and she realized she’d been sitting at a green light. She moved forward, catching up with the slow-moving traffic. It wasn’t quite five yet, but the roads were busy. She pulled out her phone to see if Lloyd had sent her a message that he was leaving yet, and saw that he’d actually sent a text saying that he was working late and she would be on her own for dinner.
She thought, Obviously cheating, then laughed out loud in the car. She didn’t like the way her laugh sounded, almost as if she were out of breath.
Back at home, she was greeted at the door by Vinegar mewling loudly. He led her to the basement and his empty food bowl, and she filled it, apologizing.
In the kitchen, she looked into the refrigerator for a while, trying to decide if she wanted another beer. She was trembling slightly, even though she’d felt relatively calm at the bar. But she’d been sitting across from someone who was insane, someone who was suddenly very interested in her life. All the beers in the fridge were Lloyd’s overly hoppy IPAs. There was a small bottle of cranberry juice, and she made herself a drink over a lot of ice with the bottle of vodka they kept in the freezer. She took a long sip, then focused on her breathing. Her mind was jumping. She kept trying to think about what Matthew had said about Dustin Miller and Scott Doyle, but found herself thinking about Lloyd instead. If he was cheating on her, she supposed that it would be relatively easy. He worked in Boston, and she was stuck out here in the suburbs. He did occasionally work late, as he was tonight, but he always came back eager to tell Hen about the new campaign his firm was working on. If he was lying, then he was a very good liar. And Hen didn’t think Lloyd was a good liar. So, if he was cheating, then when was he doing it? His last chance would have been at Rob’s annual bonfire party, and she was pretty sure that the only people who showed up to that were other guys from his college, maybe the occasional girlfriend or wife. And it was hardly a sexy event, just a bunch of dudes getting high and playing with fire.
Hen put her drink down on the kitchen counter and went toward the stairs. The thought of that party had triggered a sudden memory in her from the day after Scott Doyle’s murder. Lloyd at the police station, taking her in his arms. He’d come directly from Rob’s house that day. She remembered the smell of him. The stale sweat, which was not a surprise. But there’d been something else, something she’d barely noticed because of everything else that was going on. He didn’t smell like smoke. She’d been to Rob’s bonfire parties many times, and the next day, and sometimes the day after that, you reeked of woodsmoke. It got into your clothes and into your hair. It got into your nostrils and stayed there.
In their bedroom, Hen looked at the overflowing laundry basket, two weeks’ worth of clothes that both Lloyd and she had been ignoring. She started to paw through it, spreading the clothes across the unmade bed until she found what she was looking for—the outfit Lloyd had been wearing on his weekend away. His nicest jeans and a checked shirt with a frayed collar. She pressed her face into the shirt and breathed in deeply. There was no trace of smoke at all. Just to make sure, she pulled out all of Lloyd’s clothes from the laundry basket and smelled them. Nothing.
Back downstairs, she picked up her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts, finding Rob Boyd, surprised she still had his number on her phone. Her thumb hovered over the Call button. What exactly was she going to say? She couldn’t just out and out ask if Lloyd had showed up at the bonfire, because if Rob said no, she could almost guarantee that he’d alert Lloyd to the call right away. She racked her brain, coming up with a reason to call, and hit the button before she changed her mind.
“Hen?” came Rob’s voice almost immediately.
“Hey, Rob,” she said.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Totally fine. I have kind of a random question for you.”
“Okay?” His voice sounded like it was coming from a hollow room. Hen guessed he was driving.