Cold Springs(104)

He noticed a streak of mud on his sleeve, a missing button on his shirt collar, a piece of hay from Joey Allbritton's barn stuck in his pocket. He'd gone to pick up Ann looking like this. He probably would've had food in his teeth, too, except he hadn't eaten all day.

He examined his wet face in the bathroom mirror, rubbed at the wrinkles, thinking for the millionth time that his eyes were too close-set, too comically mournful. His heavy jawline was starting to thicken into the slight jowls, making his resemblance to George Washington even more pronounced.

He shook his head.

You're almost fifty, he told himself. You're not an adolescent.

Back in the main room, Ann was sitting at his desk, looking at the picture of Katherine. Chadwick fought down a swell of resentment, as if Ann were trespassing. But of course, she wasn't. She'd taken that picture.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Did I smell cafeteria meatloaf downstairs?”

“Afraid so.”

“I'll pass.”

His own stomach was knotting up, but he sat down on the bed across from her. Clouds continued to thicken outside, a cold metallic energy seeping through the glass window and the heated air of the lodge.

Ann traced her finger across the old eighth-grade class picture—the kids in colonial costume. Chadwick knew she could name each child, their parents, their siblings. She could list the colleges they had gone to, and what jobs they had now.

“I saw Norma this morning,” she said. “She warned me not to come. Said I was a stupid damned optimist.”

“My ex-wife. Always the diplomat.”

Outside, the dusk dissolved the trees and the sky. An instructor's whistle blew three sharp notes, signaling the end of the tan levels' workday.

“And are you really happy here?” Ann asked. “Is this what you want to do?”

“Been a long time since I thought in those terms.”

Heat kindled in her eyes. “And why is that?”

“This is where I need to be.”

“Because you couldn't send Katherine here, so you had to come yourself?”

“Ann—”

“Katherine's suicide wasn't our fault, Chadwick. It's cost us so much time.”

“You sound like you blame her for dying.”

“I loved her, Chadwick, but not enough to give up our relationship. You shouldn't have left me. You shouldn't have spent the last nine years punishing yourself, punishing me.”

“Was it my idea to put Race Montrose at Laurel Heights?”

“I didn't mean—”

“You called me—begged me to help, because you thought Mallory had been involved in the murder. Was that my idea?”

Ann stood, as if she were about to yell at him.

Voices came from down the hallway—two people talking, a man and a woman. Counselors, Chadwick thought, though he couldn't place names to the voices.

As they reached Chadwick's room, the man said, “I don't think he's here.”

There was a knock on the door.

Chadwick and Ann locked eyes. He shook his head, and she tacitly agreed. Neither of them could stand company at the moment.

The woman's voice said, “Maybe he's on a pickup or—”

“No. Jones is here.”

“Oh, right. We could ask her. Or maybe Hunter . . .”

The rest was muffled as they drifted down the hall.

Ann touched her cheeks with the back of her hand. “God. I haven't felt like this since I was sixteen. The high school broom closet.”

“Who were you in there with?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Rah-Rah Lucas,” Chadwick guessed. “The butt-ugly football player.”

Ann slapped him on the shoulder, and he grabbed her wrist. Their eyes met. He drew her down next to him on the bed, nestled her against his shoulder while she trembled, her tears damp on his shirt.

She pulled his chin down, found his lips. Chadwick felt himself borrowing her sense of direction, letting her guide him, as she'd so often guided him before.

She pushed him down on the bed, moved on top of him, her breath in his ear, her skin salty.

“How much of a loser am I?” she taunted, and bit his ear. “I wait thirty years for someone, and it's you.”

There was a knock on the door once more during the night, and they fell silent until the footsteps went away, trembling for fear of discovery like they were teenagers in a high school broom closet, or guilty adulterers in a sleeping bag at Stinson Beach.

For the first time in seven years, snow began to fall over the Hill Country, so quiet and natural that all the hot summers of the interim might never have happened.

32

It was goddamn typical. Not only had she gotten shot at twice in twenty-four hours, yelled at, sleep-deprived and starved. The minute they sent her into the woods for her wilderness overnight, she started her period.

The med kit had supplies for that, but Jesus Christ.

Mallory tried to imagine Leyland teaching them some survivalist tip for dealing with menstruation. And, um, ladies, this is how the Indians used to do it.

That thought lifted her spirits just a little, but the cramps were bad, like a rhinoceros using her pelvis for a skateboard.

She remembered her monthly ritual at Laurel Heights, ever since sixth grade, spending lunch break curled over in pain in the school office, tears streaming down her face, the other kids poking their heads in the door to ask if she was okay—her mom uncomfortable, having her so close, leaving it to the secretary to reassure the kids that Mallory just had a stomachache. Everything would be fine.