Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(37)

From where she is, she probably can’t see Zoe, who has her back to her, and of course she has no idea that he’s trapped in a conversation about Carrie.

Carrie, unlike Allison, would never have considered Ben and Randi friends—much less family—and insisted that they come here tonight.

Allison was right, of course. They had to come. But now . . .

Obviously thinking the same thing he is, she raises a questioning eyebrow and lifts a thumb, jerking it in the direction of the nearest tent flap.

God, yes, he tells her silently, with a slight nod.

God, I love my wife, he thinks, and turns back to Zoe Edelman—make that Zoe Jennings—to make his excuses and get the hell out of here.





Chapter Six

Rocky Manzillo trudges wearily up the front steps, glad to see that there are no soggy plastic-bagged newspapers littering the stoop this time. He’d finally remembered on Thursday night—after coming home to three days’ worth of rain-soaked New York Posts—to ask his next-door neighbor to grab the day’s paper whenever it’s still sitting there at noon.

The neighborhood is far from the most dangerous area in the Bronx, but it’s definitely not as safe as it was when Rocky was born here sixty years ago—or, for that matter, when he and Ange were raising their three boys here twenty-five, thirty years ago. And you don’t have to be a cop to know that it’s never a great idea to advertise an empty house.

Then again, for all Rocky cares right now, anyone can walk right in and help himself. Material possessions? Who gives a shit about any of that?

As long as you’ve got your health . . .

Funny. It was Ange who always went around saying that, and Rocky who rolled his eyes about all those checkups and medical tests she wanted him to have. She worried about him.

And I never worried about anything. Ever. Not even about Ange.

But that was certainly not because he didn’t love her. She was his childhood playmate and high school sweetheart; his bride; the mother of his children; his best friend. Ange is his whole world.

It’s just that Rocky has never been the kind of guy who goes around worrying about terrible things that might happen. When you’re a homicide detective with the NYPD, you’ve got your hands full enough trying to do something about all the terrible things that already have happened.

This . . . this is worse than anything Rocky could ever have imagined. To see his wife lying there in the trauma unit, comatose, with a breathing tube down her throat and a feeding tube in her stomach, day after day, week after week . . .

Swallowing over the lump that took up permanent residence in the back of his throat when Ange suffered her brain aneurysm in August, Rocky unlocks the door and steps into the entry hall.

Right away, he notices that the house smells funny.

When Ange was here, it always smelled like whatever she was cooking or baking, and it smelled like her freesia-scented bath gel, and it smelled clean.

Now it smells—not dirty, exactly, but dusty. Musty. Not clean. Not like food, or freesia, or Ange.

That’s because Ange isn’t here; hasn’t been here in almost two months; might never . . .

No. Don’t you dare go there.

Rocky pushes forward, through the living room, where the shades are drawn, and the dining room, where the good tablecloth is covered with a clear plastic one and a crystal vase of peach-colored silk flowers sits precisely in the center. On either side are long peach tapers set into the matching crystal candlesticks Ange’s sister Carm, their doting junior bridesmaid, gave them on their wedding day so long ago . . .

Thirty-eight years. The aneurysm struck just a few weeks after they celebrated their thirty-eighth anniversary. At the time, they talked about taking a Caribbean cruise two summers from now, for their fortieth.

“Maybe we’ll bring the kids along,” Ange said.

“On our second honeymoon?” Rocky wondered how the heck they were going to afford a trip like that for the two of them, let alone their three sons, two daughters-in-law, and two grandchildren. “That’s one, two, three . . . six extra people!”

“Eight,” Ange corrected.

“Including you and me. Right. Eight.”

“Ten including you and me.”

“How do you get that?”

Ange smiled her slightly smug secret smile. “You forgot to count Kellie and the baby.”

“Who?”

“Kellie—Donny’s new girlfriend.”

Their youngest, Donny, a musician down in Austin, always has a new girlfriend. Unlike Rocky, Ange keeps track. Kellie was the one who’d visited them in New York with Donny earlier in the summer.

“Okay, so Kel— Wait, baby? What baby?”

“I’ve got a feeling she’s pregnant.” Ange nodded like she does whenever she thinks she’s right about something far-fetched.

Of course, she usually is, especially when it comes to her grandchildren-to-be. She had known somehow that their daughter-in-law Laura was pregnant—despite having given up hope after years of unsuccessful infertility treatments.

“She’s going to get pregnant the old-fashioned way,” Ange said, long before it happened. “You wait and see.”

Rocky waited, and he saw.

“A cruise for ten? What am I, made of money?” Rocky grumbled when Ange made the Kellie prediction.