I stared at Ian Mantz in shock. His father was Gunter Hoenig? One of the two German POWs who had never been caught? “That’s impossible!”
He shrugged away my disbelief. “Improbable but not impossible. Dad never talked much about the old days in Germany and Mom never talked about their early lives together, either. It should have tipped me off that something was out of whack in ye olde Mantz household, but I told myself that they belonged to a generation which didn’t talk much about themselves. But the day before I went to Vietnam, he told me I had a right to know the truth about who he was, so he sat me down and told me everything. He said that his real name was Gunter Hoenig, that after a few days on the run from Camp Papago, he, Ernst and his old friend Josef Braun finally found shelter in a cave somewhere in the Superstition Mountains. There was a lot of tension between him and Ernst. Josef, who I guess had the weakest character of the three, was content to follow orders, but after…well, I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, after living rough for a couple of months, Dad was having second thoughts about Ernst and the whole situation. It all came to a head when Ernst wanted to raid a farm house they’d passed on the way up. Dad refused, said he wouldn’t be a party to another murder.”
Somehow I managed to keep from jumping out of my chair. “Another murder?”
Ian sighed and leaned back against his chair. “The murder of Werner Dreschler, for a start, the German who was tortured to death at Camp Papago. Ernst set that up, but coward that he was, he let the other men take the fall. Literally, since they were all hanged.”
He paused again, as if gathering emotional strength for what he was about to say. “And the murder of the Bollingers. Ernst killed them, too, but this time, he did it all by himself. Dad told me that sometime Christmas night, Ernst found their farmhouse. Maybe Edward Bollinger caught him raiding the chicken coop or something and…and Ernst did what he did. By the time Ernst brought Dad and Josef up to the place to collect food and other survival supplies, the Bollingers were all dead, except for the woman. Dad was going to call for a doctor, but Ernst finished her off right in front of him.”
I had always suspected that Erik Ernst had murdered the Bollingers, but now that my suspicions were confirmed, I felt no triumph, only a great sadness.
Ian wasn’t finished. “Dad wanted to leave Ernst right then, but Josef refused because he was afraid Ernst’s contacts in the Gestapo would kill his family if he deserted their Kapitan. Since Dad was the older of the two I guess he felt responsible for Josef, so he went with them into the Superstitions. In a few days they found a cave—the place is riddled with them, you know. Everything was fine for a while. They pilfered food from various places and managed to catch small game. But then Ernst got the bright idea to raid another farm house, and to, uh…” Here he lowered his eyes. “…maybe rape one of the women. Dad not only refused, but he attacked Ernst. Unfortunately Ernst wasn’t about to take that kind of insubordination, so he went after Dad with a butcher knife.”
Since Ernst was still alive and more or less well until someone bashed his brains in sixty years later, I figured Gunter wasn’t much of a street fighter. Ian’s next words proved me right.
“He managed to cut Dad up pretty badly. In fact, Dad probably would have died on the spot, but he had a notebook stashed in his shirt which deflected the worst of it.”
I could almost see the two men fighting: Gunter Hoenig for his life, Erik Ernst for the right to go on killing. Ernst was the stronger, and he had the bigger knife. But somehow Gunter survived. I looked up at the photograph of Ian sitting in a speedboat with another man: his father. “How did your dad get away?”
The smile came back to Ian’s face, but this time there was no trace of sadness in it. “He was lucky. Very, very lucky. I guess Ernst believed he’d killed him, because he covered Dad with some brush and rocks and left. But Dad wasn’t dead. He regained consciousness, managed to dig himself out from under, and took off. He told me he’d decided to go all the way back to Camp Papago, but he only made it as far as the farm Ernst wanted to raid.” His smile turned dreamy, like a child listening to a far-off fairy tale. “His knife wound wasn’t deep, but it was bad enough, and it got infected. By the time my mother found him hiding in the hayloft, he was only half-conscious.” He went on to describe how his mother, sneaking out sulfa drugs left over from treating a sick cow, helped him recover.
This part made no sense. “Why didn’t they contact the authorities? Or at least a doctor, for God’s sake!”
“They? For a couple of weeks, there was no they, just my mother helping him back there in the barn. She was, what, only sixteen, seventeen? Nothing more than a kid who’d heard about the Camp Papago escape and imagined it to be as romantic and adventurous as a dime store novel, so she made him a bed up there, brought him food and water, and took care of him all by herself. By the time her parents discovered what was going on, it was too late to contact the authorities.”
