sixteen

In the end I agreed, albeit reluctantly, to part of Dale’s advice. Michael and I would take the day off from investigating Gabriella’s murder and attend the Sandcastle Festival together. Dale was right. The festival would give us a short reprieve, and lord knew we could use it.

As for not thinking about anything serious? Good luck with that. In spite of Dale’s reassurances, I didn’t hold any illusions. Michael could be arrested at any moment. We needed to have a conversation about our relationship, and if I didn’t want to hold it through a sheet of bullet-proof Plexiglas, we needed to have it soon.

Shortly after ten, Dale headed back to Shannon’s, vowing to tell her nothing and imploring Michael and me not to talk to anyone either, Rene and Sam included. I asked Michael to stay overnight at Rene’s. “In one of the guest rooms,” I added. “I’m ready to talk about our future, but no promises on anything else.”

I took the pups outside for a potty break, then put them to bed in their playpen. Michael grabbed a Guinness and poured me another glass of wine. “For strength,” he said.

He took a long pull from the bottle and followed me back to the living room. I ordered Bella off the couch and patted the seat next to me. Michael took it but sat ramrod straight, so far from relaxed I was afraid his spine might shatter.

I wasn’t sure how to begin, so I started with the most obvious topic: Gabriella. “I know that your marriage with Gabriella was a sham, but that doesn’t explain everything. Neither does Shannon’s story, which is that you and Gabriella were ‘friends with benefits.’”

Michael didn’t reply, so I continued. “I need to know what she meant to you. Did you simply fall in lust?” It wasn’t exactly what Shannon had said, but it was close. And all things considered, that would have been the easiest explanation—the one most easily forgiven. Boys will be boys and all that. I didn’t buy it, though. Not with Michael. Michael simply wasn’t that shallow.

Michael thought for a moment, as if unsure how to answer. Not because he was hiding something, but because he didn’t know himself.

“No. At least I don’t think so.”

I’d been afraid he’d say that. “Michael, tell me the truth. Did you love her?”

“I love you, Kate.” Michael’s smile was more sad than romantic. “Like I told you before, Gabby’s and my relationship was complicated. Looking back on it now, I think we were codependent. I was her white knight, destined to save her. She was my damsel in distress. Believe me, Kate, our relationship wasn’t healthy, for either of us.” He ran his fingers across the label of his beer bottle. “I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier.”

Big surprise there.

“Gabby and I dated for a couple of months. We started to get serious, fast. For a very short time, I thought she was the one.” He sighed. “Then I woke up. I couldn’t deal with all of the drama. Gabby was intelligent, beautiful, and sensitive, but she was also damaged. I’m pretty sure she had PTSD. She picked fights with me constantly. In some broken, subconscious way, I think she was trying to prove me worthy.”

“You must have passed her test.”

“What do you mean?”

“She trusted you.”

“You could have fooled me. If she’d trusted me, she would have been honest. Instead, she stonewalled me and stuck me with a bill for a maxed-out credit card.”

“That was to protect the baby.” Deep in my gut, I knew it was true. “And she had enough faith in you to marry you, even if the marriage wasn’t real. That has to mean something.”

Michael sighed. “I suppose.” He looked down at the sofa. “She told me that I was the first man in her life who didn’t force her to sleep with him.” His voice grew soft. “Including her father.” When his eyes met mine, they were wet. “That’s what killed me. It was like life set her up to be victimized. Her father abused her until she ran away at sixteen. She ended up on the streets, where she was ‘discovered’ by a modeling agent who got her addicted to cocaine. Every guy was worse than the one before. Then that last boyfriend …” Michael shuddered. “He almost killed her, Kate.”

I thought back to my recent conversation with Shannon. She was firmly convinced that Gabriella had been using Michael. Could she have been right? “It’s a horrible story.” I softened my voice to take the sting out of my words. “But are you sure it’s the truth?”

“I saw the scars, Kate, and not just the physical ones. Gabby wasn’t mentally healthy. How could she be? The few times she and I were together physically, she had panic attacks. She lashed out at me like I was abusing her all over again.”

His words surprised me. “Shannon told me that you and Gabriella had a more … satisfying love life than that.”

“She told you that our relationship was one big sex party?”

“Not in those exact words.”

Michael grimaced. “I can only imagine. That’s what Shannon wanted to believe, and I let her. Gabby didn’t want people to know about her past. It was important to her to seem …” His voice trailed off. “To seem normal, I guess.” His eyes begged for understanding. “Kate, I’m a good man—at least I try to be—but I wasn’t strong enough.” He took a long swig of beer. I had a feeling he was gathering the courage to continue. “So I broke up with her. I felt terrible, but honestly, I think she was relieved. We ended up being much better as friends.”

