Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins #5) - Julia Keller Page 0,57

would listen, and he would guide her toward the correct course of action, and she could finally go one way or the other way. She could forgive Clay or she could tell him that she couldn’t forgive him—not now, not ever—and that they needed to move on, both of them, in separate directions, toward separate futures. No hard feelings.

Feelings. Those were the real culprits. Those were the guilty parties in this mess. If she did not feel what she felt for Clay Meckling—a lively and beguiling sexual attraction, an immense respect for his intelligence and his work ethic and his ambitions, plus a quiet comfort in just being in his presence, all of which added up to the simple fact that she was in love with the man—if she didn’t have that to reckon with, she would not be in this fix in the first place.

He was all wrong for her in a hundred different ways. He was too young, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay in Acker’s Gap long-term. They did not have any of the same friends. They had very few shared life experiences. Their relationship over the past four years had been up and down. On and off.

But she loved him, she loved him passionately, and his absence from her life for the past couple of weeks—her idea, not his—had made everything on her prosecutorial plate harder, from the violent deaths of Darlene Strayer and the two old ladies, to the less urgent but still perplexing deaths of three residents of the Terrace.

Damn, Bell thought. I wish …

What? What did she wish, when it came to her and Clay?

She did not really know.

Nick read her mind. Or at least it seemed that he had, because he said, “Things aren’t great, I take it, with Clay. Something happened.” Before she could get mad at him, tell him it was none of his damned business—she was just about to do just that, and he knew it—he held up a hand to head off her wrath. “You don’t have to confirm or deny. Don’t like to pry into your personal life, Belfa. You know that. All I want to say is that Clay Meckling’s a fine man. Never known a finer one. Whatever you two are going through—work it out. He’s worth it. And you’re worth it.”

Bell gave him a hard, steady glare, like a Buick with its high beams on. She hoped he would keep up his little mind-reading trick for just a few more seconds and pick up on what she was thinking with all her might:

You don’t know. You don’t know what it is that he did.

She did not say anything, though. They had strayed too far off the topic of what she had come here to talk about. They both sensed it.

“So,” he said. “You’ll keep on asking questions out at the Terrace.”

“Yes. I’ve got a hunch that somehow it all starts there. Somebody knows something. So I have to pry it loose. A little bit at a time, if I have to.”

“Depressing place. Went there once myself. Mary Sue’s great uncle needed a ride to go see an old Army buddy who’d just moved in. We sat in that visitors’ lounge for about an hour. Felt like about eight hours, you know? All those sad folks, shuffling along. Asking the same questions over and over again. ‘What day is it?’ You’d tell ’em, and then a minute later, you would get it again: ‘What day is it?’ Skin and bones, a lot of ’em. They forget how to eat, is how it was explained to me. They waste away, not remembering the names of their children or the year they were born or where the hell they are. Sure you’re ready for that on a regular basis?”

“Of course not. Who could be ready for that?”

“Point taken.”

“If those three old people died of natural causes—which is what it looks like—I’ll be able to ascertain that quickly and then move on. Get the hell out.” Bell smiled a rueful smile. “Until the day they finally stick me in a little room over there. For keeps. Or you. Or any of us. No telling what the future holds, Nick. That’s the hell of it.”

He used his thumbnail to pick at a spot he saw on the table. There may or may not have been an actual spot. Truth was, he did not want to look Bell in the eye right now, because a thickness had