can I make you understand something I barely understand myself?”
“I get that you’re connected to him,” he said. “And not in a way you chose, exactly. I get that part of you feels you owe him something. But you don’t owe him, Rain. We need you, Lily and me. We need you here with us. I already told you, long ago, I won’t share you with him.”
Greg knew almost everything about her time with Hank. She’d told him, wanted him to know her, all her flaws, mistakes she made, the demons she wrestled. He was angry, hurt, and for a time she thought she’d lost him. But he forgave her. We are all flawed, aren’t we? We all make mistakes. He told her some things, too. A girl he’d kissed at a bar one night. A lie he told her. Small things, compared to what she’d done. She forgave him, as well. They walked into their married life together clean, mostly. Some feelings, some details she kept to herself.
“I’m here,” she said. “With you. With her. I promise. I love you.”
He reached in and kissed her hard, then that killer smile. “Prove it.”
She did.
Later that night, Gillian asleep in the guest room, Lily in her crib and Greg snoring, Rain took the file into her office, started sifting through the documents there—police reports, news articles, pictures and articles as far back as the week it all started. There was even a picture of herself she’d never seen, looking small and scared, tucked into the arm of her father as they climbed the courthouse steps so that she could deliver her in-chamber testimony. She barely remembered that time, lost in a fog of trauma and sadness. The girl in the photo looked like a stranger.
Rain entered Greta Miller’s name into the search engine. A website was the first item.
She was a wildlife photographer, specializing in birds. The image of a crow on a fence post, a snowy field behind, the yellow of his eye a striking brightness in the grayscale, dominated the home page. That eye, sharp and seeing, seemed to stare off the screen right at Rain.
Something outside caught her attention—what was it? A light, a sound? Some kind of sixth sense? She moved from the desk and over to the window, staying off to the side.
Pushing back the drapes, she saw it. There, parked across the street, down a bit, a beige Toyota Corolla. She could just make out the thick form of a man in the driver’s seat.
Her heart jumped and started to race.
She slipped over the hall runner and crept down the stairs. By the time she got to the door, disabled the alarm and opened it into the night, the car was pulling away, slow and easy. She watched as it disappeared into the night, breath shallow.
Wake up Greg and cause him a fit of worry? Call the FBI agent and say what, that she thought Hank was stalking her in his spare time? And if she was wrong, cause him even more heartache than she already had. Call the police and tell them she’d spotted a suspicious vehicle? Actually, in this neighborhood—safe and wealthy and quiet—the cops would come, take her seriously, make a report, even be kind and concerned. But then what?
She stood in the cold, watching the night, hugging herself tight, aware of a gnawing sense of dread.
TWENTY-FIVE
Detective Harper was an old man now, with a full head of snow-white hair. He greeted them at the door to his modest house, embraced Rain as if they were old friends. He seemed smaller than Rain remembered him. In her memories, he loomed large—a towering figure with a booming voice. But he still moved lightly and easily, was healthy and fit. He still had that bright, intelligent gaze, the ready smile.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “We haven’t talked since—”
“Since Eugene Kreskey was murdered.”
He looked down at the bricks of his stoop, then back at her, his gaze intent.
“Long time now,” he said.
She introduced Gillian, who stood beside her. He took her hand, gave her that goofy look that men get when they like what they see.
“I listen to your morning broadcast,” said the detective. “The station has a liberal bent that I don’t love. But I love the sound of your voice.”
Was the old guy flirting?
“Thank you so much,” said Gillian, amping up her high-wattage smile. She knew how to work a source.