“What do you mean, too late?”
He gave me a sharp look. “Ms. Jones, you have to understand the way it was then, during wartime. My grandparents were simple people, but they knew the U.S. authorities had rounded up Japanese-Americans and put them into camps. They also knew there’d been talk about doing the same thing to the Germans. Did I forget to tell you that my grandparents were Germans?” Duly noting my reaction, he continued. “They immigrated to the U.S. from a small villiage outside Frankfurt shortly before the war and weren’t citizens yet. My grandfather still wanted to alert the authorities, but my grandmother was terrified that when it was discovered that an escaped German POW had been living on their ranch for the past two weeks, they’d wind up in camps like the Japanese. Grandmother, helped along by my mother’s tears, won the argument and so Gunter stayed.”
“For the duration of the war?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t that long. Gunter left Ernst and Josef at the end of March, and Hitler committed suicide in April. The Germans surrendered a few days later.”
I thought for a moment. In those days before holographic drivers licenses and data base background checks, assuming a new identity would have been relatively easy. Especially in the confusion after the war. “So Gunter Hoenig became Gerhardt Mantz.”
“Correct. And that August, Eva Schmidt, my mother, became Mrs. Gerhardt Mantz. He remained on the farm, working with my mother’s parents until they died, and then sold it and bought another one over here, where there’s a decent-sized German community.”
I pointed to the degrees on Mantz’s wall. “I take it he did well in his new life.”
Mantz nodded. “Very well. After a few years, he sold the new farm to a developer and started a construction company. It paid my way through college and dentistry school.” He smiled. “And everyone lived happily ever after.”
“Except for the Bollingers.”
“My father never harmed those people!”
Knowing that Mantz had a vested interest in guarding his father’s reputation, I allowed skepticism to show on my face. “And you believe that because…?”
He rose to the bait. “I believe it because of what he did when he saw Ernst at Gemuetlichkeit. My God, he tried to kill the man with his bare hands! He would have, too, if I hadn’t come along and stopped it. I told you that my father was an honorable man. The Bollinger murders weighed heavily on him through the years.”
Not heavily enough. I remembered Chess Bollinger, lying in a filthy nursing home bed, crying, “Not me, not me, not me,” like a litany, like a prayer. I remembered Chess’ ruined life, his wife’s and daughter’s ruined lives—all because a weak, troubled boy had carried around a burden that should never have been his in the first place.
“You say your father was an honorable man. Then why, if he knew Ernst killed the Bollingers, did he stand by and let Chess, a kid, stand trial for their murders?”
Ian shook his head. “He didn’t know anything about it. Like I told you, his stab wound was infected by the time Mom found him. His condition was pretty iffy for a couple of months, and Mom’s family kept him away from any kind of bad news. By the time he was well enough to read the Sunday newspapers my grandfather always picked up on the way back from church, the trial was over and done with. Chess Bollinger had been found innocent. But before that, in April, Edward R. Murrow broadcast from Buchenwald about the horrors he’d seen there, and the paranoia among German-Americans increased to near-panic levels. Then in November, the Nuremberg trials began and the whole world learned what had happened at places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald.”
Granted, German-Americans—and especially Gunter Hoenig AKA Gerhardt Mantz—were probably frightened, but the way I saw it, fear was no excuse for keeping his mouth shut about murder. I told Ian so.
His answer took me aback. “As soon as Dad found out about the Bollinger trial, he did notify the authorities.”
“What do you mean? You just told me…Listen, I read up on everything that was written about the case. There was no mention anywhere that someone fingered Ernst for the murders.”
“I know, I know. But Dad was an enemy combatant living in enemy territory under a false name. Technically, that made him a spy, and the penalty for spying was death by hanging. Still, Dad did everything he could to bring out the truth without endangering himself and my mother’s family. Remember, they were afraid they’d go to prison for harboring a fugitive. So Dad wrote several anonymous letters to the sheriff and the judge in the case naming the real killer. But no one followed up.”
Of course not. Unsigned letters telling the authorities they’d been dumb enough to accuse the wrong man—or boy, in this case—would have been summarily dismissed. I made a mental note to call Harry Caulfield. He’d been a mere deputy at the time and new to the job, but perhaps rumors of Hoenig’s letters had reached him. Then I remembered the unsigned letter I’d found among Fay’s notes. It bore an August 2002 post mark—the month after Escape Across the Desert hit the shelves. Yet according to Jimmy’s research, Gunter Hoenig had already been dead three years.
