Chapter 24
I don’t bother to hear what either man says next. Instead, I hurry out of the entry area and limp down the steps of the building. I order an Uber, which ends up taking thirteen minutes to show. It probably would have been better to wait for Logan.
By the time I arrive back at the inn, the best I can do is stagger to the elevator and then to my room.
I ease my shoes off with my right hand and nearly rip off my dress, which smells like I’ve spent most of the day digging trenches.
In the bathroom I lean across the sink, examining my face in the mirror.
Despite my earlier efforts with a tissue, my eye makeup is smeared and there’s dried blood along a small gash in my forehead, obviously the result of face-planting into the conversation pit.
I tell myself to focus on all that’s good about tonight.
Mel was celebrated, even without me being there.
And, according to Chip, there’s more work of hers waiting for me, which I might have already read but maybe not.
And if not, it might provide a fresh glimpse of the girl I struggled so hard to know.
And yet I feel unnerved. And ragged, too, as if I’m coming apart at the seams.
I’m suddenly desperate for the sound of Bas’s voice. As I grab my phone to call him, it strikes me that he still hasn’t responded to my text from the morning or the call I made. Which must mean he’s seriously under the weather and might even be sleeping. I send him a text instead of calling.
Hey, hope you haven’t been felled by your cold. If you’re still up, give me a call, okay?
I wait a minute or two for a response, but none comes. Is it possible he found the text I sent this morning dismissive, me saying that I’d wait until I returned to fill him in?
I carry my phone into the bathroom, lay it on the counter, and fire up the shower.
The hot water ends up bringing minor relief to both my wrist and my hip.
Once I’m done, I slip into the complimentary terry-cloth robe and wander back into the bedroom, dabbing antibacterial ointment from my toiletry bag onto the cut on my forehead.
A knock on the door makes me jerk in surprise. Before I can respond, a voice comes from the other side.
“Bree, it’s me, Logan.”
“Uh, give me a sec,” I call out. I shrug off the robe, grab the nearest clothes, then wince as I pull the jeans over my bruised hip. When I finally open the door, I find Logan with flushed cheeks—from either the wind or hurrying or both. He’s carrying two plastic bags.
“Can I come in?” he says. “I want to see how you’re doing. And I brought you something to eat.”
“Sure, and thanks. The only thing I’ve eaten since breakfast is a bag of chips.”
He heads for the small round table by the armchair and begins to unpack the bags.
It’s obviously food from the reception: crackers and cheese, a napkin full of boiled shrimp, and a plastic container of cocktail sauce.
He’s also got a bottle of red wine, which I assume he grabbed from the parlor downstairs.
He pours us each a glass, using the two goblets on the dresser.
Okay, there’s no world in which we should be sharing wine and jumbo shrimp in a hotel room, but I need to fill him in, and more than that, I can’t bear the thought of being alone.
Someone came after me tonight, and I don’t know who.
I’ve booked my trip home, but none of the answers I’m going back with make me feel any better.
And though I’m responsible for the disconnect with Bas—and maybe his failure to get in touch today—that’s no consolation.
“Is your head okay?” he asks.
“Yes, seems to be.”
“Here, sit,” he tells me, nodding toward one of the chairs by the table.
As I fall into the chair and help myself to a piece of shrimp, Logan slips out of his navy blazer and sits down himself.
“Now please tell me what the heck happened,” he says.
I toss the shrimp tail onto a paper napkin. “Okay, I went to see the Muse office, as planned, and while I was in there, someone turned off the light, shut the door, and dragged a worktable in front of it so there was no way I could budge the door open.”
Logan stares at me, aghast. “How did you manage to get out?”
I explain about hollering and banging until the custodian finally responded.
“Could it have been a mistake?” he says. “Someone not realizing you were in there?”
I give my head a shake. “That’s what the custodian said—that someone from the work crew must have done it. But don’t you think it’s odd they blocked the door with a table? Why not just use a key to lock it?”
“Maybe there’s no working lock yet. Besides, who in the world would want to trap you like that? Who would have even known you were there?”
“Jeffrey Handler might have known,” I say. “He happened to be watching the quad from his office window when I walked into the building, and I think he saw me.”
He furrows his brow, not sure where I’m going with this.
At last I divulge what I’ve experienced with Handler this week—his apparent unease with me, his failure to share the information about the archive, and how I didn’t help matters by being caught sneaking around his property in an attempt to learn more about him.
“Why would he be uneasy or act weird about you seeing Mel’s stuff?”
“Okay, I know this might sound far-fetched, but hear me out. From what I’ve put together, Handler’s a cheater, and I keep wondering if he might have been Mel’s secret crush, the one Harry mentioned.”
I wait for his eyes to widen with incredulity. Instead, he steeples his hands and exhales a ragged breath into his fingers.
“I wondered the same thing once,” he says.
“When? On this trip?”
He shakes his head. “When Mel was here.”
“Was it because of something she said?”
If so, why hasn’t Logan ever told me?
“No, nothing she said. It was a few weeks before she died, that Friday I was in the Albany area for work and I drove over to see her. We had an early dinner in town here and ran into Handler afterward while we were walking to the car. As you know, she’d always raved about him, but the conversation was oddly stilted, like there was something hanging in the air. ”
“And you thought affair?”
