JULIA THOUGHT SHE’D battled insomnia before.
But those earlier bouts were a matter of waking too soon—maybe around four thirty AM—and being unable to fall back asleep before her alarm went off an hour later, leaving her fatigued and cranky for the rest of the day. Or maybe some difficulty falling asleep the night before an important court hearing as she obsessively went over everything in her mind.
But nothing had prepared her for hours of wide-eyed wakefulness, scanning the security camera images on her phone, and then—not trusting the grainy image of a raccoon loping away from the backyard trash can—rising to pace the house, checking the door locks and peeping behind the drapes and shades, holding her breath as she scanned the darkened yard for any hint of motion.
Jake stumbled behind her, not understanding this new game but willing to go along with it, leaping onto the bed as soon as she returned to it and falling asleep beside her in a matter of seconds as she sat, quivering and alert, phone at hand and ready to dial 911 at the slightest unfamiliar sound.
The next day, she incurred a crick in her neck from swiveling to check over her shoulder as she walked Calvin to school and herself to work, and then in the evening when they took the dog on his prebedtime ramble. Calvin complained that she held his hand so tightly it hurt. Jake objected to the newly abbreviated walk, pulling obstinately against the leash when she turned back toward the house after only a couple of blocks. And at work she endured comments on her haggard appearance from everyone from Deb to the barista at the coffee cart, who comped her latte and urged her not to come back until she’d gotten some sleep.
Which wasn’t an option. Work continued apace, the daily overload of new cases and continuing cases as well as the glacial grind of Ray’s case.
Julia suffered two teeth-grindingly frustrating meetings with Tim Saunders, during which they finally agreed to disagree about pushing for a plea and instead compiled lists of potential witnesses (few) and evidence (even less).
At least Saunders kept the meetings brief. A bout of spring crud was sweeping through the courthouse, laying low clerks and judges alike and causing delay upon delay in an already-snarled court schedule. Nobody wanted to spend any more time in close quarters than absolutely necessary.
All of which combined to erode Julia’s initial terror to something resembling background noise, a low hum that grew easier to ignore by the day, so that by midweek she’d persuaded herself that she’d overreacted to Marie’s findings. On Wednesday night she tucked Calvin and Jake into bed early, and only a little after eight PM she climbed into scalding, chin-deep water in the tub and fell promptly asleep, waking to find herself shivering in water gone cold as her phone rang and rang and rang.
Julia left the tub in a great splash, lunging for the phone, skidding across the tiles, crashing to her knees just as she grabbed it.
She lay there, kneecaps radiating pain, trying to control her breathing.
“Julia?”
She gave in then, a moan of both pain and relief.
“Julia? Are you all right?”
“Dom? Dom!”
“Julia, what’s going on? Something’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”
Jake nosed open the door and galumphed to her side, shoving his nose against her face, breathing noisily into the phone.
“Um, Julia?” Dom’s tone changed.
“Never mind. It’s just the dog. I have a dog now. Oh, Dom. Wait a minute.” She sat up, groaning again, and pulled a towel from the rack and wrapped it around her. “I was in the tub. I fell.”
“Are you hurt?”
She gingerly stretched one leg before her, then the other. Each knee barked an objection but otherwise extended as commanded.
“Just my dignity.” Not just that. He’d inflicted lingering pain upon her, a real kick in the gut, worse than whatever damage the tiled floor had just inflicted upon her knees.
“Dom, why are you calling? Didn’t you say we shouldn’t see each other?”
Jake stiffened at her tone. His ears flattened. His hackles rose. Whatever was wrong, he was ready to tackle it. Julia ran a reassuring hand along his back. “It’s okay, sweetie.”
“I’m so glad. Because I’ve missed you.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Dom.” Jake’s hackles rose anew.
“Oh.” The phone went silent.
Julia put it on speakerphone, toweled herself mostly dry, and donned her pajamas, a years-old flannel pair, soft and faded, that she generally saved for when she was sick or in special need of comfort, as she’d felt all during this interminable week. She picked up the phone, still silent, carried it into the bedroom, and climbed into bed. No way was she going to speak first.
Dom’s voice finally sounded again, halting, hopeful.
“I don’t suppose … would it be all right … I’d really like to see you. Elena’s still at her mother’s.”
“So this is a booty call. Jesus, Dom.” Jake, nearly asleep on the pillow beside her, gave a halfhearted growl, having sensed that whatever was causing her to speak in this new strange voice wasn’t an immediate threat.
“No, no. Julia, how could you think that? I just want to see you. I’d meet someplace public if we could, but that wouldn’t be a good idea. Julia, please. Can I come over? Just to talk? I’ll leave the minute you say.”
She rewarded him with another long silence even as she thought, There are worse things than a man who begs. She looked at the clock. It was only nine. Calvin was asleep. And damn it all to hell, she missed him too.
“Just for a little while,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Dom, wait.” The last thing she needed was for him to show up, smiling and expectant, on Beverly’s doorstep. “I’ve got a new place.” She gave him the address.
Normally she’d have donned jeans and a sweater, maybe a little makeup. Poured drinks, put out snacks, touched a match to some candles.