I narrowed my eyes at Ian. “They say the apple never falls far from the tree. After your father died, did you continue your father’s letter-writing campaign?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Don’t be silly.” But he flicked his eyes to the photograph of himself and his father out on Lake Pleasant in their speedboat. Liars always give themselves away.
“You father liked boating, right?”
He looked puzzled. “Sure. The whole family does. We have a Chris Craft and a twenty-six-foot Columbia, not that a sailboat’s much good on Lake Pleasant.”
“Did your father ever go boating in Connecticut? Say, around the time Erik Ernst lost his legs in that boating accident?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He rose from his desk and started walking toward the cabinet that housed the daggers, but stopped when he saw my hand slide into my carry-all. With a cold smile, he veered away from the cabinet and opened the office door instead.
“Time for you to leave, Miss Jones.”
***
Since I was already on the west side, I decided to drop by the jail and visit Rada Tesema. He deserved to be filled in on my progress, or lack thereof. But when two corrections officers—one black, one white—led him into the visiting room, my planned conversation went south. He limped, but that was the least of his injuries. One eye was swollen shut, and his upper lip was split, probably because his broken front tooth had exited through it.
“What happened to this man?” I demanded of the guards.
The black guard eased Tesema gently into the chair. “Aryan brothers got him in the lunchroom. Told him to go back to where he came from, that America already has more niggers than it needs.”
“Has the doctor seen him?”
“Yeah,” the white guard said. “Nothing’s broken, except for the tooth. He should be all right in a couple of days, as long as they don’t get to him again. We’re going to do what we can to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He gave Tesema a comforting pat on the shoulder, then he and the other guard exited the room, leaving me to speak privately with my client.
“Oh, Rada, I’m so sorry.”
His smile looked like it hurt. “I am sorry too, Miss Jones, that I am such a poor fighter. But is okay. The people from synagogue, they are here yesterday. One nice woman, she has son who is dentist. Says he will fix tooth for nothing when I get out. Put on crown. Put one on back tooth, too. They also taking up collection to fly family over. But is a lot of money.”
No kidding. The wife and all those children. “That sounds good. I’m sure you’ll be out of here in no time.” I tried to sound upbeat, but I could hardly convince myself, let alone Rada.
He gave up trying to smile. “Miss Jones, will I see family again?”
“Of course you will. I’ve almost solved the case.” If liars go to Hell, I’d better get myself fitted for a fire-retardant suit.
***
It was six o’clock and almost dark when I arrived back at Desert Investigations to discover that Jimmy was still running background checks. When I told him to go home, he said that he wanted to have everything finished before he left Desert Investigations for Southwest MicroSystems. Which was just days away, I realized. God, what was I going to do?
“No dinner with Esther tonight?”
He shook his head. “She’s picking out furniture.”
Funny. So was I. “Why aren’t you helping?”
I couldn’t tell if the twist his mouth made was meant to be a grin or a grimace. “Esther has very specific tastes.” After a moment’s silence, he added, “But she says I can decorate the den any way I want to as long as it’s that new color in all the magazines. Persian Pink.”
Since Jimmy didn’t seem like a Persian Pink kind of guy, I said nothing. Then I remembered that my own “new” furniture was due to arrive tomorrow morning. A sofa, two chairs, an end table and a cocktail table. What should I buy next? A kitchen table? Since I always ate my ramen noodles while watching CNN, I’d never owned a table. What kind of table would go with cactus skeleton living-room furniture? Oak? Pecan? Pine? Or maybe I should continue the Fifties theme and get one of those chrome and vinyl sets I’d seen, the kind with pictures of horseshoes and lariats on the plastic seat cushions. And maybe even a Roy Rogers cookie jar to put in the center of it.
Plates, too. I needed crockery! Did they make dishes with spur-and-lariat designs? Excited by the realization that my formerly cold apartment was developing a Fifties Western theme—however childish—I began jotting down everything I would need to build a new Lena nest. Pots and pans (I’d learn to cook), salt and pepper shakers (cactus shapes would be nice), maybe a few rugs (Navajo, of course), and a…
My phone rang and when I picked it up, I heard the Alabama drawl of Eddy Joe Hughey. “My, my, y’all cowboys sure do work late out there.”
