but then rights itself. Good. Not too drunk to manage.
He makes his way to the kitchen and opens what in any other house would be a junk drawer. In Lilian’s kitchen, it’s efficient organization, stamps, pens, a letter opener, notepaper, and other list management materials all neatly separated into compartments. There’s even a to-do list, written in Lilian’s precise hand.
Call yard care
Pick up dry cleaning
Schedule Trey’s sports physical
He closes his eyes. Not enough alcohol on board to protect him from the blow.
“Braden?”
“Yeah. Here.” He scribbles down the address while Alexandra continues with a tirade of bitter I-told-you-sos and then hangs up on her in midsentence. He checks for Allie’s car, still missing from the garage. Just as well, he’s got no business driving.
He books an Uber, makes himself coffee, and swallows it black and scalding.
By the time a car pulls into his driveway, he’s able to walk in a straight line. He’s had plenty of practice functioning under the influence and hopes for a quiet ride in the back seat, but his driver is nosy and eager. She leans across and opens the front passenger door. “You can ride up front! It’s so much easier to have a conversation that way, don’t you think?”
Braden considers closing the door and climbing into the back, but he can’t bring himself to this level of rudeness. He hasn’t been in the car for more than thirty seconds before he regrets his choice.
“I’m Val, and I just love doing this Ubering thing, you know? I get to meet such interesting people and go such interesting places! You, for example. I’d think you’d have your own car.”
“I do,” Braden lies, to hush her.
“Good for you, being responsible about drinking and driving. Going to a party, then? That’s a beautiful neighborhood. I’ve been there.”
Braden maintains his silence, but she doesn’t seem to have heard that it takes two to have a conversation. A glance in his direction and she shakes her head.
“You’re not dressed for a party.”
Which reminds him that he’s rain soaked and muddy, covered in dog hair, and probably encrusted in drool. Nope. Not dressed for a party. He checks through the emotional bandwidth available to him and discovers that he really doesn’t care. He’s exhausted. The warm haze of alcohol has turned into an irritant now that he’s required to think and feel and act. Val’s chatter is a discordant screeching.
“I’m a writer,” she volunteers. “It’s why I drive for Uber. I don’t really need the money, you know. But I meet people and I see all of these different parts of the city, and I hear such fascinating stories!”
She waits expectantly, but Braden remains steadfastly silent.
Val is not a woman to take a hint.
“You, now, for instance.” She glances over at him. “You don’t look like somebody who would go to this neighborhood. You’re a mystery. You could be an investigator, or a red herring, or even the bad guy . . .” She sobers at her own words and glances at him again. “You’re not, though, right? The bad guy?”
“I just need a ride, is all,” Braden says.
The woman’s jaw hardens, her body language shifting to what might be wariness or just a fit of the sulks because he won’t play her game.
“Well, if you don’t want to talk, let’s have some music,” she says after a drawn-out silence long enough for Braden to fervently wish himself into the back of an anonymous yellow cab and not about to be gossip or the villain of some mystery novel. His relief at the idea of music is short lived, as what fills the car is, of course, the last thing in the world he wants to listen to.
“I just love orchestra music, don’t you?” Val asks. “So soulful. This is Beethoven, I think.”
“Bach,” Braden mutters under his breath.
“Pardon?”
“It’s one of Bach’s cello suites. Beethoven didn’t write for cello.”
“Really?” She sounds skeptical, and Braden lets it go. Let her believe what she wants. “Well, it’s beautiful, whatever it’s called.”
Beautiful, yes. Tormentingly, hauntingly beautiful. Braden closes his eyes against it, which doesn’t help, at all, just puts him on stage with the cello, the two of them creating this music in their own way, her soul and his, entwined . . .
“Here we are!” Val chirps.
Braden’s eyes open on a towering, ugly brick house whose whole purpose is to shout that money lives inside. The wrought-iron gates are open, and two cop cars are parked in the cul-de-sac. Parents escort subdued kids out to