"Really? That would have been nice to know when we were all still living together, wouldn't it?"
"Okay. This call is going nowhere"
"Right" Like our marriage, Emily thought, though she held it in. "Good-bye, David. I'll have my lawyer call yours"
As she moved the phone from her ear she heard him say, "When are you going to tell him? Tonight in bed-"
It was a cheap shot and Emily snapped her flip phone shut. An argument with David always ended with a calculated abruptness. Even though it was a pattern that had been repeated ad nauseum during the more difficult times of their marriage, Emily never got used to it. Her face felt hot with anger. Her pulse raced. It was true, Cary McConnell had been her divorce lawyer. She and Cary hadn't so much as shared a meal until after the divorce was final. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The phrase out of the frying pan came to her mind.
Emily got out of her car in the Cherrystone High School parking lot. A girl sat in her big brother's blue Nova and smoked a More cigarette. She looked over at Emily, pulled the brown stick from her mouth, and waved. It was a girl who'd visited the house a few times when they first returned to Cherrystone. Emily smiled back. The girl turned her head to exhale a steady stream of smoke. A couple of teenage boys sat on a curb in front of the totem pole that marked the school's entrance. Both wore holey jeans, wallet chains, and sweatshirts that had seen better days or at least had been distressed enough to appear so. One was a faux vintage shirt for the band Poison. The other boy had a pair of gold earrings-thick and pretty enough that Emily thought they must have cost a bundle if they were real gold.
"You here about Nick?" the one with the Poison shirt asked.
The question caught Emily off guard. She thought for a moment before answering. It shouldn't have surprised her much. The Spokane TV news had already broadcast the discovery of the three bodies.
"Do you know him?"
"Not really. We hung out a few times. Kind of quiet. But cool, too"
The earring boy looked up; his dark hooded eyes seemed empty when he probably meant to cop a menacing affect.
"Nick Martin was screwed up. Always has been. His whole family was f d up ""
She narrowed her gaze. "That's quite an endorsement. What do you mean?"
Golden earrings shrugged, but the other boy answered.
"Kyle says everyone is screwed up ""
"Yeah, I guess I do," Kyle said, nodding in a slow and exaggerated manner, before adding, "I barely knew the guy."
Emily thanked them, and handed each a card.
"Whoa," Poison said, "you've got a business card. Cool."
She didn't know if it was sarcasm or if he was truly impressed by the ivory and black sheriff's department card, but she smiled nonetheless.
"Call me if you can think of something that will be helpful, okay?"
With that, she pitched her coffee cup into a trash can by the front door and made her way to the front office. A wave of silence seemed to follow her. There would be no need for introductions. There was no need to say why she was there. The school was abuzz with the news.
"Dr. Randazzo is waiting for you," said the secretary, a cheerful lady with an apricot chignon that looked like it had been spun from sugar at the county fair. "Go right on in."
Chapter Six
Tuesday, exact time and place unknown
It didn't add up. Anyone could see it. How could she rebuff him? Deny him? Deny herself? He thought about those things as he tried to fit the tiny pieces of his life together. She had been all he'd ever wanted. She had been the one who made him whole. She was all he dreamed about. When he was eating a meal, it was she he was consuming. Sweet. Tender. Juicy. When he was masturbating, it was her soft hand stroking his penis. Faster, slower, down his hard shaft. Only she knew how to touch him. When the wind blew softly over his ears, it was her voice whispering for him to try harder. She loved him. He alone understood her. As she alone understood him.
The memory faded. His face grew hot. He could feel his disappointment, then anger and rage well up in his throat. It tightened and burned. He wanted to scream at her for ruining everything by choosing the wrong man. And what a stupid choice. She could never be to the other man what she could be to him. He alone could love her. He could cherish every goddamn inch of her body.
Stupid bitch, he thought as he tore up one of the copies of the letters that he'd saved. It had once been so precious. But no more. Shards of paper fell like confetti, all over the floor. He looked down at the mess. It seemed so perfect in its destruction. She'd cost him everything.
He started to weep and it made him hate her more. Even then, after all that he'd done for her, after she'd unceremoniously dumped him when he told her how he felt, his feelings were conflicted. Mixed. A jumble.
Chapter Seven
One week before the tornado, 2:45 PM, Des Moines, Iowa
Miranda Collins parked her Silver BMW sedan in front of her expansive redbrick home. The house overlooked the pale green waters of Des Moines's lazy Raccoon River. That quiet Sunday, when the chill of winter had been decidedly chased away with the promise of an early spring, she doubted there was a prettier place in the world. The sun's rays wove their way through the leafy overhang of the only elms in all of Iowa to survive the Dutch Elm disaster of the 1930s. It was among the most desirable neighborhoods in the city. Droplets of light fell over the lawn and cobblestone walkway to the ten-foot leaded-glass doors that led inside the turn-ofthe-century Tudor-style home that Miranda shared with her husband, Karl, and their son, Aaron. She threw her Coach bag over her shoulder and hooked her fingers into the loops of plastic grocery bags holding the ingredients for tonight's dinner chicken, button mushrooms, shallots, and a decent bottle of Bordeaux. She knew better than to buy the cheap stuff.
"Cooking wine should never be anything less than what you'd imbibe from a Baccarat glass," Karl had said a time or two. He was only half-kidding, and Miranda had learned not to repeat the remark because it made him seem like such a snob. And a snob he could be.
He's a proctologist, for goodness sake, she thought. He's a success, of course, but bottom line he's no neurosurgeon. What he knows of wine he's learned from the pages of Wine Spectator or what I've told him.
An attractive woman with symmetrical features and dark brown hair that had been artfully streaked gray by nature, Miranda balanced the sacks of groceries on her hip as she reached with her key for the doorknob. Her charm bracelet with its collection of miniatures revealing a happy life dangled from her wrist. A baby carriage. A typewriter. Books. Miniature maps of Washington and California. A tiny Space Needle replica had been placed next to the Eiffel Tower and the St. Louis Arch. She considered each memento a keystone in her life.
The measly pressure of her inserting the key made the door move inward. It wasn't locked. It wasn't even shut. It only alarmed her for a second that DJ, the cocker spaniel that had been an unwelcome birthday gift from her son, might have gotten outside. If he hadn't, he'd have been at the door like a rocket to greet her. The dog saw every shadow through the glass as an opportunity for escape.
"Karl? Aaron? DJ got out!" she called from the foyer. Her heels clacked against the marble flooring as she moved from stone to carpet.
No one answered.
In turning to go down the hall toward the kitchen, Miranda noticed several reddish spots on the surface of the oriental rug that she'd purchased from a street vendor in Iran before the shah lost power. Miranda had been a correspon dent for a network affiliate and the carpet, with its intricate pattern of green, cream, and pink, was the one souvenir she'd allowed herself.