A blast of cold air greeted us as we walked into her kitchen. “Oh, that feels good,” she said, pulling the pack off and tossing it onto the kitchen table. “I could use something cold to drink. How about you?”
“Great,” I said, standing uncomfortably in the center of the kitchen. It was strange being alone with her.
“What can I get you? Gatorade?”
Truth was, I had a weakness for the stuff. “You got enough?”
“Of course. I go through several gallons a week.”
She poured the green liquid into two tall glasses filled with ice. My throat went numb as I poured it down like a shipwreck survivor.
“Rachel, how’re you doing?” I asked. There was a pair of tall stools next to the kitchen island. I pulled one up and sat on it.
She finished off her glass and poured another.
“Harry,” she said firmly, “I’m doing great. The last few days have been rough. And I’ll have some more rough ones. But I’m determined to get on with my life.”
“Good,” I said, meaning it. “Listen, I don’t mean to be too personal, but how did Connie leave … well, leave things? How’re you fixed up?”
“You mean can I make the house payment?”
“Yeah.”
“For the time being, I’m okay. Eventually, I’ll have to go back to work. But for now, I’m just going to take some time off. Recover, regroup.” She took another long swallow. “Get back into shape,” she added.
“You look like you’re in great shape,” I said, wishing I hadn’t said it as the words tumbled out of my mouth.
“Aren’t you sweet, Harry. I appreciate that, I really do.”
We looked into each other’s face for a moment, one of those awkward moments where both people are thinking to themselves: okay, what do we do next?
“I think I’d like to stay in touch with you when all this is over,” I said.
“I’d like that,” she said slowly. “What do you mean, when all this is over?”
I settled back in the chair. “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to see how you were and all, but I also wanted you to know that I’m certain I’m getting close to finding out who killed Connie. Just a gut feeling.”
Her eyes went kind of dark for a second. “Harry, I don’t want you to do this. I don’t want to see you get hurt. You … well, you mean too much to me right now.”
“We’ve been through this, Rach. I’m going to watch myself.”
“Yeah,” she said, “you’ve done a splendid job so far. I’m not even going to ask who punched you in the schnoz.”
I instinctively reached up and cupped my hand over my nose. “You can still tell, huh?”
“I’m a nurse,” she said. “I can identify a swollen nose. Harry, I don’t know what you’re doing, and I’m not sure I want to know. But I want you to stop.”
“I can’t.”
“I won’t pay you any more after the money runs out. I can’t. I haven’t got it, and if I did, I wouldn’t spend it on that.”
“I don’t care about the money.” Jesus, who’s putting these words in my mouth? “This is more important than that.”
“Is it more important than your health? More important than us?”
“Us?” I asked. “There’s an us?”
She walked around the counter, right up to me as I sat there on the stool, and put a hand on my knees. “Of course, there’s an us. You know that, don’t you?”
She ran her hands up my legs to my waist, then put her arms around me. She leaned over, sweat still glistening on her forehead, and moved her face in close.
She went out of focus as her lips melted onto mine. She was hot, soft, wet all over. It had been a long time since I’d been kissed like that. It wasn’t what I came here for; at least I didn’t think it was what I came here for. But now that it was happening, I sure as hell wasn’t going to fight it.
What little semblance of a thought pattern I could muster was fading fast. I wrapped my arms around her and opened my legs on the stool, pulling her as close to me as possible, the inside of my thighs rubbing the outside of her legs. She opened her mouth, pulling mine along with hers, and we were inside each other now, hotter, wetter. I stifled a moan. I don’t know why.
“It’s burning up in here today,” she sighed, pulling away from me a few inches.
“Yeah, summer’s not over yet.”
She unwrapped her arms and took two steps away from me. “I need a shower,” she quipped. “Want to join me?”
The room was dark when I woke up, the last pale shafts of sunlight straining to hold on against the oncoming night. At first, I couldn’t remember where I was. But when I felt Rachel next to me, it all came back.
I rolled over in the huge bed. She was on her side, facing away from me. I settled back into the pillow, drifting, languorous, sleepy. The sheets were tangled around us, her back bare, her blond hair splayed out on the pillow. Her torso rose and fell slightly with each deep sleep breath.
Okay, okay, so I woke up feeling guilty. I’m not going to lie about this; we went at it for hours, like two passionate young college kids having their first real adult affair. Which is what we once were. I haven’t had an afternoon like that in years, and I savored every moment of it.
Only problem was it was wrong, and I knew it. It was too soon for her, too soon for me. And there was something about doing it right in Conrad’s bed when his corpse hadn’t yet settled into the grave that made the hair on the back of my head stand up.
Having gone running, Rachel was a workout ahead of me for the day. I could tell from the stillness of her body and the deepness of her breath that she was nowhere near waking up. I eased out of bed and stood looking down at her. I’d loved this woman once. Could I love her again? A lot of time had gone by, a lot of living. I’d loved her as a young man. Did I have it in me to love her as a man standing on the precipice of middle age?
She was still beautiful, full of life and energy and passion. When we were first lovers, in college, she’d taught me things I never knew. I’d never been with anyone like her. All she had to do was walk into a room and it would light up. Funny, I think about those days and all I can come up with to describe them are cliches. But that’s the way it was then: a wonderful, innocent time that lives in my memory now like my mother’s oatmeal and brown sugar on snowy days, or my father’s standing over the turkey with carving knife in hand on Thanksgiving Day.
What I needed was another glass of Gatorade. All this passion had left me with a raging thirst.
I slipped into my underwear and trousers as quietly as possible. I’d spent the afternoon relearning Rachel’s body, but for some reason I wasn’t comfortable strolling around naked in her house. I silently left the bedroom, leaving the door cracked open, and padded barefoot down the hardwood floors of the hail and down the steps to the first floor.
In the kitchen, I rinsed out the glass I had used earlier and refilled it. I stood at the kitchen door, staring out over the deepening shadows that filled the backyard. It was so quiet, so idyllic. I wondered for a second if I’d wind up living here someday.
I took my glass and walked into the living room. The huge window that overlooked the wide expanse of front lawn down to Golf Club Lane could have been a Frederick Church painting, with the glowing blues and reds of a luminist sunset. I stood there watching for a long time in the silence, feeling more peaceful than I’d felt in a long time.
Then it came back to me: my first impressions of this room. For that matter, of this house. This was a house owned by a surgeon, a professor, an accomplished, privileged, educated man.
And yet, there was no sign of him anywhere.
Out of curiosity more than anything else, I began walking from room to room, being careful not to make any noise. I didn’t want to awaken Rachel.
There were no pictures of Connie in the living room, nor any in the den. No framed diplomas, certificates, testimonials, the trinkets that men and women proud of their achievements show off for everybody else. Hell, three years ago I got a nomination for an award from the Middle Tennessee Press Association, a less than prestigious group if ever there was one. But that nomination letter-and I didn’t even win the award-sat framed above my desk until the day they canned me and threw me out the door.