do. Eventually, I can’t take it anymore. I pull up alongside his vehicle. He’s sitting there, smoking a cigarette. He turns as I come to a stop. He rolls down his window.
“I wasn’t sure how desperate you were,” he says. “Now I am.”
“Spare me the foreplay,” I say. “Just get to the point.” The smell of his cigarette makes me want to smoke, even though I haven’t in years.
He gives me that neighborly, “I’m nobody” smile he seems to have perfected. I see that his whole nice-guy aura is a persona he cultivates to put people at ease, to relax them. Like his voice-mail message, for example—friendly, disarming, not stern and professional, not likely to scare away the skittish.
“I read that you watched while Marlowe Geary killed those girls. That witnesses saw you watching, doing nothing. What does that feel like?”
I don’t answer him, just take the blow. I did ask him to get to the point. I guess the point is that he knows everything.
“How do you live with yourself?” he wants to know. Now I hate him. I find myself wishing that it was him and not Simon Briggs under that bridge. Or maybe both of them. I hate the way anger causes a mutiny of the body, the dry mouth, the trembling hands.
“You’re awfully self-righteous for a dirty cop,” I say.
He pulls his face into a mock grimace. “Ouch.”
I rub my eyes hard, but it’s no use, the pain in my head is ratcheting up.
“So you go from Marlowe Geary to Gray Powers. From killer to cop, or whatever he is. Actually, they’re not so different, are they? They just kill for different reasons, kill different kinds of people. I wonder what this says about you.”
But I’m not listening to him. I’m watching a young girl approach us. She is emaciated and pale as death today. Her hair is dirty and hanging limply. Her arms are covered with bruises. She walks slowly, almost dazed, but she’s looking right at me. Detective Harrison turns to follow my gaze, puts his hand inside his jacket.
“What are you looking at?” he asks.
I know he can’t see her. She is shaking her head at me in disapproval. She thinks I’m weak, foolish. If it were up to her, Detective Harrison would already be dead.
“I’m starting to wonder about you, Ophelia. I’m concerned about your stability.”
There’s a ringing in my ears now. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, she’s gone.
“I have money,” I say. “A lot of it. Just tell me what you want.”
“It’s not about money anymore,” he says with a dramatic sigh. “At least it’s not about your money anymore. Let’s just say this: Ophelia March is not forgotten. Not forgiven, not forgotten. And do you know how many enemies your husband has? How many people would like to see him suffer? Do you have any idea about Powers and Powers, the things they’ve done?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, and more than that, my head is going to implode. I feel his eyes on me, and when I meet them, I’m surprised to see the man I saw that first night, the one I liked.
“You know what?” he says, incredulous. “I don’t think you do know what I’m talking about. I really don’t. Because when I look at your face, I don’t see the person I read about. What’s wrong with you? How did you let your life wind up like this?”
I close my eyes again and rest my head back. The pressure of the seat against the base of my skull feels good. I have a millisecond of relief.
We’re both still sitting in our cars, speaking through the open windows. The streak of white hair over his ear looks silver in the moonlight. “You’re one to talk,” I say. “Look at you. Blackmail? You don’t seem like the type.”
He shrugs. “Like you, I’ve made some bad calls.”
“So why don’t we just help each other out? I give you what you need to make a clean start; you leave me and my family alone.”
I sound cool and practical, just as Gray would sound in this situation, I imagine. And I do feel calmer than I have in hours. I watch Ophelia. She’s standing right beside Harrison now on the other side of his window. I can see her breath fogging the glass. He’s staring straight ahead, oblivious to her.
“Let me think about it,” he says. Suddenly he seems tired and sad, as if