The Break(52)

So I don’t turn back. I look up as I move toward this man, this creature, and I lock on his gaze again. He’s watching me walk across the room, his eyes on me, not letting go, until something happens that I should have expected and didn’t:

A lithe, white-blond, ethereal woman appears in the doorway behind him.

Rowan O’Sullivan.

I recognize her from an article I read about mystery writers, about all the things female suspense writers get asked about their killers and crime scenes that male writers never do. Her quotes were smart and forward, quippy but weighted. She takes in the room with a small smile on her face, her hand on her very pregnant stomach. High cheekbones; a necklace glittering at her collarbone; and red nail polish—I catch it as she tucks a wisp of hair behind her ear. Her lips part and she says something to Gabe that I can’t make out. He slips an arm around what’s left of her waist, but his eyes never leave mine.

I can feel Harrison tighten beside me, an animal recognizing a threat as we move toward them.

“Gabe, Rowan,” Harrison says in a deep voice as we get closer, so close I can smell Gabe: like the woods, but a little wet and musky, too, like when the sun sets and leaves you freezing cold.

“I’d like you to meet June,” Harrison says. His voice is all business, and I try to snap back into shape, into the person I was just trying to be five minutes ago: June Waters. Potential actress; person of interest. I’ve never, ever been the kind of person interested in another woman’s boyfriend or husband, and I won’t start now.

Rowan smiles, her lips pale and delicate. Gabe drops his arm from her waist and extends a large warm hand. I take it in mine, and I’m so nervous I can barely breathe. Any confidence I had a moment ago seems to have evaporated in their presence; they’re both so very golden, like the actors who come into WTA, or the people I pass on the street and fall in love with every day: New Yorkers, all of them, artistic and edgy. I let Gabe hold my hand a beat too long and wonder if this city, these creative people, will be the end of me.

He is magic. It’s in his gaze, his eyes locked on mine, the way he feels in the room. I pray his personality is terrible and spoils the spell of this moment—because wouldn’t that be so much easier?

Gabe O’Sullivan. Rowan O’Sullivan.

Married, expecting a baby.

I turn away from them.

“Let’s sit,” I say to Harrison. He blinks at me. He knows.

“Good luck tonight,” I say to Gabe. And I mean it.





TWENTY-SEVEN


Rowan. Friday afternoon. November 11th.


An NYPD police detective is here in our apartment.

It’s hard to think those words, to even understand them.

We’re not at the precinct because we’re not under suspicion of having done anything, but Detective Louis Mulvahey is here with a solemn face like we’re at least guilty of something, and maybe he’s right. He’s well over six feet and somewhere around my age with a close-cropped haircut and a hole in his earlobe that he probably regrets. He’s sitting in the living room, looking down at a notebook. I think of how many times I’ve written this scene in one of my novels, and it strikes me as so ridiculous that I almost laugh.

It’s only five p.m., but dusk has spread like a bruise and plunged us into darkness. Lila’s in her bassinet, and my body is my own for the moment. I watch her tiny stomach go up, down, up, down, and the craziest thing is that I know I’ll miss her in my arms within the hour, and I’ll pray for her to hurry and wake up so I can hold her again. This strikes me as more insane than everything I’ve done the past few weeks: that I can love this small person more than I’ve ever loved anyone on the entire planet after only knowing her for four weeks. After my mom’s, when I could finally park the car and get her wailing body into the safety of my arms, it felt like the biggest relief I’d ever known. And when she nursed hungrily, feverishly—I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that grateful for my body.

The detective flips his notebook pages. We’re sitting across from him, and he’s been going at us easily for about a half hour, mostly getting background information on June’s employment here, asking nothing urgent or scary or accusing. But I have a feeling he’s working up to it. How could he not be?

Like I said: I’ve written this scene before.

“So, just to review, Mrs. O’Sullivan,” the detective says slowly, acting dumber than he is. I’ve told him at least twice to call me by my first name. “You met with June in the café to apologize.”

“I did,” I say. My eyes are still on Lila. Gabe shifts his weight on the sofa beside me. I can feel the four of us edging toward something, but I’m ready for it. “And like I said, I saw her leave with her roommate, Sean. And that’s the last time I saw her.”

“We can’t seem to get ahold of Sean,” Detective Mulvahey says. “We’ve left several messages, but his phone is going straight to voice mail. You haven’t heard from him, have you?”

“I haven’t,” I say, getting impatient now. “Look, what I did to her was wrong,” I say, pushing the detective toward the place he wants to go, guiding him, because the waiting is worse than whatever he’s planning to dish out. “I’m sure she was frightened,” I go on, and I give him all my focus now; I need him to understand that I would never hurt her. “I wanted her to know it wasn’t her fault,” I say.