He always made me smile. “Not as late as y’all, since y’all have two hours on us. But something tells me you didn’t call to congratulate me on my work ethic.”
“Why, sweetie, I called just to hear your sexy voice.” The drawl lightened as he got down to business. “And to tell you that I found some disturbin’ info on our Mr. Jack Sherwood, AKA Jack Rinn. That Beth Osmon of yours is in for some cryin’ time.”
So I was right. Jack Sherwood had been too good to be true. “Let’s have it.”
“I drove over to Hamilton this morning and talked to the woman who calls herself Mrs. Rinn, a pretty little gal named Alea. Looks somethin’ like my second cousin, once removed. Anyway, after I told her some cock ’n’ bull story about me lookin’ into an inheritance issue on her husband’s side, she was thrilled to tell me all about him. Oh, and there’s no doubt we’re talkin’ ’bout the same ol’ boy. The pictures of Mr. Rinn, musta been a dozen all over her livin’ room, look just like the pictures you faxed me of Mr. Sherwood. So do the kids.”
“The kids?”
“Yeah. Four. The skunk.”
Poor Beth. “Go on. Tell me the rest.”
“I’m not sure Alea’s in on her husband’s little scam. In fact, I tend to think she isn’t, but it looks like Mr. Sherwood/Rinn brings home the bacon by romancin’ rich women all across the country, then, while they’re pickin’ out their trousseaus, he talks them into investin’ in some get-rich-quick scheme of his.”
“Such as shopping centers, right?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s used that one several times. Anyway, once he has his mark’s ‘investment’ money, which can run into the hundreds of thousands, he flies out of town ‘on business’ and is never seen again.”
The way Eddy Joe talked, it sounded like Sherwood/Rinn had been running his scam for some time. “Do you have any idea how many women he’s done this to?”
“Hard to say ’cause he prolly uses a different name each time. Now, I don’t mean any disrespect toward y’all Scottsdalians, but guys like him tend to work transient cities like yours. You know, places where nobody knows nobody else’s daddy and the past is a big, blank slate. Sherwood/Rinn blows into these places with nothin’ but a good suit and a smile, hangs out where the money hangs out, and cozies up to lonely divorcees and widows. He’s slick, I’ll say that for him. I could use some of that charm my own self.”
I didn’t think Eddy Joe was lacking in the charm department, but that was neither here nor there. “Were charges ever filed?”
“Not that I’ve been able to dig up. The boy’s a genius when it comes to knowin’ what woman to pick. It’s always someone who’d rather be dead than let anyone know she’s been played for a sucker.”
Eddy was right when he said that the Sherwood/Rinns of this world were drawn to places like Scottsdale, small but wealthy cities where roots ran shallow. Almost nobody was born here; their birth certificates were on file in places like Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire and Ohio. I’d once read a report which said that the majority of Scottsdale’s citizens had moved here from out of state, and that percentage seemed to be increasing all the time. The city’s physical beauty and mild (except for summer) climate attracted not only people who’d earned the lush life, but also people on the run from old ghosts and failures. Hot on their heels came jackals like Sherwood/Rinn, ready to take advantage of everyone’s vulnerabilities.
“Beth might be different,” I said to Eddy Joe. “She comes from tough pioneer stock, so maybe she’ll be mad enough to file charges.”
“He ask her for money yet?”
I winced. “No.” There was the rub. A man could call himself any damned thing he wanted to as long as there was no fraud involved. And since Sherwood/Rinn hadn’t put the touch on Beth yet—accent on yet—he was in the clear.
“Listen, baby cakes, I’m gonna fax you the newspaper article that ran when Mr. Sherwood/Rinn married Alea. Got a big picture of the happy couple. If that’s not enough for Mrs. Osmon, I can scramble around and get some pictures of him with other women, too. I’m figuring he’s made the society pages in various cities.”
I doubted it. In this jet-friendly age, where the rich all tended to hang out at the same watering holes, Sherwood/Rinn would probably prove camera-shy. “Let’s go with what we have. I’ll call Beth in the morning.”
Eddy Joe sighed. “Yeah, you do that. Too bad I always have to be the bearer of bad tidings. In the meantime, don’t you go thinkin’ all men are skunks just because we’ve trapped one stinker in the barn. Most of us are OK fellas.”
