“Sure,” he said.
When Maddie appeared in the doorway, she was wearing the Hong-Sung Immersion goggles.
“Lord, Colter, I got what I think is the first smile out of you in two days.”
She pulled them off and set them on the floor.
Shaw reached out a hand and tugged her to him. He kissed her lips, the tattoo, her throat, her breasts. He started to pull her into the bed. She said in a soft voice, “I’m a lights-out girl. You okay with that?”
Not his preference but under the circumstances perfectly fine.
He rolled across the bed and clicked the cheap lamp off and, when he turned back, she was on him and their hands began undoing buttons and zippers.
Naturally, it was played as a competitive game.
This one ended in a tie.
48
Nearly midnight.
Colter Shaw rose and walked into the bathroom. He turned the light on and in his peripheral vision he saw Maddie scrambling, urgently, to pull a sheet up to her neck.
Which explained the lights out. And explained the cover-up clothing of sweats and hoodies; many of the women at C3 wore tank tops and short-sleeved T’s.
He’d gotten a glimpse of three or four scars on Maddie’s body.
He recalled now that, earlier, as his hands and mouth roamed, she would subtly direct him away from certain places on her belly and shoulder and thigh.
He guessed an accident.
As they’d driven from the Quick Byte Café, she’d done so carelessly, speeding sometimes twenty over the limit, then slowed to let him catch up. Maybe she’d been in a car crash or biking mishap.
Making sure to shut out the bathroom light before he opened the door, Shaw returned to bed, a towel wrapped around his waist. He passed her by and went into the kitchen, fetched two bottles of water from the fridge and returned. He handed her one, which she took and set on the floor.
He drank a few sips, then lay back on the lumpy mattress. The room was not completely dark and he could see that she’d pulled a sweatshirt on while he was in the kitchen. The shirt had some writing on the front. He couldn’t read the words. She was sitting up, checking texts. Shaw could see the light from her phone on her face — a ghostly image. The only other illumination was the faint glow from her monitor’s screen saver bleeding through the door to the living room.
He moved closer to her, sitting up too. His fingers lightly brushed her tattoo.
I’ll tell you later. Maybe...
Maddie stiffened. It was very subtle, almost imperceptible.
Yet not quite.
He put distance between them, propping the pillow up and sitting against it. He’d been here often enough — on both sides of the bed, so to speak — to know not to ask what was wrong. Words that came too fast were usually worse than no words at all.
Head on the pillow, he stared at the ceiling.
A moment later Maddie said, “Damn air conditioner. Makes a racket. Wake you up?”
“Wasn’t asleep.” He hadn’t noticed. Now he did. And it was noisy.
“I’d complain but I’ll be gone in a few days. And this place’ll be in a scrapyard by next week. That Siliconville thing.”
Silence between them, though the groaning AC was now like a third person in the room.
“Look, Colt, the thing is...” She was examining words, discarding them. She found some: “I’m pretty good with the before part. And I think I’m pretty good with the during part.”
That was true. But the rules absolutely required him to not respond.
“The after part? I’m not so good with that.”
Was she wiping away tears? No, just tugging at the tangle of hair in front of her face.
“Not a big deal. It’s not, like, get the hell out of my life. Just, it happens. Not always. Usually.” She cleared her throat. “You’re lucky. I got pissed at you for bringing me water. Imagine what would’ve happened, you’d asked to meet the family. I can really be a bitch.”
“It’s good water. You’re missing out.”
Her shoulders slumped and she twined hair around her right index finger.
He said, “Here’s where I say we’re a lot alike and that pisses you off more.”
“Fuck you. Quit being so nice. I want to throw you out.”
“See? Told you. We’re a lot alike. I’m not so good with the after part either. Never have been.”
Her hand squeezed his knee, then retreated.
Shaw told her, “Had two siblings, growing up. We fell out in three different ways. Russell, oldest, was the reclusive one. Dorie, our kid sister, was the clever one. I was the restless one. Was then, still am.”
The laugh from Maddie’s mouth was barely perceptible but it was a laugh. “You know, Colter, we should start a club.”
“A club.”
“Yeah. Both of us, good with before and during, not after. We’ll call it the Never After Club.”
This struck home.
The King of Never...
Which he didn’t share with her.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“No way. You’ve gotta be beat. This’s a hiccup, is all. Only don’t plan on spooning till noon tomorrow and then make plans to take BART to an art museum and a waffle brunch.”
“The likelihood of that happening I’d put at, let’s see, zero percent.”
Maddie gave a smile. A whatever happens, it’s been good smile. “Curl up or stretch out. Or whatever you do.”
“You going to...”
“Kill some aliens. What else?”
Level 3:
The Sinking Ship
Sunday, June 9
49
“We’re calling it an accident. No other thing fits.”
Colter Shaw awoke, lying in Maddie Poole’s disheveled bed, his eyes on the overhead fan, a palm frond design, one blade sagging, and though the room was hot he didn’t think it was a good idea to flick the unit on.
Accident...
Maddie was not in bed nor was she in the living room, killing or maiming aliens. The big house creaked, the sounds from its infrastructure, not inhabitants.
Apparently the woman took the “never after” part seriously.
The hour was close to 4 a.m.
Sleep was an illusion. He wondered if he’d had a nightmare. Maybe. Probably. Because he kept hearing the voice of White Sulfur Springs sheriff Roy Blanche.
“We’re calling it an accident. No other thing fits.”
This was the opinion too of the county coroner, regarding the death of Ashton Shaw. He’d lost his footing and tumbled off the eastern side of Echo Ridge, a hundred-foot-plus plummet to the dry creek bed where Colter spotted him, that rosy-dawn morning, October 5, fifteen years ago. The boy had rappelled as fast as he’d ever descended in the hope that he might save his father. While he didn’t know it at the time, a person falling from that height will reach a speed of about sixty-five miles per hour. Anything over forty-five or fifty is fatal.
The death occurred around six hours earlier — 1 a.m. Sheriff Blanche found a patch of wet leaves that might have been slick with an early frost. One step on them, with the incline, and Ashton would have gone over.
The glint that Colter had seen was the sun striking the chrome receiver of the Benelli Pacific Flyway shotgun. It was lying on the ground, ten feet from the edge, where it had flown after Ashton made a frantic grab for nearby branches to arrest his tumble.
Another possibility was in everyone’s mind but on no one’s tongue: suicide.
To Colter, though, both theories were flawed. Accident? Twenty percent. Suicide? One percent.