Last winter, the night after Christmas, my son, Luke, went to Boston to spend a few days with his father, and I went to Harry’s place for dinner. Harry and I were exhausted, having just finished a particularly difficult murder trial, and after we ate we curled up on the couch to watch The Big Chill on video. We argued, later, about who fell asleep first, but we agreed that neither one of us lasted long enough to see Glenn Close give her husband away.
When I awoke, the first hint of a gray dawn semilit the windows of Harry’s second-floor apartment and large snowflakes drifted down in slow motion outside. The TV screen was black and the logs in the fireplace had burned to embers. I was as warm as I’d ever been, though, tucked between Harry and the soft cushions of the couch, my head nestled in the crook of his shoulder. His arms enclosed me, one hand cradling my hip, the other resting on my waist.
Without thinking, I reached up and ran my fingertips along his jawline and down his neck. I leaned over him, spread the open collar of his flannel shirt, and undid a few more buttons so I could breathe in his scent and press my hand and face against the warmth of his broad chest. He tightened his grip on me then and when I looked up, his eyes were open.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Harry fished my hand out from under his shirt, brought it to his mouth, and kissed each finger before he looked at me. “Yes, you did,” he said.
His answer caught me off guard. I propped myself up on one elbow so I could see into his eyes. And in that moment I knew one thing for sure. He was right.
Harry introduced me to his brand of passion then, a passion so tender it melted my heart. I realized, that morning, what it takes to open up again after love gone wrong has done its damage and left its wreckage behind. It takes a tender passion. And a heart willing to break one more time.
Harry covers my hand with one of his when I set my wineglass down. He reaches across the table with the other, brushes the bangs from my eyes, and then cups the side of my face in his palm the way he always does now. “Well,” he says, half smiling in the candlelight, “any doubts about me?”
I shake my head against his warm hand. “None.”
“You’ll meet with Louisa?”
“Okay,” I tell him. “I will.”
“You know,” he says, his expression thoughtful, “you might find that you like her.”
I lean back against the booth again and retrieve my wineglass. “I’ll meet with her, Harry. But don’t push it.”
CHAPTER 3
Friday, October 13
Louisa Rawlings and I will meet today, Friday the thirteenth. When I looked at the calendar earlier this morning, I assured myself there was no significance to the date. Now that I’m in our office driveway, I realize I’ve reassured myself twenty-five times. But I still don’t believe me.
Harry and I have only one associate in our office and we call him “the Kydd.” Kydd is his last name. His first is Kevin, but I can’t recall the last time anyone used it. Even he doesn’t mention it anymore.
The Kydd hails from Atlanta, Georgia, and he’s probably the hardest-working young lawyer on the East Coast. He always beats me into the South Chatham farmhouse that serves as our office building, and today is no exception. His nearly new, red pickup truck is parked in the driveway when I arrive, the passenger side of the cab’s bench cluttered with casebooks and files he apparently took home last night.
Like Harry, the Kydd stands about six feet tall, but unlike Harry, he looks as if his last decent meal is a distant memory. He’s slouched in a chair in the front office when I come through the door, lanky legs stretched out in front of him. His chair is one of two facing an antique pine table, and Harry’s seated on the other side of it. He’s just hanging up the phone.
“That was Louisa,” he says. “I told her you’d be over there shortly.”
“Over where?”
“Her house.”
“We’re meeting at her house?”
Harry shrugs. “Meet where you want,” he says, “but I thought her house would make sense. You’ll have to get the layout at some point. Things happened there.”
“Things?”
He shrugs again. “Herb left from their dock the day he disappeared. And he wrote the note there—or he left it there anyhow.”
“Note? What note?”
“The suicide note.”
For a split second I freeze, staring at Harry, my jacket halfway off. “There’s a suicide note?”
He nods.
“The missing husband left a suicide note and you didn’t bother to mention it?”
“There’s a lot I didn’t mention, Marty. It’s complicated. I want Louisa to tell you herself.”
“Whoa, Kimosabe,” the Kydd says.
He’s been watching late-night Lone Ranger reruns again. He has the Tonto impersonation nailed.
“Time-out.” The Kydd apparently thinks Harry and I need the word whoa translated. He sits up straight and pounds his hands together in an emphatic T. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
When the Kydd says hell it always sounds like hail. I constantly marvel at the fact that two and a half years on Cape Cod hasn’t put so much as a dent in his Southern drawl. I drape my jacket over the chair next to his and take a seat, holding my hands out toward Harry, giving him the floor. This is his story to tell, after all.
“New client,” Harry says to the Kydd. “Dead husband, missing body. Cheap insurance company, suspicious cops. Marty’s representing the bereaved widow.”
“I said I’d meet with her, Harry. I didn’t say I’d represent her.”
He bites his lower lip.
“Did you tell her I’d represent her?”
He looks up at the ceiling, as if trying to remember. “I may have,” he says.
The Kydd shakes his head at Harry. “I don’t get it. If Marty’s representing this woman, why is it that you know the facts and Marty doesn’t?”
Not much slips by the Kydd.
Harry looks across the desk at me, as if I might field the question for him. I arch my eyebrows and stare back.
“The client called me,” he says to the Kydd, “and told me the story, but I didn’t think…I thought…”
“Attorney Madigan recused himself,” I pitch in. “He feels a bit conflicted.”
The Kydd glances over at me, then turns his questioning stare back to Harry.
“This woman and I…” Harry begins once more. He stops, though, seemingly unable to locate the next word, and runs both hands through his thick, tangled hair.
The Kydd scoots forward in his chair, looks at me again, then leans across the desk toward Harry, curiosity burning in his baby blues.
Still, words seem to elude Harry. He waves one hand in front of his face, suggesting he won’t bore us with his long tale. “Years ago,” he says.
The Kydd appears confused for a moment, but then his mouth spreads into his signature grin. It’s lopsided. “You dated her?”
“And then some,” I tell him.
He leans back on two legs of the chair and puts his hands behind his head, elbows akimbo. His grin tilts even farther to one side. “Let me make sure I have this straight,” he says, squinting at Harry. “Our new client is a former love interest of yours.” He twists in his chair, turns his squint toward me. “And you’re going to represent her.”
“Love interest,” I say, watching Harry. “That’s nice, Kydd, poetic, even. I like it.”
The Kydd sits up straight again, the front legs of his chair hitting the floor hard. He claps his hands together and laughs, then hoots. “We’re all okay with this?” His expression suggests we’re out of our minds.