A Darkness Absolute (Casey Duncan #2)(108)
“Will I get one if I ask?”
She adjusts herself on the stool. “I find you interesting, Casey. That’s a safe version of the fascinating men I once fell for. In you, I can have a friend whose company I enjoy, with whom I can engage in a lively debate without potentially sacrificing any of myself, as I do if I indulge in that with a lover.”
“I’d argue that you can lose some of yourself in a friendship gone wrong, but I understand the gist of what you’re saying.”
“You’re referring to Diana, of course. Yes, that’s true, but in regards to us, if I’m going to share anything more personal with you, I need to know it’s safe.”
“That I won’t tell Eric? That depends. If you confess you’ve caught Mathias doing or saying something that would prove he’s my perpetrator, then I have to tell my boss.”
“I’d have told you that already. I may trade in secrets, but I know which ones I shouldn’t keep. You ask me why I reject Mathias. What I see in him that makes me wary. I’ll give you a story for an answer.” She takes a deep gulp of her beer and then makes a face. “Poor excuse for an alcoholic beverage.”
“Because it has less than five percent alcohol. Which means it isn’t really beer at all.”
“Agreed. But that’s the responsible thing to do.” She drains her glass. “I’ll pretend that was enough to loosen my tongue. When I was completing my doctorate, I had an affair with one of my professors. Yes, terribly cliché of me. Worse, he fit the cliché to a tee. Middle-aged and married. Told me his wife didn’t understand him. And I never felt a moment’s guilt. If she couldn’t keep him happy, I was welcome to him.” She shakes her head. “Do you ever look back on your younger self and just want to slap her?”
I smile. “Sometimes.”
“I cringe even remembering myself back then. I was so smug. It didn’t help that he’d pursued me. Not unlike Mathias, he made me feel like I was the perfect woman: bright, confident, attractive, interesting. At that age, I bought it. I fell for him so hard that I even started slowing when I passed wedding shops, torn between What am I thinking? and Oooh, that cream-colored one would look amazing. I never told him any of that, but when he’d hint at divorce, I wouldn’t argue. Then he got an opportunity to teach overseas. We talked about me going with him, but in the end, he set me free. That’s what he called it. Setting me free. He may have even said something about me spreading my wings.” She makes gagging noises, and I laugh.
“I ate it up,” she says. “I fell even more in love with this man, who was willing to give me up for my own good, my own growth. He would come to visit, and I remained faithful to him. Three years passed. Then through complete happenstance, I came across his name … attached to a university in Washington State. He’d been living there for over a year while letting me continue believing he was thousands of miles away. He was still married and had a new girlfriend, too. I went from being the love of his life to his backup mistress. For years I let him lie and manipulate me into honestly believing that everything he did, he did for my sake, my freedom, my happiness.”
“Bastard.”
“Total bastard. And do you know what he said when I confronted him? Told me he’d only given me what I wanted, and it was my own fault for letting him. Not one moment’s remorse. I’d been a trifling amusement. A conquest. Even after he found a new girlfriend, he kept me around because, as he put it, he felt sorry for me, not having anyone else in my life.”
She takes a deep drink of the beer. “And that, Casey, sums up Mathias. To him, we are all trifling amusements. Bit players in his life drama.”
She’s right, of course. Mathias exists in an alternate reality of his own making, where the rest of us aren’t quite human. Does that make him someone who’d kill without remorse? Possibly. Kill like this? That’s harder to say.
SIXTY
I’m standing on the edge of the woods with Storm as she paces the confines of her leash. Something scampers through the newly fallen snow, and she bolts, yanking my arm hard enough to remind me it may be time to start training or I’ll be taking up leash-sledding as my new sport.
“We have to wait for Eric,” I say, which of course she doesn’t understand, but I say it anyway, as if offering up my excuse to the universe.
Storm whines and tugs and gives me a reproachful look, and I feel the full weight of that reproach. We shouldn’t need to wait for Dalton. It’s barely four in the afternoon, and I’m armed.
I’m learning to hate the darkness. By midafternoon, it has stolen my day, forcing me to behave as if it’s midnight instead. But with a killer loose, I wouldn’t want Dalton wandering the woods alone after dark, so I’m not going to do it myself.
When Storm yanks again, I plunk my ass down in the snow. I’m wearing a snowmobile suit, in preparation for puppy gamboling and, yes, inadvertent leash-sledding. So I get comfortable there, earning me looks from Storm that pass reproachful and slide into full-out glower.
“Wait.” That’s a word she’s going to need to add to her vocabulary so I might as well start now. “Wait.”
She resumes wandering. I stare into the forest, letting my mind slide to my day. I’m working through Mathias as a suspect, tallying the plus and minus columns, yet another name, another face, keeps sneaking in.