The Stillwater Girls(24)

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I wink and ensure that my tone is pleasant so that he has nothing more to worry about, no reason to try to keep pushing me toward Cate.

“Check out this view.” He changes the subject, turning his phone toward his hotel room window, showing me an emerald paradise with a gentle river cutting through it. “The Amazon.”

I don’t know what to say. It’s picturesque, of course, but it would be more beautiful in person, and not seeing it in person is a reminder that I’m here, back home, in a gray, wintry northern state, and I’m only here because of something he did.

“When do you have to go shoot?” I ask him as I take a sip of my coffee. The plate of fresh melon and strawberries and hot buttered toast sitting beside me has turned to room temperature, my appetite nonexistent. I prepared my breakfast out of habit, as if my subconscious is longing for something normal and familiar to hold on to, but now it’s nothing more than a waste.

“In about an hour,” he says, checking his watch—the one I gave him on our first anniversary. It still looks new, the leather of the band oiled regularly and the crystal free from scratches. If only he’d put that much love and care into the important things . . . “I’m going to meet another photog for breakfast in the lobby.”

I pause for a second, swallowing all the things I really want to say. “You didn’t tell me there were going to be other photographers there.”

“There are tons.” He smiles, face lit. Overcompensating, maybe? “I swear I told you this, Nic. Nat Geo magazine wants to see how different photographers capture the rain forest through their own lenses. It’s a huge project. Remember . . . we talked about it a few months ago?”

Now that he mentions it, I vaguely recall him bringing it up over dinner one evening, but I was only half listening because I figured I’d be in Florida by then and the details wouldn’t matter.

Exhaling, I wish to myself that I could stop looking for invisible cracks and pin-size holes in everything he tells me, in everything he does, but until I have answers, I imagine this will be my new normal.

“Right, right,” I say, forcing a smile into my tone to counteract my implied accusation from a moment ago.

“Anyway, I should get going.” He moves the phone around with him as he slips into shoes, and I have to look away so I don’t get dizzy from the blur of colors happening on the screen. He sure seems to be in a hurry. “Can’t wait to come home. Miss you already.”

He steadies the phone and flashes his handsome smile, the one that used to make my knees buckle and my insides flutter. The one that made me miss him so much it physically hurt—even if he was only on the other side of the room.

Those were the days . . .

“When I get back, maybe we can go away for a while? You and me? Someplace warm?” Even from his perch light-years away, he won’t stop looking at me like I’m two seconds from falling apart.

Maybe I am.

And maybe he sees that.

Glancing out the picture windows that flank our fieldstone fireplace, I stare into a desolate forest void of leaves, void of color, void of life.

As soon as I hang up, I’m going to make an appointment with my doctor. I’m going to need my meds bumped up to get through this winter because I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep digging, turning over rock after rock, until I uncover the truth.

I know it’s out there . . .

And something tells me it’s hiding in plain sight.



Scrolling through my contacts, I stop when I get to Dr. Dewdney, my attention caught on the name above.

Davis Gideon—my brother-in-law.

I haven’t seen or spoken with him since the last time he was over for dinner, when he’d overdone it on the alcohol and made an ass of himself, slurring his words and spewing rudeness at the only two people who had ever been there for him in his nearly forty years.

It was over a lovingly prepared dinner of chicken saltimbocca, porcini and button mushroom risotto, and chilled Riesling that I’d casually mentioned to Davis that Brant and I were thinking of becoming foster parents. Davis almost choked on a sip of the Busch Light he’d brought from home before asking me what made me think I was qualified for something like that.

I discounted his comment, chalking it up to typical Davis behavior. The man lives to stir the pot, loves to get a reaction. Any time spent with him tends to go one of two ways: it’s fine, or it isn’t. Most of the time we disregard his attention-seeking behavior, but Brant couldn’t ignore this one.

My husband made him leave after that, taking his keys, calling him a ride, and sitting with him outside until he was picked up because, ever the loyal brother, he still couldn’t bring himself to completely abandon Davis in his time of need.

The moment was as sweet as it was heartbreaking.

I stayed in the house, cleaning up the dinner mess, trying in vain to make sense of my brother-in-law’s remark before deciding it was a giant waste of time because he’s . . . Davis.

And Davis says a lot of things.

When my brother-in-law had finally left and my husband returned inside, I told him he didn’t have to do that. He stopped before me, looking for a moment as if he was about to say something profound.

His hand lifted.

And fell.

And then he trudged upstairs to his studio, where he stayed until well past midnight.