Corbin’s stomach had tightened, but there was something about Henry’s excitement that was contagious. And the longer he’d known Henry, the more he wanted to please him. “We’d have to be careful. We lucked out with Claire.”
“I know that. I think about that all the time. But don’t forget—we have each other. We could always be each other’s alibis. We’ll always have each other’s backs.”
Below, on the beach, a middle-aged woman was speed-walking near the surf and for one terrible moment Corbin thought that his mom was back at the house. His eyes adjusted and he realized that it didn’t look remotely like her. He plucked the lit cigarette from the ashtray and took a long drag before realizing it was Henry’s. “Sorry, man. I just took a drag off your cigarette.” He put it back next to the stub of the joint they’d smoked.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not my cigarette, it’s our cigarette.”
“I don’t even smoke. I think I’m just stoned.”
“Dude, I know,” Henry said and started to laugh. Corbin joined him, their laughter mixing with the perpetual squawk of gulls.
It was ten months later when they found a candidate. Her name was Linda Alcheri, and Henry had met her in Hartford when he moved there after graduation from Aurelius College. Corbin was back in New York City, where he’d been offered an entry-level job at Briar-Crane.
“Thing about her,” Henry said on the phone, “was that she started telling me how much she loved me about a week after we started seeing each other. It’s bullshit, though, I know it. For one, she started saying it the night I took her to a really expensive restaurant. Not a coincidence, I’d say.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s being unfaithful.”
“Oh, I think she’d hook up with anyone if she thought there was something in it for her. I think she’d take one look at the way you wear a Brooks Brothers shirt and drop me like a hot potato.”
So, Corbin came up during a weekend when Linda Alcheri was throwing herself a birthday party at her apartment. Linda lived in a complex in West Hartford, and the party was taking place on a shared roof deck. Henry begged off early, but Corbin stayed late into the night, until only he and Linda were left. “How are you getting back to Hank’s house?” she asked Corbin. She had to put one of her hands against the railing of the roof deck in order to stay standing.
“You call him Hank?”
“Don’t you?”
“No, I call him Henry.”
“Henry. Hank. Whatever. Where is he, anyhow?” She looked around as though he might still be somewhere on the roof.
Corbin walked her to the bedroom, Linda leaning heavily against him. “Thank you, Corbin,” she said, and gave him a sloppy kiss on the side of his mouth. She entered the room and shut the door behind her. Corbin called Henry on his cell.
“So?” Henry asked.
“She kissed me good night, and now she’s passed out in her bedroom.”
“What kind of kiss?”
“Pretty innocent.”
“You should go crawl into bed with her, see what happens.”
“She’s pretty drunk.”
“Exactly.”
“Nah, man. Come and get me.”
“I’ll come early in the morning. Sleep on her couch.”
Corbin stripped to his boxers and lay on the couch under a fleece blanket. He never slept particularly well, and drinking too much made it worse instead of better. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling of the old apartment. There was glitter in the textured stucco. He worried a little about Henry’s plan to kill again, but he worried more about losing Henry’s friendship. The few times he’d expressed reservations about their plan Henry had looked so disappointed.
“It’s who we are, Corbs,” Henry had said. That was during the winter break, when they’d spent a long weekend skiing at Sunday River. “Besides, how much time do you spend worrying about what happened to Claire Brennan?”
“I don’t,” Corbin said. It wasn’t true. He did think of Claire, but not as often as he used to, and when he did think of her, he reminded himself that Claire had brought him together with Henry. Claire had given him that one thing. A best friend.
“Exactly,” Henry said. “We’ll pick someone else like Claire, someone the world will hardly miss. It’ll be like stepping on a bug.”
Just as the sky outside was getting light, Corbin felt his eyes grow heavy. He closed them, twisting onto his side, and was about to slide into sleep when the sound of bare footsteps on the