“Thanks for those reassuring words.”
“Keep the faith, Lena. Even a PIs gotta believe in love sometime.”
“I guess.” I hung up, wondering if he’d given me good advice or bad.
***
As I was getting ready to leave for the day, the phone rang again. This time it was Warren, calling from L.A. People were talking in the background. None of them sounded happy, especially not Warren. “I could use you over here in L.A. Maybe you could shoot me a couple of people and resolve this mess.”
“That bad, huh?”
He groaned. “And how. Anyway, I called just to hear a friendly voice and to tell you how much I miss you.”
Miss you? We’d seen each other mere hours earlier.
Before I could formulate an appropriate answer, he said, “The usual formula is for the responding party to answer, ‘I miss you, too.’”
I was going to have to start studying how normal people behaved. “OK. Me, too.”
He laughed. “Lena Jones, you are the most self-contained woman I’ve ever met, which is why I’m so crazy about you. You’re such a change from what I’m used to! But you’re also a terrible liar. Tell you what. As soon as I get things ironed out here I’ll fly back and we’ll have dinner someplace romantic. Then I’ll show you why you should miss me when I’m gone.”
When I laughed, Jimmy made a disgusted noise. I ignored him. “Uh, me too.” Warren and I laughed some more, until Jimmy turned around with an expression his ancestors must have worn when they were hiding behind mesas, waiting for the wagon trains to come by.
That silenced me. “Call when you get back.” With as much dignity as I could muster, I said good-by and hung up.
“You white people are disgusting.” But Jimmy smiled when he said it.
“Yeah, and I’m sure you never are.”
A blush darkened his already dark face. “Touché.” He turned back to his computer.
I checked my watch again. It was still only six-thirty. Figuring that a man his age would be home in the evenings, I called Harry Caulfield, only to be told by his answering machine that he wasn’t in. I left a brief message about my interview with Ian Mantz, and asked if there had ever been any scuttlebutt around the sheriff’s office about anonymous letters accusing Ernst of the Bollinger murders. As I hung up, I noticed Jimmy shutting down his computer.
For once, dinner alone looked bleak. “Say, since Esther’s all tied up, what are you going to do for dinner tonight?”
“Maybe heat up the barbeque leftovers and watch some TV. One of Warren’s old docs is on PBS tonight.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Which one?”
“Native Blood, Foreign Chains. I saw it once and wouldn’t mind seeing it again.”
Maybe I should do the same, leaving out the barbeque. But watching one of Warren’s films tonight would only remind me of his absence. That’s when I realized I was lonely. Maybe my therapist was right, relationships were habit-forming.
Jimmy already had his hand on the door so I stopped him with a shout. “Jimmy! Why don’t we have dinner together? We could walk over to Malee’s on Main for some Chicken Pad Thai. I’ll even pick up the check.”
He paused. “That sounds better than leftovers.”
“And we can talk. Really talk.”
He looked less optimistic about this. “There’s no agenda here, is there? I’m still taking the new job.”
Life always has an agenda, but there was no point in telling the truth. “Of course not. We’ve we’ve both been so busy lately, you with Esther, me with my cases, that we haven’t had time to just be friends again.”
His face relaxed. “Chicken Pad Thai it is.”
***
Malee’s was less crowded than usual because most of the snowbirds had departed for Minnesota and other points north. The aroma of mysterious Asian spices filled the air, untainted by tobacco smoke, and the low murmur of conversation served as a counterpoint to the Thai music that emanated from the restaurant’s sound system. The hostess seated us at a table in back, where a Thai waitress arrived almost immediately to take our orders. As we waited for our food, we sipped creamy Thai tea. Lit only by candlelight, the tribal tattoo on Jimmy’s face looked blacker than ever, and I tried to envision him with it removed. He’d look like a stranger. “So, Jimmy. Other than looking for furniture and houses, how’s Esther doing?”
“Fine.”
“How’s Rebecca?”
“She’s fine, too.”
“Great.”
Now it was his turn. “How’s Warren?”
“In L.A.”
“How’s Dusty?”
“God only knows.”
“How’s Kryzinski?”
“Packing.”
“How’s Rama Tesema?”
“Miserable.”
Before I grew more depressed, the waitress arrived with our Chicken Pad Thai. We busied ourselves eating for the next few minutes, then attempted a more promising line of chatter.
“Does Esther get a good furniture discount from Neiman Marcus?”
