“I better go,” he told Matthew.
“Don’t do that,” Matthew said.
“What?”
“Run away.”
“I’m trying to make it easier on her.”
“You’re not. You’re just being a chickenshit.” Matthew rose. He was taller than Wilde now. He looked like his father. He looked like a man too. When did that happen? Matthew put his hand on Wilde’s shoulder. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“I’m going upstairs,” Matthew said. “You stay.”
Matthew flicked off the television and trudged up, closing his bedroom door behind him. Wilde stayed. Five minutes later, Laila came in through the front door. She looked exhausted. Her eyes were red in a way that suggested recent tears. She also looked, as Laila always did, stunning. That was the thing with Laila. Every time Wilde saw her, he was still struck anew by how beautiful she was, like it was a surprise, like he could never quite comprehend or conjure it, and so every time he first laid eyes on her, there was a little catch in his throat.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
He wasn’t sure what to do — hug her, kiss her — so not wanting to do the wrong thing, Wilde just stood there. “If you want to be alone...” he began.
“I don’t.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to be here?”
“I do.”
“Good,” Laila said. “Because I broke it off with Darryl tonight.”
Wilde said nothing.
“How does that make you feel?” Laila asked him.
“The truth?”
“Do you usually lie to me?”
“Never.”
“So?”
“Happy,” Wilde said. “Selfishly yet deliriously happy.”
She nodded.
“Your eyes are red,” he continued.
“So?”
“Were you crying?”
“Yes.”
Wilde stepped toward her. “I don’t want you to cry. I don’t ever want you to cry again.”
“You think you have that power?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try.”
Laila kicked off her heels. “Do you know what I realized tonight?”
“Tell me.”
“I keep trying to force the round peg into the square hole. I’ve always bought into the belief that I needed a life partner, a man by my side, someone to share my life with and travel with and grow old with, all that stuff. I had that with David, but he’s dead now. So I try to find that with someone else, but...” Laila stopped and shook her head. “It’s not meant to be.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. That’s the thing. Tonight I realized I’m okay with that.”
Wilde stepped toward her. “I love you.”
“But you can’t be here all the time either.”
“I can,” he said. “I will.”
“No, Wilde, that’s not what I want. Not anymore. That would still be trying to put the round peg in a square hole.” She sighed and sat on the couch. “So here is what I’m proposing. You listening?”
Wilde nodded.
“You and I continue to be together when we can. Come over when you want, stay at your Ecocapsule when you want.”
“Isn’t that what we have now?”
“Are you happy with what we have now?” she asked.
He almost said, If you are, but Matthew’s words echoed in his ears. “I want more,” he said.
Laila smiled, really smiled — and when she did, he felt his heart thump-thump and something rise up in his chest. “Do you want to hear the rest of my proposition?”
“More than you know.”
“What’s got into you, Wilde?”
“Just tell me what you’re proposing.”
“We become a couple. I’m not going to make a lot of demands, but if we are going to do this, I have a few.”
“Go on.”
“You can’t just vanish on me like you’ve been doing.”
“Okay.”
“I’m tired of pretending that doesn’t hurt. If you freak out or you need to run away — if you have to disappear into the woods or whatever — you have to tell me first.”
“Deal. I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t think—”
Laila held up her hand. “Apology accepted, but I’m not done.”
Wilde nodded for her to continue.
“You and I are exclusive. Nobody else. If you still want to play around—”
“I don’t.”
“I know you like to go to that hotel bar—”
“No,” Wilde said. “I don’t want to do that.”
“Also I want someone to take care of me when I need that. And I want someone I can take care of too.”
Wilde swallowed. “I’d like that too. What else?”
“That’s it for now.” She looked at her watch. “It’s late. I’m fried, you’re fried. Maybe it’s the exhaustion talking. Let’s see how all this looks in the morning.”
“Okay. Do you want me to stay or...?”
“Do you want to stay, Wilde?”
“Very much.”
“Good answer,” Laila said.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
At two in the morning, Wilde’s phone rang.
He was awake, staring at the ceiling of Laila’s bedroom, thinking about her and what they’d said tonight and realizing that they had talked more about their relationship in those three earlier minutes than they had in the previous decade.
With his fast reflexes, Wilde picked up the phone in mid-ring, throwing his feet onto the ground and rolling to a sit. The call was from Rola.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“I’m fine. Why are you whispering? Oh, wait, you’re not alone, are you?”
He rose and started toward the bathroom. “You really are an ace detective.”
“I’m in Vegas,” she said. “Daniel Carter isn’t home. The house is empty. No one has seen him and his wife lately. But I have a theory.”
“I’m listening.”
“The FBI agent who questioned you about your father. You said his name was George Kissell.”
“Yes.”
“Did he show you his badge?”
“No.”
“That’s because he’s not an FBI agent.”
“The other agent, Betz. She showed her ID.”
“Right. But I looked into Kissell. Here’s the kicker. George Kissell is not a fed. He’s a US marshal.”
Wilde froze.
“Yeah, I know. I’m out of here first thing in the morning. But that’s not why I called you at two a.m. I mean, that could have waited for the morning.”
“What, then?”
“The bug you planted? You were right. She just arrived at a hotel.”
“Which one?”
“The Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner building.”
Wilde said nothing.
“Why would she be going to a hotel at two in the morning?” Rola asked.
“We both know,” Wilde said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to head over there now.”
The Mandarin Oriental is an Asian-fusion five-star high-rise luxury hotel on Columbus Circle. The hotel runs from the thirty-fifth to the fifty-fourth floor, so that all rooms have an enviable view of Manhattan. It is also, as Wilde found out, very expensive. To get past the various security apparatus, he’d booked the cheapest room available, which went for a thousand dollars per night when you added in whatever bizarre taxes and surcharges hotels seem to stick on your bill.
Wilde checked in at the lobby on the thirty-fifth floor. He had requested a room on the forty-third floor because that was where she was staying and thus his card key would give him elevator access. His request was accepted and at almost four in the morning, Wilde politely turned down the receptionist’s offer to personally escort Wilde to his room. He headed up in the elevator, found the right door, and knocked.