Tips for Living(95)

“I’m not sure. I’ve read about people who have.”

Ben became completely still. Silent and unreadable.

“I was worried that you’d think I went to Pequod Point and . . . and that you’d suspect me.”

He looked dazed.

“Ben?”

He finally blinked.

“You’re insane,” he said quietly.

My heart stopped.

He shook his head. “You really think I’d believe you murdered the Walkers because you walk in your sleep? I’ve been sitting one desk away from you for more than two years now. I’ve seen you,” he began ticking off fingers, “depressed, disappointed, sad, confused and, yes, angry—to name a few of your darker moods. I know what you’re capable of. Not murder. Not you. I know your heart, Nora.”

And that heart was singing. It meant so much to hear Ben say he had confidence in my essential goodness. Especially after he’d witnessed my less attractive attitudes.

“I only have one question,” he said.

“What?”

“Will you ever trust me?”

I looked down, uneasy. “I want to. I really do.”

“But?”

“But I’m afraid. I didn’t see that seismic betrayal coming with Hugh. I feel like I should have. Like there’s something wrong with me.”

“Nora. It’s not your fault.”

I looked up. “No?”

Ben reached out and touched my cheek. “You’re supposed to trust the person you’re in a relationship with. That’s the whole point.”

Of course it was. So simple. So true.

“Loving someone is a risk,” he said. “A leap of faith you have to take if you go all-in.”

I knew he was right, but could I let myself jump? I wanted so much to be brave. Ben wiped a tear off my cheek.

“You okay?”

I nodded a little uncertainly.

“Okay. Now we have to put everything into getting these charges dropped. I can call the criminal lawyer in the city—his name is Marhofer—and put him in touch with Gubbins to bring him up to speed. I think Gubbins will cooperate.”

I noticed a traffic ticket sticking out of Ben’s coat pocket.

“Looks like you had your own run-in with the police today,” I said, trying to lighten things up.

He nodded and pulled the ticket out.

“I hit the Old Route 20 speed trap.” He shrugged and smiled. “I was in a rush to see you. I should’ve known Pequod’s finest would be out with their radar guns, even in a snowstorm.”

I couldn’t stop staring at the ticket. A storm had started brewing in my brain, complete with thunderbolt. Ben sensed something was up.

“What’s going on, Nora?”

“I have an idea. It’s a long shot, but it’s something.”

“What?”

“Traffic signal 2234. Late last Saturday night. Or early Sunday morning.”

Ben sat there for a moment and blinked, taking in my words. Then he stood up quickly, excited.

“That might work. I’ll tell Roche. And Gubbins. Cross your fingers. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

He kissed me and rushed out.

“Traffic signal 2234” was Ben’s story in the works at the Courier about the signal at the expressway exit. Almost everyone who drove out to Pequod from the city took that route, unless for some reason they wanted to drive an extra half hour and backtrack on a long detour.

Just before the county highway supervisor was removed from office on charges of embezzlement and corruption this summer, he’d had his department install a camera at the intersection to record “no right on red” violations. But there were complaints. It looked as if the pressure reader under the pavement had been placed in the wrong location. If a vehicle that was about to turn went over the stop line by even a few feet, the camera would take a photo. A few weeks later, a ticket for an illegal turn arrived in the driver’s mailbox. Was it the highway department’s ineptitude? Or was it intentional, to generate more tickets and fill the county’s coffers? Ben was looking into it.

If there had there been a red light when Abbas exited the expressway on his way to kill Hugh and Helene, and if he had driven his BMW over the stop line, we’d have photographic proof that he was in the area during the time of the murders. That is, if Detective Roche would agree to check it out. Those were a lot of ifs. But, as Ben said, maybe we’d get lucky.

And I especially liked that he’d said “we.”



Orderlies moved me to a small room upstairs where another officer guarded the door. When they left and I heard the lock click, claustrophobia set in. I looked around in a panic. The bare room had a tiny window and no TV. No phone. This was a hospital room for prisoners. I’d done nothing to deserve it, but they were treating me like a criminal when Abbas was the guilty one. Were they holding him up here, too?

Almost instantly, I felt nauseous at the thought of Abbas staying anywhere near. I saw him towering over me in the blowing snow, pointing the gun at my head, the barrel like a long, black tunnel. I began to sweat and shake. I heard his cold, hollow voice. “It will be quick. You will not suffer.” I had the urge to run. I scrambled out of bed, yanking pointlessly at the handcuff as it cut into my wrist. I slid to the floor, chained and in pain, stuck in a nightmare of Abbas’s making. I started to cry. Was that psychopath perfecting his story? Would he send me to a place much worse than this? It was still a terrifyingly real possibility.