“Sure, but the prices are still a little high for us, so we’re getting the bulk of our things at Ethan Allen.”
“What are you taking along from your trailer?” I pictured the paintings of Pima petroglyphs which adorned his kitchen cabinet doors. Perhaps he could hang them in his den, alongside the photographs of both his biological and adoptive parents. Then the new house would still feel like home. I told him this.
He looked down at what was left of his Chicken Pad Thai. “They’re not Persian Pink.”
Time to switch to a safer topic. “Ah, I never filled you in on what I discovered when I interviewed that dentist. Did you know that one of those two Germans who escaped from Camp Papago and were never caught actually survived?”
“Are you talking about Erik Ernst? He didn’t exactly give himself up, you know. A couple of farmhands nabbed him when he stole food from a shed. And as for survived, better ask the Maricopa County medical examiner how lively he is these days.” He gave me a wicked smile.
This is what happens when you don’t take the trouble to update your partner, even when your partner is leaving you in a matter of days. “No, no. I’m not talking about Das Kapitan. I’m talking about Gunter Hoenig, one of Ernst’s U-boat crew members.” As we finished up our Chicken Pad Thai, I relayed everything Ian Mantz told me.
Jimmy frowned. “That’s an interesting story, but what about the other guy?”
“What other guy?”
The waitress came by and removed our plates. We ordered home-made coconut ice cream for dessert, which she brought almost immediately. Someone in the back put a cool jazz station on the music system, and the soprano sax of Kenny G drifted out. Relaxing, maybe, but I missed the Asian music.
After the waitress had gone away again, Jimmy said, “Gunter’s friend Josef Braun. He was on the same U-boat, remember? We know that Ernst was eventually captured and was transferred to a prison camp with stronger security until the end of the war, and now you tell me that Gunter Hoenig melted into the local German-American community. But where’d Josef end up?”
My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth. “You know, partner, that’s a good question.”
What had happened to Gunter’s friend Josef Braun? If he was alive and living somewhere in Arizona, was he still strong enough to beat a man to death?
After dinner, Jimmy climbed into his Toyota truck and headed back to the reservation while I climbed the stairs to my apartment above Desert Investigations. Out of habit, I turned on CNN but quickly grew tired of the non-stop violence in the Middle East. Seeking a more soothing brand of mind candy, I flipped through the channels until I arrived at TVLand, and sat happily through Leave It to Beaver and Here Come the Nelsons. On neither show did anyone decapitate anyone else or announce that he had AIDS. The most serious problem either program dealt with was the Beav not being invited to a friend’s sleep-over. Had life really been that easy in the Fifties? Or were both programs lies designed to take that generation’s mind off its own woes?
Whatever, the past sure looked rosy in retrospect.
After the Beav solved his sleep-over problem (Mom called the neighbor and discovered it had all been a misunderstanding), I switched the channel to PBS. Although I’d told Jimmy I hadn’t planned to watch Native Peoples, Foreign Chains I watched anyway, marveling at Warren’s delicacy when asking indelicate questions. No wonder he and Lindsey fought all the time. In fact, they battled so often that I was amazed he kept her on the payroll.
When the credits rolled on Native Peoples, Foreign Chains, I read them carefully and discovered that Lindsey worked as assistant director on that film, too. Then I remembered that Warren told me that she’d been with him ever since he started Living History Productions more than ten years earlier. Why didn’t she move off on her own? By now, she should have been able to get a job as a director, not merely continue along in the same rut, playing second fiddle to a very big fiddle. Perhaps, they had once been romantically involved, but so what? Where was the drive Hollywood was so famous for, the ambition? Maybe Lindsey couldn’t bear to leave. While Warren no longer appeared romantically interested in her, Lindsey’s “stay away from him” comment hinted that she still carried a torch for him.
As I readied myself for bed, it occurred to me that it was time to do something to repair my own fractured life. Therapy had broken it apart but so far hadn’t bothered to put it back together again. So many people I loved were leaving me. Warren would go back to L.A., too, once he finished Escape Across the Desert, and I would be left alone, drifting, with my usual defenses stripped away. Where was the hard Lena, the old Lena who never lay awake staring at the ceiling? The Lena who was never lonely because she knew better than to care about anyone in the first place?
Now I had opened my heart only to find everyone vacating it.
And all the new furniture in the world couldn’t change that.