Confessions on the 7:45(60)

The face swam before his eyes, oddly familiar. He knew her. He’d seen her before. And he never forgot a face. There was a tingle in the back of his skull as he dug through the recesses of his memory. Where? When?

“What’s up?” asked Andrew, who had come to stand behind him. “You know her?”

“Maybe,” said Hunter.

After they’d followed up this lead, he’d go back home and scour his old files. He’d make some calls from the car. He wasn’t as sharp as he used to be. But he’d remember eventually.

Everybody counts. Of all the faces of all the missing kids he’d searched for, the murder victims for whom he’d sought some justice, the rape victims whom he’d promised would someday feel safe again when their attacker was caught, he’d never forgotten a single one.



TWENTY-FOUR

Selena

“How did you sleep?” she asked Oliver, phone on speaker.

Will’s bed was as enormous and soft as a cumulous cloud. She let herself sink in. In spite of everything, she’d had the best night’s sleep she’d had in a while.

“Okay.” Oliver had his pouty voice on, sleepy. He must have called her the second he opened his eyes.

“What’s Paulo making for breakfast?” she asked, trying to keep it light.

“He said pancakes. I can hear him in the kitchen.”

“Your favorite!” Her bright tone sank into the silence.

“When can I come home?”

“I”—not “we.” He couldn’t care less about Stephen; would leave him there if he could, wouldn’t he? Was that normal?

“Really soon,” she said.

“That’s not an answer, Mom.”

“Just,” she said, took a breath. “Just go to school today. And by the time you get home this afternoon, I’ll have an answer.”

It might not be the answer you want, she thought but didn’t say. At any rate, tonight she would stay at her mother’s. She wasn’t going home to Graham. Staying at Cora’s might be the answer for now. For her and the boys.

“Okay,” he said. She listened to the rasp of his breath.

The sheets were divine, crisp and silky all at once. Cost a fortune, she was sure. Will had taught her everything she knew about wine and art, about expensive fabrics, design. The sun was just peeking through the drawn dove-gray drapes. She pushed the button on the remote by the bed and watched as they glided silently open, revealing the milky gray of a city view.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Still sleeping.” She felt a pang of guilt. But it wasn’t a lie. He probably was still sleeping, even if she wasn’t there to say for sure.

“Did he sleep in his office again?”

You really couldn’t fool your children, no matter how smart you thought you were.

“How did you sleep?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Stephen snored. All night.”

Selena heard Will get up from the couch in the living room, where he’d slept. She listened to his footfalls as he headed down the hall to the bathroom.

They’d talked late into the night, she in a pair of his sweatpants and college T-shirt. He made a fire and they talked about Graham—how things had been hard since the kids were born. She didn’t tell him everything. They talked about Geneva, about what might have happened to her, about the woman from the train, what she wanted. She had another glass of wine with him, was sleepy and relaxed in his company, in the dim light of the room.

“I hate that it’s like this,” he said. “But it’s good having you here. Nice talking to you like this again. I’ve missed it—missed you. All these years.”

She didn’t know what to say. Had she missed him? Sometimes. Maybe. Missed what she imagined might have been. But life didn’t work that way. You didn’t know what lay on the road not traveled.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I know—it’s complicated.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she said. “I’ve always been sorry about that.”

He shrugged. “Love is a lightning bolt. Sometimes there’s no avoiding it. We don’t always choose who we love or why. We can’t make ourselves love someone we don’t.”

I do love you, she wanted to say. I did. Maybe I didn’t even know what love was then. But she didn’t say that, just stared at the fire. Then, “And Bella? Was that a lightning bolt?”

He smiled a little. “Bella? I think we were just really great friends and confused that for love.”

“There are worse things to base a marriage on.”

She should know.

“Yeah,” he said. “But ultimately it’s not enough. You need the heat first, the passion. If it cools and leaves friendship, that can work. But if it’s never there, there’s always something missing. And—you know—she really liked girls. Always had, just couldn’t come to terms with it. Until she did.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, releasing a breath. “I know how it feels to discover someone you love is not who you think.”

“I guess you do.”

He kept his distance, giving her the couch, sitting in the big chair across from her. The room was filled with the electricity of mistakes about to be made. It would have been so easy. But. No. She was faithful and so was he. No matter what Graham had done, she wouldn’t cheat.