A Good Marriage(100)

Fucking Zach. Could I say for sure that a better husband would have been paying close enough attention to see that Amanda needed help? That they might have even saved her from whatever terrible thing had happened to her the night she died? No. I, of all people, could not say that. I could not even say for sure that Amanda had delusional disorder, much less that it was directly tied to her death. But thinking of how tragically isolated Amanda had been was making my chest ache.

“I’m looking for Millie Faber,” I said once I’d made my way to the nurse’s station.

The nurse scanned a list of names. “Room six oh three. Down the hall and to the left.” She pointed without looking up.

I made my way down the hushed hallway, the stillness back there even worse than the sick, shuffling crowd up front. At least those patients had been able to move. In the back, everyone seemed confined to their beds. How could Millie have seemed okay yesterday, only to be staying on the extra sick hallway today? Of course, my mother had gone from completely fine to absolutely dead in seconds. Also, Millie hadn’t actually seemed fine.

I knocked gently as I pushed open the door to 603, relieved to see Millie sitting upright in a corner chair, laptop on her knees, papers spread out across the dirty linoleum floor. She was in a well-fitting navy-blue sweat suit, not a hospital gown, and she had not lost her hair overnight or shed any more pounds.

“Are you supposed to be doing that?” I asked.

“Doing what?” Millie’s tone was gruff, her eyes still on her computer screen. But her face had brightened for a second when she heard my voice.

“Working,” I said.

She shrugged. “It’s work or worry. Better to keep busy.”

The longer I stared at Millie, the worse she looked, though. “It’s more serious than you said, isn’t it?” I asked.

Millie frowned, eyes locked on her computer. She was quiet for a moment more. Finally, she looked up at me. “It had already metastasized by the time they found it—lung, bones, and liver. The trifecta. Apparently, it’s very unique. Lucky me.”

“Millie, holy shit.” I dropped myself down hard on the nearby windowsill. “I’m so—”

Millie held up a hand. “You know I don’t want pity. What I do want to talk about is how goddamn stupid it was for you to go up there. I thought we had an agreement?”

“Go up where?”

She scowled. “Let’s not lie right to my face. Sam told me.”

“Sam?” I asked. “You don’t even have his number.”

“I went by your house this morning, on my way here,” she said flatly. “Had a feeling you’d gone AWOL. I am a detective, remember?”

Sam had known I was headed to St. Colomb Falls. I’d thrown it at him like a threat: If something happens to me, it will be all your fault. Everything was Sam’s fault now.

“And what did Sam have to say, exactly?”

Millie put the folder down on her lap and rested her hands on top of it. They looked old, bony. “That you’d gone upstate to talk to the dead woman’s father. Who, if I’m not mistaken, you suspect of killing her.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “But Sam didn’t seem to know that part. He seemed confused why you were helping some random guy charged with murder in the first place. There was a lot he didn’t seem to know. Nice guy, though. Chatty.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Had she caught Sam buzzed at noon?

“Well, among other things, I could tell he didn’t have a clue who I was.” She lifted her chin and leveled her bloodshot eyes at me.

I moved my mouth to say something. But what? Please can we not do this now? Can we not do it ever? Millie seemed to register the panic in my eyes. Her face softened.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I would have postponed this nonsense by a day if you’d told me you were going to go yourself.”

“It couldn’t wait,” I said, then motioned to the hospital room. “And you couldn’t postpone this.”

“It can always wait. Trust me. This guy isn’t worth risking your life for.”

“It couldn’t wait,” I said again. “For my sake.”

“What does that mean?”

I took a deep breath. I was out of places to hide. “Zach Grayson is extorting me,” I said. “He’s using some compromising information to make me stay on the case until he’s cleared.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“Tell him to fuck off then!” Millie shouted.

“You do know how extortion works, right?” I asked. “You tell them to fuck off, and then they do the bad things you don’t want them to do.”

“Wait, this isn’t about—”

“No, no,” I said. “Zach doesn’t know about that. At least, as far as I know.”

“Then what the hell else could he possibly have on you?” She sniffed. Then she leaned in, an eyebrow raised again. “Wait, you didn’t go to one of those sex parties, did you?”

I shook my head. “It’s Sam. He’s an … alcoholic.” The word tore at my throat even now. “That’s where the problem started. The rest spirals out from there. There’s a lawsuit relating to a car accident Sam had, and now we owe a lot of money. I lied about it on a financial disclosure form when I took the job at Young & Crane, because I was worried they wouldn’t hire me. And we so badly needed the money to dig us out of debt. For sure, they’ll fire me if Zach tells them. I could be disbarred. It would ruin my career.”