Chapter 4

After stripping out of my scrubs, I hook up the breast pump and drain, sticking the bottles in the break room fridge when I’m done. Then I give myself a quick once-over in the mirror. It isn’t a pretty sight. My hair is still frizzy and the clump I’d found in it earlier has taken on a life of its own, sticking out perpendicular from my head. I give it a quick finger wash and attempt to comb it into submission. I dig in my purse for some makeup and apply some eyeliner, mascara, and blush, hoping it will help. It’s better, but still far from what I want. I decide I need to take Dom up on his offer, so I put in a call to my hairstylist, Barbara, to make an appointment. As usual, she has no problem fitting me in. The dead aren’t very demanding customers.

I shove my puke-stained top in a bag and grab a spare sweater from my locker. Then I call Hurley.

“I have an official cause of death for you,” I tell him. Then I fill him in on the grim details of Lars’s demise.

When I’m done, he says, “I’ve been digging into Lars’s recent business deals and his personal life. Turns out the guy has been sued no less than four times in the past two years, all by people he’s worked with on some sort of land deal. Two of those were settled out of court, and the other two are still pending. I’m about to go over and take a tour through his house to see what I can find. After that I plan to have a chat with his personal assistant, to deliver the bad news and see what details we can dig up in his office.”

“Does Lars have some family we need to notify first?”

“He has elderly parents who live out in Denver. We’ve got local guys out there making the notification as we speak. Lars has never been married and has no children, so no family locally.”

“Want some help?”

“Sure, if Izzy’s willing to kick you loose.”

“I think he might be willing to do the kick-me part.”

“Uh-oh, what did you do now?” Before I can answer he adds, “Grab a scene kit and meet me out front. I’ll be there in two minutes and you can tell me all about it.”

“Is Charlotte coming along?” I hold my breath, hoping to hear the answer I want.

“No, she’s still on site out in the woods.”

I breathe a sigh of relief.

“I don’t think we need to film a simple notification, but if we do I can handle that myself. I probably will do some filming at Sanderson’s home and office though. Do you mind helping with that if need be?”

Mind? I’d take out a hit on Charlotte if I had to in order to keep her away. “Of course I don’t mind.”

Minutes later I slide into the front seat of Hurley’s car. He leans over and kisses me before we head out. His lips linger on mine a tantalizing smidge longer than is proper, considering we are in public view, and I love every illicit second of it. When he finally pulls away, it’s all I can do not to grab him and haul him into the backseat. It seems my body is more than ready to resume that part of my life.

“All right, spill it,” he says, pulling out into traffic. “What did you do to upset Izzy?”

“I told him about Dom’s request.”

“The baby thing?”

I nod.

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“And you’re surprised that he got upset over that?”

“Not surprised really. And anyway, he upset me first.” I can hear the petulance in my voice. “He was lecturing me on how to manage our relationship.”

“Whose relationship? Yours and his?”

“No, ours,” I say, wagging a finger between the two of us. “He told me I’m too complacent about our situation, and that if I don’t make some changes, I’m going to lose you.” I let the statement hang for a few seconds in order to gauge Hurley’s response.

“What does he think you should be doing?” he asks after several agonizing seconds of silence. I was hoping for a quick denial, an affirmation of our commitment to one another, even if we are living essentially separate lives most of the time.

“He didn’t say exactly. But when I told him I didn’t have the time or the energy right now to deal with all the extra emotional and psychological baggage that would come from trying to live with you and Emily, he implied that I wasn’t holding up my end of the relationship.”

“Hmm,” Hurley says, staring out the windshield.

“Hmm?” I echo with a questioning tone. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, Izzy is right in a way, though I think we’re both equally guilty. Let’s face it; our relationship is kind of stagnant right now. We hardly spend any time together unless it’s work related. I can’t spend as much time with my son as I want to. You’re already exhausted from being a single mom, and that’s only going to get worse now that you’ve returned to work. I have a daughter who seems to hate us both and who’s determined to suck up every spare minute I have in a day. I think it’s safe to say that we’re both emotionally, physically, and psychologically drained right now, and that our relationship, out of necessity or a basic need for survival, has been put on the back burner.”

