bank, a cornfield of stubbled stalks continued in shades of khaki and sage to the distant woods. Those woods, he knew, continued northward all the way to Lake Wilhelm, broken only by a few villages and asphalt roads and the ceaselessly rumbling four lanes of interstate highway.
“You’re out there somewhere,” he said. “You’re cold and you’re hungry, and as far as I know, you’re completely out of your mind. But you’re out there. And I’m coming to get you. I’ll find you, my friend.”
He turned then and sat at his desk and pulled from his shirt pocket the slip of paper Bonnie had given him the night before. He had already passed the first name, Tracy Butler, on to Trooper Carmichael. The other name, Danni Reynolds, would keep him busy for the next two hours.