I paused for a moment, trying to reconcile the person in Michael’s story with the man I’d come to love. Michael was a good man. He might not believe it, but he was also a strong man, with healthy boundaries. If I hadn’t been able to change, our relationship would have ended a year ago. Yet another reminder of how Michael forced me to grow.

But Gabby wasn’t me. My support systems—my roots—were solid. I was healthy enough to change. Gabriella’s roots had been rotted—poisoned by men who should have protected her. The more I learned about her, the more I understood her attraction to Frida Kahlo. A beautiful woman. Physically damaged. Emotionally lost. A woman with tumultuous intimate relationships—with women as well as with men.

I paused for a moment, not sure how to phrase what I needed to ask next. “You keep mentioning the men in Gabriella’s life. What about the women?”

Michael’s eyes grew bitter. “Her mother was no better than anyone else. She knew about the father’s abuse—she certainly knew about the beatings—and she did nothing.”

“What about Gabriella’s relationships with other women? Besides her mother, I mean.”

Michael’s expression softened from bitter to confused. “What are you getting at?”

“The artist tattooed on Gabriella’s breast may have been more symbolic than you realized. She was bisexual. Von thinks that Gabriella and Crystal were closeted lovers. I didn’t buy it for a while, but now I wonder …”

Michael jolted in surprise. Then his eyes widened. “Von thinks they’re gay? As in not interested in men?” His eyes moved up and toward the left. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. Not of either of them.”

I shrugged. “Not gay, necessarily. One or both of them could have been bisexual. Or experimenting, for that matter.

He took another long swig of beer, thinking. “Maybe. It would explain why Gabby and I worked so much better as friends. Also why Crystal and Gabby got so close after I left. They certainly weren’t friends when I lived here.”

We were both silent for several long seconds, serenaded only by the occasional contented snuffle through the twins’ baby monitor.

“One thing about that theory doesn’t make sense, though.” I ran my hands through my hair. “When Crystal gave me this delightful haircut, she described you and Gabby as a devoted couple. She was downright cranky when she figured out that I was your ‘mistress.’” I made finger quotes around the last word. “She never hinted that Gabriella was anything more than a friend.”

“Would she, though? If they weren’t going public, that is? Cannon Beach is pretty liberal, but it’s still a small town. Besides, what would a closeted relationship have to do with Gabby’s murder?”

“If they were lovers, Crystal had motive.”

Michael looked at me quizzically.

“Gabriella was pregnant, which by definition means she’d had sex with someone other than Crystal. And she was planning to bolt. From the looks of it, she was planning to leave town alone. Cheating and abandonment? People have killed for a lot less.”

Michael set his beer bottle on the floor. “I don’t know, Kate. Something seems off in that scenario. Crystal struck me as a little obsessive, so I could definitely see her lashing out if she was jilted. But every time I saw her flirting—and I saw her flirting a lot—she was trying to seduce a man. Usually me. And if Gabby truly was gay, how did she end up pregnant?”

“If her history with men is any indication, it may not have been her choice.”

Michael closed his eyes and groaned. “I don’t want to think about that right now, Kate. I just can’t.”

“Okay. I understand. But we need to bring it up with Dale tomorrow. We shouldn’t dismiss any suspects—no matter how unlikely—until we find the real killer.” I’d mull over how to handle Crystal’s accusations about Shannon later. Michael had already gone through enough mental drama tonight.

Well, almost enough.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the letter from Gabriella’s refrigerator. “You were at the apartment during the police search, right?”

“For most of the time.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“Not really, but I wasn’t exactly looking around. I basically stuck to the living room and tried to avoid Boyle. I didn’t see any envelopes stuffed with money, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, I mean the pictures of you and Gabriella.” I swallowed. “There were a lot of them. In the living room and in the bedroom.”

“We were creating a fictional life, Kate. We needed more than a single wedding snapshot.”

“Shannon told me that they weren’t on display when you lived in the apartment.”

“A couple of them were, but no, not all of them. Not by a long shot. I assume Gabriella put them up after I left. Having us plastered all over the house probably made my moving raise fewer suspicions.”

I handed him the paper. “What about this?”

Michael glanced at it, then did a double take. His eyes slowly scanned the letter from beginning to end. When he finished, he handed it back to me. “Where did this come from?”

“Gabriella had it on display in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t write it, Kate. I swear.”

“I know. Any idea who did? Could it have been Gabriella?”

