The CSI team found, not surprisingly, nothing.
“We should have bugged the goddamned house,” Will said, that evening at the station.
“We had no reason to,” Valerie said.
“Or installed a camera. At least that way we’d have got to see you strip.”
Valerie had, for the record, filed a report of her conversation, though it would count for nothing, since Rachel Grant would deny it ever took place. The fact remained: They had nothing except the traffic cam image of Jenner and a blonde they would never be able to prove conclusively was Rachel Grant. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be enough for a jury. Valerie had told Rachel the truth: The evidence didn’t justify an arrest, let alone a conviction.
“We’re going to talk to the daughter though—right?” Will said.
“That’s up to the cap. I know he thinks it’s a waste of time, and he’s probably right.”
“What’re you going to tell Jenner’s brother?”
“Half brother. I don’t know. Not the truth. I do that, he’ll go after her himself and we’ve got another vigilante killing. Plus I don’t think he’s got the resources to get away with it. The truth would be his ticket to San Q. He doesn’t deserve that.”
And thus the imperfections of the law, Valerie thought, driving home through the darkening evening. Some people got away with murder. The question was: Weren’t some people entitled to?
The truth was the law didn’t work. It was nothing more than the best failure civilization had on offer.
Underneath or between or above the law was love—and all its distentions. In the face of love, the law was nothing.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
Literally.
So far Valerie’s love had been for her parents and her sister and Nick. Would she kill to save them? Undoubtedly. Would she kill to avenge them?
Not, she supposed, if she had impregnable faith in the law.
Which she did not. How could she? She was the law—and her faith in herself was ravaged, riddled, rotten with doubt.
Even her questionable love—precarious, unpredictable, incessantly compromised by selfishness—was already more than a match for the law. Imagine what it would become if a child claimed it. Would there be anything she wouldn’t do for a daughter or son? The question was rhetorical to the point of comedy.
And that was what she was looking at, now: the promotion of motherhood to the top of the moral food chain. There was something vulgar and terrifying about it. Yet at the same time, through the swirl of these thoughts, a feeling of inevitability and relief. Almost the way Rachel had reacted to being found out earlier: the dreaded thing come round at last.
Nick was in the kitchen, cooking, when she entered the apartment. Smells of olive oil and garlic and chili. Her empty stomach—indifferent to the psyche’s big moments—yowled, quietly, and with a reluctant yielding she knew he wanted to make peace. The willingness to make peace was like a palpable presence, in fact, in the yellow of the lamps and the softness of the couch and the dusk in the windows. Last of all, she realized with a kind of foolish surprise, it was in her, too. Love, like a boxer, slumped down on its stool at the end of a bruising round, knees weak, head reeling, piteously in need of the bucket and the sponge and the trainer’s reality-defying optimism. Love went in and out of darkness, small bright stars flaunting their promise of oblivion. Then the bell rang, and all the world’s horror stood up in the opposite corner, and in hopeless commitment Love wobbled to its feet and staggered back into the center of the ring, knowing there would be pain and wondering how long it could possibly last.
For a moment she stood in the kitchen doorway, watching him. His glasses were on his forehead. One shirttail was hanging out of his jeans. He was concentrating. Then he turned and saw her. He put the lid on a saucepan, lowered the heat, came over to her, and put his hands on her hips. She thought: If you touch him, it’s a done deal, beyond recall. Back away now or you’re screwed. This is your last warning.
“Listen to me,” he said.
“What?”
“If you don’t want a kid right now, it’s fine. It’s fine if you don’t want one at all. I know that’s what’s going on with you. I know all of it.”
She stood very still. His hands on her hips were warm weights. She thought about the feeling of cold space (and freedom) that would replace them if she backed away. She was close, so very close, to doing just that. Yet she found herself smiling.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “I have been for weeks.”
Now it was his turn to go still. His hands remained where they were, but for the moment they’d lost their intelligence. The seconds of silence passed, one after another, each flatly surprised that no sound disturbed its transit. He looked away from her.
“And?” he said.
She knew what he was thinking: How many weeks? There were energies furiously at work in him, trying to calculate, not knowing. He was so completely suspended she almost laughed. Having someone utterly at your mercy was, whether you liked it or not, funny. Why torturers giggled, presumably, going about their dirty business. She suffered from the way her mind worked, its lawless associations. Still, she was stuck with it. She was stuck with herself.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. The natural things are disgusting.
Intellectually, yes, it must be admitted you could be wrong.
Valerie put her hands flat on his chest. Some layer of her being moved gently from her, like a veil being drawn off, slowly. It gave her a feeling of very slightly increased exposure.
“And if I’m wrong about you,” she said, “I’ll kill you.”