Hearing Hurley say it aloud like that, so blunt and honest, frightens me. “I don’t want our relationship to die of neglect, Hurley. If we’re going to crash and burn as a couple, so be it, but we at least have to give it a fighting chance.”

“That’s hard to do when we have to carve out minutes of time to be together.”

“I know. It isn’t easy . . . I get that. But this business with Emily will take care of itself eventually. Either she’ll finally come around, or she’ll get old enough to move out.”

Hurley shoots me a horrified look. “Are you suggesting that we wait three years before we can be together on a regular basis?”

“Of course I’m not suggesting it. I was being facetious . . . somewhat, anyway. But let’s face it; Emily is a problem right now. She’s a huge obstacle. And until we can get past that . . .” I leave the rest for him to fill in.

Hurley looks morose and depressed, and I’m mirroring his feelings. The Fates certainly haven’t been working to our advantage lately, and I’m starting to wonder if we’re doomed as a couple. “Let’s keep up with the counseling,” I say in a tone that I hope sounds more hopeful than I feel. “Give it a little more time.”

Hurley sighs and grips the steering wheel tightly. “I don’t want to give it more time, Mattie. I want to be with you and Matthew now. I want to be a normal family.”

“Well, that option is out,” I say with a laugh. “We will never be anyone’s definition of normal, even if we are together.”

“I’ve been tossing an idea around in my head,” Hurley says. “I was thinking about Emily and how she behaves great when she thinks I’m going about my normal daily work, but has a meltdown whenever she thinks I’m spending time with you and Matthew outside of work. What if I tell her I’m going into work early a couple of days during the week and instead come over to your place and get Matthew up for you? That way I’d get to spend some more time with both him and you, and you can get a little extra rest.”

I consider the idea and at first blush it sounds like a reasonable, solid plan . . . heavenly, even. But the more I think about it, the less I like it. “This is a small town, Hurley. Things that are secret rarely stay that way. And Emily isn’t stupid. She’s bound to be suspicious, and she has that gnarly new boyfriend with the driver’s license, so it wouldn’t be all that hard for her to cruise by my place to check up on us and see if your car is here. If she finds out we lied to her, or tried to dupe her, it’s going to set things back and undermine any progress we may have made.”

Hurley scowls. “I told her she’s not allowed to ride anywhere with the boyfriend.”

“And we both know she does everything you tell her to, right?” I say with skepticism.

Emily’s new boyfriend is Johnny Chester, son of Kevin Chester, one of my old high school classmates. Kevin was saddled with the nickname Chester the Molester in my day, and it stemmed from more than the obvious rhyming taunt. He had been—and for all I know still is—a very good-looking but not very bright fellow, with sticky fingers and a talent for misbehaving. Kevin’s father, Leo, had been blessed with the same good looks, lack of common sense, and penchant for trouble. When Kevin was born, Leo was in jail. He made it out for Kevin’s fifth and fourteenth birthdays, but other than that, Leo’s permanent mailing address since the late eighties has been the Columbia Correctional Institution. Kevin didn’t fare much better. He got locked up during our junior year in high school for robbing the local ice cream parlor. Had it not been for the trail of molten ice cream drops with multicolored sprinkles that led from the scene straight to Kevin’s house, he might have gotten away with it. He did a year in juvie and never did finish high school. I heard he got his GED during his second lockup, this time in his father’s alma mater, for stealing a car. A third stint came after he was caught shoplifting, and a fourth when he stole a gun from a friend’s house, a gun he later used to shoot out the tires on the car of some guy who’d pissed him off. At this point, I suspect the Chester family probably has a wing named after them at the prison.

Kevin’s wife, Lila, managed to kick out a trio of kids in between lockups. My feelings regarding Lila are mixed. She was one of those kids in high school who got picked on a lot because her family was poor. She dressed in old, worn clothes that were woefully out of date, she often smelled funny, and she walked around with a morose expression all the time. While these off-putting traits made her a target with a lot of the girls, she had no lack of suitors because word got around that Lila put out, which just goes to show how non-discriminative high school boys can be when it comes to sex.

