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AFTER I’D GIVEN A STATEMENT to a deputy, I asked Hardwire to drop me off at my center. Before he drove away, he said, “That was something, wasn’t it?”
“It sure was. Hardwire, you know how I said you acted like a coward?”
“When you were giving me shit? No worries. I deserved it.”
“But you’re not a coward. A jerk sometimes, but not a coward. You saved a boy’s life today.”
Hardwire nodded solemnly, and I saw the man he would be someday. “I know that, Maddie, but it’s real nice hearing it from you.”
Bertie greeted me with a wag and a lick of my hand and then ran back to a slow game of chase with Heidi II.
Jaison had come back and offered to take care of evening feeding before returning to the celebration. “Do you want to talk, boss?”
“No, I want to eat. I’d been waiting all day for a barbecue sandwich. And grilled corn and peach cobbler and a strawberry milkshake.”
“I’ll run town and bring back those things.”
“No, run to town and enjoy them yourself.”
I felt strangely let down as I went to my house. Nothing was in my fridge but eggs. I couldn’t keep up with the hens’ laying so I scrambled three eggs. I cut the moldy crust off old bread and toasted what was left, wishing I had butter.
The phones rang incessantly. Sasha left a series of messages, going through the five stages of grief when I wouldn’t answer. I unplugged the landline and put my phone in silent mode.
I found a bottle of pinot grigio in a bottom cupboard and poured it in a glass filled with ice cubes. I wandered through the empty rooms, drinking and thinking. The paint on the walls was shadowed with the furniture Kenzie had taken and that’s how the house was to me—shadowed with my family’s unhappy history.
It was almost ten when a siren blasted briefly. I went outside to see Oliver’s car coming down the drive. He parked and said, “You weren’t answering your phone. Again.”
“I have a ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you’ policy.”
“I can leave if you like.”
“My policy is primarily for jerks like Abel Myklebust, not you. I thought you’d be too busy to call me tonight.”
“I told the troops to hold down the fort for a few hours.”
We went into the kitchen and I said, “All I can offer is room temperature white wine.”
“Water is fine.” His clothes were wrinkled and his hair, now longer, was sort of a mess in a way I liked.
“Oliver, did you know that Abel is probably my father?”
“I noticed a resemblance and wondered when he let you get away with sabotaging his property.”
“Who else in town knows?” I gave Olly a glass of tap water.
“Do you think I spend my time discussing genealogical theories? But since you brought it up, my favorite is that you’re Doc Pete’s secret love child with his house cleaner, but he lost you in a bet with your grandfather on the flip of a dime.”
“Hmm, that has a built-in justification for my dad’s antipathy. Feel free to spread it,” I said. “In more relevant news, what happened with Hugo?”
“No confession yet, but it looks like you got to Robbie in time. Dirk is denying everything, and the District Attorney’s screaming that we blew our chances of a case.” Oliver shrugged. “Maybe we did on this situation, but pedophiles don’t go from zero to sixty. Hugo had the experience to have a second car stashed somewhere or an accomplice to pick up the boy. He knew where cameras could catch him, and he knew when the town would be so busy a kid could go easily missing. I’m sure we’ll discover that he’d targeted Robbie specifically because of his vulnerability. Robbie’s mother was fast on the mark though, and she made the difference.”
“Zeus, too.”
“Zeus, too,” he said. “While I probably won’t get my Bearcat now—”
“You don’t need a Bearcat.”
“Like hell I don’t.” He set down his water glass and rubbed this temples. All I could hear is the tick, tick, tick of the teakettle-shaped clock. “It was a close one. Most abducted kids—”
“Are killed within the first twenty-four hours,” I said. “Thank you for trusting me about Zeus.”
“It didn’t come easy. Not a damn thing about you is easy. You can’t quit our SAR team.”
“It’s too strenuous for Bertie.”
“He can shift out and take breaks and you’ll train another dog, and we’ll still work together, won’t we?”
“I’ll feel like I’m betraying my old guy.”
“I’ve heard you tell people not to impose human emotions and motivations to dogs.”
“I’m talking about my human emotions. I do have them, you know.”
“I could legally compel you to stay on the Midnight Runners.” Oliver came to me and pulled me tight to him. “You’re all kinds of awful and all kinds of amazing, and I expect I’m going to have to arrest you eventually for vandalism, or theft, or disorderly conduct, or being a general pain in the ass.”
I laughed. “Georgie thinks you want to be naked friends with me.”
“The more naked, the better. My sister said you turned her down. Are you still in love with her?”
“I’ve come to accept that she’s not for me, or I’m not for her. She’s a goddess, and I’m a mere mortal, foolish and fallible and flawed and severely fucked-up. What I like about you is that you understand how special she is. You’ve never tried to convince me that she’s not extraordinary, even though I may not fully comprehend exactly what makes her more than a struggling artist in a nowhere town.”
“That’s one of the things I’ve come to appreciate about you, too, Mad Girl.”
“Please tell me we’re not going to talk about love.”
“We absolutely are. I love Zeus. I never thought it would happen, but there it is. I love that damn dog. He just makes me feel...happy every time I see him.”
I smiled. “I told you.”
“You tell me a lot of things, and this one happened to be true.” Olly ran his hand through my short hair, sending a wave of pleasure.
My breathing quickened. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Oh, I’m damn sure it isn’t.” Then he kissed me hard, his body pushing against mine.
I kissed him back, hungry for him, clutching him to me, needing to touch his skin. I pulled him to my bedroom and flicked the lights on. I wanted to see everything.
It was strange and wonderful the way we moved together because it was new to me, this physical synchronicity with someone I’d come to admire, someone I cared for and deeply trusted. And that trust was far more liberating than the safe indifference of sex with a stranger, and this time I didn’t try to find his similarities with Claire. He was Oliver only. We explored each other’s bodies, and they were bodies we knew. We knew the muscles and the movements, the smells and the tastes. We knew how we breathed when excited and we knew when we could go farther and when we needed release.
The night was warm and when we lay beside each other, our fingers intertwined, our hearts calming, he said, “What’s the tattoo mean?”
“Flowers, of the garden,” I said. “Des jardins.”
“Why isn’t it finished?”
“The tattoo artist was too damn annoying.”
“Be honest: you were the annoying one.”
“No doubt, Olly.” I gathered my courage. “Do you want me to be better...a better person?”
“What I want is someone, I want you, to run with me through the woods in the moonlight and give me all your dark sex magic,” he said, and he pulled me on top of him.