“Yes, but not for more than a millisecond. I told myself that, Mel being Mel, she probably felt a little awkward running into him with a parent—and so it never seemed worth bringing up.”
In some ways I’ve made the same decision myself over the past days, not wanting to turn a molehill into a mountain about Handler.
And what could I have done with the information if Logan had told me?
Certainly not raise it with Mel, because she would have said, as she had more than once, that her love life was none of my damn business.
“In hindsight, though, do you think it’s a possibility?”
Logan takes another long drink of wine, nearly tipping the glass upside down to drain the contents, then slowly shakes his head.
“Frankly, it’s hard to imagine, and that’s another reason I dropped the idea so fast. Yeah, Mel always went for creative types—just look at Jack—but Handler seems like a guy with a stick up his ass. ”
I stare off into the middle distance, considering his comment.
“Still, he’s an attractive man in his own way and a successful poet, with plenty of allure on that front,” I say. “Of course, if they had a fling, he would have been terrified about anyone finding out.”
“Exactly. Don’t you lose tenure over things like that?”
“Absolutely.”
Logan pulls back, suddenly sensing where I’m really going with this. “Whoa, you’re not suggesting Handler killed Mel, are you?”
I stare back at him, saying nothing.
“Bree, Ruck killed Melanie,” he says. “You’ve got to let go of your doubts and stop torturing yourself.”
“I know, I know, you’re right,” I say. Because he is.
“Regardless, I’m going to do what I can to find out how you got locked in that room.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
I bite half-heartedly into another piece of shrimp. I’m famished, but at the same time I still can’t summon any interest in food.
“I haven’t even asked you about the event,” I say. “Are you happy with how it went?”
“Very. Maya spoke, followed by Eileen Zhao—the head of donor relations—and then I gave my little talk. I choked up once but otherwise kept it together.”
“I’m so sorry not to have heard it. Can you email me a copy of your remarks?”
“Sure thing.”
He reaches for the bottle of wine, ready to pour us each another glass, and I hear a warning siren go off in my head. It’s felt good to have someone here for a while, but we need to wrap this up.
“Do you want to take that back to your room?” I say, lifting my chin toward the bottle. I slowly rise from the table. “I should probably get to bed soon.”
“Uh, yeah, of course,” he says. He rises, too, and starts to tidy up the table.
“Leave that, I’ll get it in the morning,” I urge.
Ignoring me, he stuffs a few more things into one of the plastic bags.
“Have you made your travel plans yet?” he asks.
“Yes, my flight’s on Saturday. I couldn’t get one before then.”
“I could drop you off at the train station that day if you like.”
“Thanks, but I can grab a cab or an Uber.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind.” He tugs his blazer from the back of the chair and then slips into it.
Maybe he’s going downstairs for a drink, or back to the Italian restaurant for a decent dinner.
Against my will, I feel a strange urge to go, too.
To be on a car ride with him again, driving through the dark.
“How come you’ll be in Cartersville this weekend?” I ask as we both take a few steps toward the door.
“I have a meeting late Saturday afternoon with the guy who designed the Muse office, so I’ll head back to the city on Sunday. And then take it from there.”
“Take what? Is there still stuff to do with the college?”
“Nah, that’s all pretty much wrapped up. I meant dealing with everything else.” He waves a hand in the air. “You know, all the stuff we had to face here. This probably sounds a little lame, but I might look up the grief counselor I went to years ago and see if she’s still practicing.”
“Grief counselor?” I say, taken aback.
“Yeah. I knew this week wouldn’t be easy, but it’s been worse than I thought. I know for you, too.”
“Yes, but wait . . . When did you go to a grief counselor? Not when we were together?”
“No, not then—though I should have. You kept urging me to see the woman you’d been going to.” He pats the breast pocket of his blazer as if looking for something but then drops his arm, still empty-handed. “It was later.”
I’m stunned by his admission. Had he finally realized that grief was something that couldn’t be outrun?
“What made you change your mind?”
“To be honest, the double loss. You and Mel both gone in barely more than a year.” He scoffs as if mocking himself. “I actually had one of those panic attacks that makes you think you’re in full fucking cardiac arrest, and it was a nurse in the ER who convinced me to finally get some help.”
For a few seconds I stand there silently, trying to digest all of this.
“I wasn’t very kind then, was I?” I say finally. “I should have made some attempt to understand about the infidelity—so that we could have parted on better terms.”
Or—not parted at all? God, am I really asking myself that question after so many years? I certainly didn’t ask it back then. I was too shattered and heartsick and furious to listen to any language of grief but the one I spoke myself.
“That means a lot,” he says, finding my eyes with his. He inhales deeply, steeling himself, it seems. “I love you, Bree. I’ve never stopped.”
Stunned, I hear my breath hitch. For a few moments we stand motionless, looking directly at each other. Then Logan reaches out, making me blink, and cups my face with his hand. I feel a rush of desire, more than muscle memory this time. Seconds later, we’re kissing passionately.
I want this, I realize. I’m about to betray my partner, and yet I’m not pulling away.
Maybe it’s simply my despair taking over, hoping for an escape on the last of these four awful days—with the one person in the universe whose feelings right now are close to my own—but thinking that doesn’t change my mind.