That Emily chose one of the progeny of the Lila-Kevin union as her main guy hasn’t sat well with Hurley, though I suspect he wouldn’t be happy with anyone Emily tried to date. Concerned myself, I did pry a little by quizzing my niece, Erika, about Johnny Chester. Surprisingly, she said he seems like a straight arrow and a nice guy. He tells people he’s a practitioner of Wicca, but given the practices his forbearers partook in, a little witch worship seems like a mild transgression. And Erika said that even though Johnny likes to act and talk tough around other guys, when he’s away from certain people he’s a sweet, friendly kid. Even more surprising is the fact that he’s an honor roll student. Either Lila had some smarts that she hid well, or Johnny won the gene pool lottery.

In response to my skeptical question, Hurley’s scowl deepens and he shakes his head slowly. He says nothing. He doesn’t need to. We both know that Emily, like most teenagers, is rebellious enough to do something simply because she was told not to.

“What does Dr. Naggy have to say about your idea of pretending to go to work and sneaking over to my place instead?” I ask Hurley.

“I haven’t run that specific idea by her,” Hurley admits. “But we discussed the general topic of Matthew and Emily, and trying to find a way to make her more comfortable with this new family dynamic. She keeps telling me to give it more time.” Hurley sighs in frustration. “How much more time can I give it?”

“As much as we need to. And I do mean we. This is a joint effort, Hurley. I’m in this with you.” I reach over and touch his arm. “Right now you have the brunt of the issues with Emily to deal with, but that doesn’t mean I’m not with you in thought, even if I can’t be with you in deed.”

Hurley refuses to be placated. His face tightens and his eyes narrow. “I want to spend more time with my son,” he says, his jaw tight. “I want to spend more time with you.”

There is a melancholy tone in his voice that makes my heart clutch. I love this man so much it makes me want to cry. I want the same things he does, but the raw facts of our situation are that Emily is a member of his family as much as Matthew and I are. And until we can resolve the issues that are keeping us apart, this is the way it will have to be.

“Put yourself in Emily’s shoes,” I say. “She has lost all the family she knew and finds herself the outsider in this new family unit she’s been forced to live in. She’s no doubt scared . . . scared of being abandoned and alone. And because of that, she’s testing you. She’s testing us. If she gives us a hard enough time and we take it all without giving up on her, maybe she’ll start to believe we really are her family and she’ll come to trust us. It would be painfully easy to hand her over to the foster system and say we can’t deal with her, and she knows that. So she’s keeping her emotions locked down, trying to minimize the hurt she fears is coming. Whatever we do, we can’t give up on her.”

Hurley looks over at me and smiles. “That’s one of the things I love about you, Winston. You have a kind heart.”

“Mitigated by some really evil thoughts,” I say, remembering my actions earlier with Izzy.

Hurley arches his brows at me. “Such as?”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as my good side wins out over my evil side most of the time.”

“You don’t have an evil side,” he says.

I wink at him and give him a sly smile. “Oh, but I do. There are things about me you don’t know, Hurley. Things that might give you pause the next time you suggest we should live together.”

His smile morphs into a worried frown, but it doesn’t last long. He dismisses my claim with a harrumph. “I don’t care how evil you think you can be, Winston. I just want to be with you and my son more than I am now. Somehow we have to find a way to get past this hide-and-seek game we’re playing and establish some semblance of normalcy. I feel like things are getting worse instead of better.”

He has a point. We’ve been creative in finding ways to be together over the past two months, stealing minutes whenever and wherever we could—during his lunch breaks, on his way back from an investigation, on his way to the grocery store, on my way back from a doctor’s appointment—brief interludes where we pretend that we’re a normal couple, a normal family. It was easy at first because Matthew and I were more or less at his beck and call. Now that I’m back to work, finding those niches in time is bound to get more challenging.

“Try to be patient,” I say. “I know it isn’t easy, and I understand how frustrated you are. But we owe it to ourselves, to Emily, and to Matthew to work this thing out, no matter how long it takes.”

Hurley makes no comment because we have arrived at our destination, forcing us to table the topic for now. I make a mental note to drop by Maggie’s office and have a chat with her sometime soon. Maybe she can give me some insight to help my relationship with Emily move forward a little faster. Or maybe she’ll tell me it’s time to give it up and move on. The idea of the latter outcome makes my heart ache.