Instead, she dragged a hoodie from a bottom drawer and pulled it on over her pajamas and left her hair, curling wildly from the steam in the tub, in its untamed state. But at least she was semipresentable five minutes later, when Dom knocked at her door.
In the movie version of her life, she’d have looked adorable in her pj’s, childlike and sweetly vulnerable, her hair resembling a halo rather than a nest assembled by a large and careless bird. Dom would have swept her into his arms. They’d have kissed, shyly at first and then passionately, before heading up the stairs. Fade to black.
Instead, Jake launched himself at this nighttime intruder in a welter of uncertainty, circling Dom’s feet, growling low even as his tail wagged, the epitome of how Julia herself felt.
Julia stood back. Jake looked to her for a cue.
“It’s all right,” she relented.
Dom produced a dog biscuit from his coat pocket, and Jake underwent an instantaneous transformation from wannabe guard dog to puddle of ecstasy.
“I keep them with me in case I run into aggressive dogs on the creek trail. It’s happened a couple of times. Okay to come inside now?”
Julia stood wordlessly aside and watched his eyes widen as he took in the house.
“May I?” He headed for the kitchen.
“Go ahead. But be quiet. Calvin’s sleeping—at least, he is if Jake didn’t wake him up.”
“This is Jake?”
The dog rewarded him with an adoring gaze, earning another biscuit.
“It is. A born con artist, as you’ve just found out. He’s the reason we have this house.”
They ended up at the kitchen table, Julia pouring a couple of glasses of wine, habit overcoming her cold-shoulder intentions. She briefly explained the rental setup, the deal that included Jake, who’d now plastered himself to Dom’s legs.
“How old is he?”
“About six months. I guess this is about as big as he’ll get. At least, that’s what the owner told me.”
Dom laughed and then tried to stifle it, casting a glance ceilingward. “Have you looked at the size of his paws? He’s got a lot of growing to do.”
Julia groaned. “He’s already eaten his weight in shoes and anything else lying loose around the house.”
Dom reached across the table and took her hand. “Do you want to keep talking about the dog. Or?”
She’d meant to pull her hand away. Instead, she gripped his like a lifeline, spilling out the frustrations and fears of the past days, opening the app on her phone that showed the security cameras’ view of the yard, pointing to the heavy, room-darkening shades that made the large, bright kitchen feel oppressively closed in.
“Everything’s so awful,” she finished in a humiliating wash of self-pity. “I’m not getting anywhere with Ray’s case. I’ve let myself get distracted by this business with Leslie Harper, even though it’s not my case. I miss working with Claudette and—” She bit her lip to stop herself from saying, I miss you.
“I probably overreacted,” she finished instead. “Nothing’s happened since whoever it was peed all over the backyard.” My backyard, she’d started to say, before reminding herself that the house wasn’t hers and never would be.
“Jesus, Julia. You should have called me right away.”
She gave him The Look she used on Calvin and, these days, Jake. He had the grace to apologize.
“I may have acted too hastily in saying we shouldn’t see each other.”
No shit, she wanted to say. Except the man faced the loss of his daughter.
“You did the right thing. The smart thing,” she amended. “I’ve seen Susan in court. She pulls out all the stops. And when she loses a case, she doesn’t forgive and forget. She knows she can hurt me by hurting you. For her, that counts as a win-win.”
They fell silent, acknowledging the reality.
“You should go. You’ve got school tomorrow. I’ve got work.”
“I don’t want to. Especially not after what you’ve told me. No offense to Jake here, but I’m not sure how much use he’d be in a real emergency.”
“How much use would you be?” She made her voice light, trying to turn it into a joke.
He didn’t smile. “I’m serious. Another adult in the house would be good. At least when you were with Beverly, there was a gun in the house.”
“You too? Wayne Peterson wanted me to get one. A deputy sheriff,” she added, for his benefit. “I’ve got him on speed dial. Between that and the shades and drapes and the security cameras, I’ve made this place as safe as it can be.”
“I hope you’ve kept me on speed dial.” He rose.
“Always.” Her voice caught.
“If anything like that happens again—anything at all, even something that seems innocuous—will you please call me? Even before you call the sheriff? Unless you’re in some sort of immediate danger,” he amended. “Then call the guy with the gun first.”
He pulled her to him for a long hug, not the passionate embrace of her brief rom-com fantasy but nourishing just the same, better in its way.
“Can we do this again?”
She stiffened. “In this town? Speaking of which, where’d you park?”
He laughed. “Around the corner. Come on, Julia. I’ve lived here longer than you have. I know what this place is like.”
She sighed. But even this visit, brief and constrained though it was, had lifted her spirits. “Maybe in a couple of weeks.”
“I’ll count the days.” His kiss was so brief that later, she wondered if she’d imagined it.
Nonetheless, she fell asleep with a smile on her face and woke up the same way, the simple pleasure of contact vanishing only when she saw the slip of paper on the entryway floor beneath the mail slot with its hand-scrawled note.
Hope the sex was worth it, whore. Wonder what his wife will think?
“Ex-wife!” she screamed at the damning note, even as she dialed Wayne.