Golden Girl(91)

The conversation with Justin feels like a breakthrough—but is it?

The Chief decides to call the Greek later and give him an update. Maybe he’ll have some ideas. Meanwhile, the Chief will talk to Jasmine Kelly and see if she can shed some light on who might want to frame Cruz. It’s all he’s got.





Carson




We have to stop, cold turkey, right now. I’m sorry.

The text from Zach comes in while Carson is driving to work and she reads it in the parking lot. No big deal. One or the other of them has a crisis of conscience every week.

She texts back: K.

Immediate response: Please don’t text me again.

Carson sighs. It’s ten minutes to three; her head is vibrating like a tuning fork from the two shots of espresso she did at home. She considers taking an Ativan real quick but worries it will soften her edge, and at the beginning of a seven-hour shift, she needs her edge.

She calls Zach at work. He’s the boss, so he has his own line and an office with a door that locks. He always answers because he doesn’t want Carson leaving a voice mail on his work phone.

“Hello, Zachary Bridgeman.”

“It’s me.”

There’s a pause, during which she can tell he’s thinking about hanging up, but if he hangs up, she’ll call back. He knows she’ll call back. “I can’t talk.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yes.”

“She got your phone?” Carson feels the black syrup of dread drip through her veins.

“No.”

“What, then?”

“She saw you parked across the street from our house in the middle of the night,” Zach says. “She didn’t know it was you then, but she took down the license plate and ran it at work, so now she knows.”

“Shit,” Carson says. Stalking Zach’s house, stalking anyone’s house, is always a bad idea. Now, in the bright light of midafternoon with the intense clarity brought on by mainlining caffeine, Carson can’t fathom what she’d been thinking. Was she thinking Zach would come out to play? Was she thinking she’d be invited inside? “What did she say?”

“She said she thought you were waiting for your drug dealer.”

Carson laughs for the first time since her mother died. “So my bad reputation saved us?”

“It didn’t save us. Pamela isn’t suspicious of you in particular, but she’s suspicious in general. She watches me, Carson. I see her eyeing my phone, and every time I get a text at home, she hovers over my shoulder. I can tell that she looked up our credit card statement online. When I got to work, I checked my car for a tracking device.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“You’re underreacting.”

“She thinks I was meeting my drug dealer.”

“She thinks that now. But if you appear unexpectedly again or something else brings you to her attention, we’re doomed. I promise you the only reason she hasn’t put two and two together is that the idea of you and me is so preposterous.”

“I thought we were going to run away,” Carson says. “But instead, you’re breaking up with me.”

“I’m sorry, Carson. I should never have talked about Paris or Alaska. I was caught up.”

“That was your heart talking.”

“I think the world of you.”

“So we’ve gone from you being madly in love with me to you thinking the world of me. Do you want to write me a letter of recommendation for my next inappropriate lover? List my attributes? Rave about my performance?”

“I knew this would happen.”

Carson can’t handle his tone. “You knew what would happen? That I’d fall in love with you because I’m so young and impressionable and you’re such a lady-slayer?”

“I knew things would end badly,” Zach says. “But you have to believe me when I tell you that they aren’t ending as badly as they could have.”

“I wish I could tape you,” Carson says, “and then play you back to yourself when you’re begging to see me in three days.”

“That’s not going to happen, Carson. Pamela and I are driving up to Maine this weekend to see Peter. I’m going to use that as a chance to reconnect with my wife.”

Gah! Did he really just say that? Carson thinks. Reconnect with my wife?

“Did you find a room at some cute little bed-and-breakfast with lots of chintz and a house cat named Mittens and popovers and fresh-squeezed juice in the common room starting at eight sharp?”

“Yes,” Zach says, a hint of misery creeping into his voice. “I did.”

“Tell me you love me,” Carson says.

“I can’t.”

“Tell me you love me!” Carson says, so loudly that a mother packing up her kids after a day at Jetties Beach turns around to stare. Carson flips her off.

“I can’t, Carson. I’m sorry. Please don’t call me again. Goodbye.” Zach hangs up.



Carson throws her phone at the dashboard; the screen cracks down the middle, just like her heart. She stares out the windshield at the Oystercatcher. She can’t work; she’ll have to call in sick. It’s three o’clock on the nose. If she calls in, she’ll be leaving them in the lurch, big-time. She has nothing left but this job.