Lies She Told(15)

I bite my lip to keep my eyes from watering, again. “I want to have a life with you, David. A family. Why am I the villain for that?”

Rather than answer, he settles into his rotating desk chair. As he does, I realize that I made a mistake before. His office isn’t bereft of photos. There, on the counter, is a stack of new posters. Each one bears multiple images of Nick, apparently nabbed from Facebook. Instead of Nick staring straight at the camera with a confident, lawyer look, he’s laughing with friends at a table, smoking a cigarette beside a brick wall, pointing to a bar sign. These are flattering photos.

“I need to work.” He turns his desk chair to his computer screen, dismissing me. Part of me wants to slap him so hard that the seat spins back around to face me. Another part wants to leap into his lap and kiss him until he has no choice but to acknowledge the intimacy that I’m rightfully entitled to as his wife. My fear won’t allow either of those sides to show their faces, though. I’ll never win an argument with David.

“Okay. I’ll go to the house,” I say quietly. “I’ll stop in Flushing on the way.”

I leave the door open as I exit, praying that he might change his mind. The hope persists until I’m through the midtown tunnel. As I watch the brake lights shine in the artificial darkness, miles below the East River, I realize that he is not going to surprise me in the Hamptons. He’s staying in New York, waiting for whatever the cops will dredge from the water.

*

A summer Friday afternoon is the worst time to drive to Long Island. The financial set clears out of the city as soon as the markets shut down at four. Everyone else who can afford a rental gets on the road even earlier. By four thirty, the traffic on I-495 is as thick and sluggish as cold gravy. It continues consolidating as it travels deeper into the heart of Queens, cholesterol-filled blood forcing itself through narrowing veins. We all know it’s only a matter of time before it stops completely.

I get trapped in bumper to bumper near Corona Park, where the Grand Central Parkway intersects New York’s main east–west artery. Part of me wants to sit in traffic and forget about the police academy to spite my spouse. The other part of me knows visiting my contact is the sole reason that I am in this mess of cars in the first place. I have to help David find out what happened to Nick so that we can move on with our lives once and for all.

I escape the gridlock by heading north. Traffic is still heavy, but it’s moving. Within five minutes, I’m sailing on the Whitestone Expressway. Another three minutes and I’m pulling into the home of NYPD’s new recruits.

The two-year-old building still shines like a new nickel. Skinny maples line the parking lot, their trunks the size of my thin arms. Very young trees are cheaper to plant, but I prefer to think these saplings were chosen for their metaphorical qualities. Like the men and women inside, they yearn to mature over long lives into something solid and powerful.

I smile and think of Beth. That line would never emerge from her lips. She’s no romantic. At least, not anymore.

I park in the stadium-sized lot in front of the facility and make my way to a massive portico. Its rectangular shape reminds of a giant metal detector. Walking under it, my keys don’t feel as though they belong in my jeans’ pocket. Glass doors lie on the other side. I pull one back and enter a wide open space that resembles a hotel entrance rather than a police station. The whole building smells faintly of glass cleaner and gunpowder, though the latter scent may be from my memories of the in-house shooting range.

I’d forgotten the size of this place. It was a mistake thinking that I could barge in and talk to an instructor who had me in class for a mere week. Sergeant Perez must train hundreds of real officers responsible for public lives, let alone writers trying to get fictional details right in shootout scenes. Why would he remember me?

For a moment, I think about leaving without approaching the annoyed-looking female officer manning the visitors’ desk. I could always tell David that I couldn’t locate my contact. Of course, then I wouldn’t get to be the hero wife who helps her husband move on from his friend’s death and is rewarded with regular sex and a healthy full-term infant.

The desk officer’s full cheeks and bright eyes make me guess that she’s no older than twenty-two. Still, she watches me approach with the clinical gaze of a seasoned detective. My tentative walk and sheepish expression do not do me any favors. By the time I reach the desk, she’s staring at me as though I’ve come to sell her magazine subscriptions. She demands my name in the gruff manner that I imagine she’d use to dole out loitering tickets. I provide it and my license, along with a rushed explanation of my purpose at the academy and my history with Sergeant Perez. “He said I could call him when I graduated, but since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d stop by.”

Her look suggests that she has not decided whether or not I’m a mental patient. Even with the jury out, though, she plugs Sergeant Perez’s name into a field on her computer screen and calls up his extension. A man picks up on the third ring.

The officer doesn’t do me any favors with her introduction. She explains that she has “a woman here” who “says she is from a writers’ workshop” and “claims that you know her.” She covers the handset and rolls her eyes up at me. “What did you say your name was?”

“Liza Cole. I’m an author.” Her eyes don’t show any recognition, but I don’t expect them to. While I’ve written half a dozen thrillers, only one of them had the kind of success capable of making me a household name—and that was years ago. I clear my throat. “I wrote Drowned Secrets.”