Michael examined the signature. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Shannon gave me the gist of it, but I don’t speak Spanish. What does it say?”

“Not much. Just that I miss her and I’ll be back for her soon. This letter makes no sense. Why would she write it to herself ? Displaying the photos, sure. I get that. Anyone who stopped by would see them. But how many guests would feel they should read a personal letter?”

I didn’t have an answer. It didn’t make sense to me either.

Michael stood. “Look, I’m exhausted. Can we start this conversation again in the morning? Maybe it will all make sense after a good night’s sleep.”

Part of me wanted to let him go. The man was obviously dead on his feet. I couldn’t. Dale might be confident, but I wasn’t: Michael could be arrested at any moment. The time for avoidance was over, whether I liked it or not.

“Not yet. We need to talk about us.”

Michael sagged back onto the couch, looking deflated. Like he knew where the conversation was headed and didn’t want to go there.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak. “Michael, I get it now. I understand why you felt compelled to help Gabriella even though it meant breaking the law. The more I learn about her, the more I wish I could have helped her myself.”

Michael replied with a single word. “But?”

“But what I don’t understand—what I can’t understand—is why in the eighteen months we’ve been together, you never told me.”

Michael’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t speak. His silence was punctuated only by a ticking clock and the rumble of Bella’s contented snoring. I continued. “Committing to our relationship was tough for me, Michael. You knew that. Why screw it up this way?”

He stood and walked to the fireplace. “I wasn’t the only one who avoided talking about my past, Kate. You hid plenty from me, too.”

He was right. I’d let him believe that my mother was dead, at least until she got arrested for murder. An indiscretion about which I’d been chastised severely.

“You’re right, I did. And you hated it, which is what upsets me the most. How could you harass me about not being open with you when you were hiding something epic—a marriage, for God’s sake—from me?”

Michael kneeled next to Bella and rubbed her neck, I assumed to avoid making eye contact. “Would you believe me if I said it seemed like a good idea at the time?”

I didn’t reply. Then again, I don’t think he expected me to.

He stood and faced me again. “I don’t know, Kate. I liked you when we first met, but I never intended to get serious with anyone. Then we had that amazing first date and I fell for you.”

“I fell for you, too.”

“Really? Sure didn’t feel like it at the time. You were like that Katy Perry song. You ran so hot and cold, I felt like I was dating two different people.”

I nodded. “I was pretty crazy there for a while.”

“With all of the fighting we did, I didn’t think we’d be together long enough for my arrangement with Gabby to matter.”

“How could it not matter?”

“I was only married on paper, so I wasn’t cheating, and you acted like you’d never commit to a long-term relationship. You practically dog paddled across Puget Sound when you thought I was going to propose on Orcas.”

His memory of that weekend wasn’t exaggerated, unfortunately.

“After the deaths on Orcas, you changed. We got serious. By the time we moved in together. I thought it was too late.”

“Too late to be honest with me?”

He didn’t reply, at least not directly. “No matter how often we discussed our future, you never mentioned getting married. Not once. Given what had happened between Dharma and your father, I assumed you were against it.”

“Even when I started talking about having kids?”

“That was only two months ago. Like I said, by then it felt way too late. So I decided to ask Gabby for a low-key divorce.” He frowned. “I deluded myself that you’d never need to know.”

“That’s pretty lame, Michael.”

“I was a coward. I know that now. Believe me, though, I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did. You hurt me a lot.”

“I know, but no matter how much I want to, I can’t go back and change it. The question is, what do we do now? If by some miracle I don’t end up in prison, are we ever going to get past this?”

I gave him the only honest answer I could. “I hope so.” I sighed. “You’re right. It’s late, we’re both exhausted, and we need rest.” I stood and patted my thigh. “Come on, Bella, let’s go to bed.” I desperately wanted to invite Michael to join us. I could tell Michael wanted it, too.

I almost did.

I lifted my hand to take his, then stopped and dropped it back to my side. If we went upstairs together, we’d make love. Before we took that step again, I needed to know that I could commit to Michael without reservation. We both deserved that much. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

I trudged up the stairs, Bella reluctantly following behind me. She stopped on the landing and gazed at Michael, concern clouding her soulful brown eyes. I kneeled next to her and whispered, “It’s okay, sweetie. He needs you tonight more than I do.”

My confused canine trotted back downstairs, stood next to Michael, and leaned her weight into his thigh.

“Looks like you’re on dog duty tonight,” I said.

Michael smiled at me sadly and mouthed the words thank you. The bedroom door clicked hollowly behind me.