Every Last Fear(59)

“You want to get some ice cream?” Liv asked, trying to change the subject.

Her son’s questions stayed with Liv as she watched ice cream drip down Tommy’s arm at Sullivan’s Ice Cream. She’d been thinking a lot about death herself lately, but she supposed it was her age, her father’s condition, perhaps. Maybe it was Evan’s blowout fight with Matt over the holidays, the two still not speaking to each other. Maybe it was the Supreme Court denying Danny’s appeal. Maybe it was Maggie graduating and soon leaving them for college. Maybe it was knowing this town, her childhood community, hated her.

She scanned the ice cream shop. Only a few customers sat at the small circular tables, and no one seemed to be paying them any mind. The girl behind the counter was about fifteen, so maybe she didn’t know or care about the documentary.

“A Violent Nature” had been a blessing and a curse. A blessing, since it had rallied the public—not to mention some top lawyers offering pro bono assistance—to help Danny. A curse, because it subjected her family to the ugly in the world, the haters, mostly disappointed middle-aged men sitting behind computer screens and spewing venom.

She thought of Officer White’s face yesterday. The hatred in her eyes. What would’ve happened if Glen Elmore hadn’t shown up? Liv was being silly. The cop was just trying to scare her. Liv was fourth-generation Adair, so one would think they’d cut her a break. But the town was unforgiving. It was a wonder that her sister chose to stay behind. And she hoped her father would never understand the dreadful turn of events. He’d loved this place, as had she, and it would devastate him.

She thought again about the empty plots next to her mother’s grave. Would she someday be buried there? That was what her will instructed. So did Evan’s. But they’d made those choices when the kids were little. Before Danny’s arrest and imprisonment, before “A Violent Nature.”

The world was divided into before and after those events.

Liv’s world had been secretly divided even further. Before the affair with Noah, and after. In the wake of Danny’s arrest, she’d vowed to leave Noah in the past. To never be alone with him, and avoid even talking to him if possible. It had been a mistake fueled by too much wine and, for lack of a better excuse, a midlife crisis. Liv had chosen this life, giving up a career to raise a family in a small town. But as the children grew older and needed her less—and as she and Evan had lost themselves to parenting—she started entertaining fantasies about where life could’ve taken her. She was still an attractive woman, but she wasn’t getting any younger. And the heads she turned these days were typically topped with gray. She didn’t want to admit it, but her looks had always been a big part of her identity. What would she be when they were gone? When the kids were gone? Then she’d run into Noah at the supermarket, of all places.

One thing led to another, as they say. It lasted exactly one month. She’d visit him at his office and he’d bend her over his mahogany desk. She’d straddle him in the front seat of the car parked in a cornfield they’d frequented as teenagers. She’d slink to his hotel when he stayed the night in Lincoln for work. The sneaking around—the risk—was part of the thrill, if she was honest about it. Noah had been a single man since his wife died, but the lieutenant governor sleeping with a married woman would still be a scandal in conservative Nebraska. And she of course could lose everything.

In a way she did.

The night Charlotte was killed, Evan had been out of town for work. Liv met Noah at the hotel and told him it was over. They talked until three in the morning—much of it him trying to convince her to leave her husband—but she held her ground. The affair was an illusion, Noah lonely and isolated after Vicki’s death, Liv lonely and isolated in the throes of domestic life. She loved her family, loved Evan.

That night she’d fallen asleep, and when she awoke he was gone—left to tend to the house party that changed her life. On her drive home, trying to beat Evan’s return from his business trip, she ignored calls from home. When she arrived, Maggie ran outside and told her that the police had taken Danny.

She’d planned on telling Evan about the affair. Planned on telling the police, if they ever asked. But she decided the weight of her betrayal was more than Evan—more than her family—could bear. As it happened, the investigators never asked where she was that night. Why would they? They had their man the moment Danny walked into that station house alone.

She would never forgive herself. So she’d vowed she was done with Noah Brawn. She would never speak with him again. She certainly would never be alone with him. Promised God that if he would just set Danny free, she would never, ever …

But here she was. Planning to go to dinner with him tonight at the same Italian restaurant they’d gone to before senior prom. But why shouldn’t she go? Her fucking vow hadn’t freed her son. Hadn’t brought Evan back to her.

She nearly jumped when her phone rang and her husband’s name appeared on the screen.

“Hey there,” Evan said. “How’s our favorite town?” Evan sounded like he was in good spirits, upbeat. It was so infrequent lately that it was notable.

“It’s been a bizarre trip so far,” Liv said, looking around the ice cream store.

“Yeah? Sorry I missed your call. Your text said you worked things out for your dad. Everything else okay?”