Chapter 29
Had Detective Aycock been calling Alex my guard dog? Or my lapdog?
Both were absurd. Since I was the one being kept. So much for the jokes, Detective.
Of course that wasn’t great either, because if Alex was “keeping” me in the way some people had probably suggested to Aycock, then Alex would have had an even better reason to keep Joey from coming back around.
My head hurt.
And where was Alex? Ned could run the kitchen without Pascal, but he never ran the till, didn’t know how.
I opened the doors to the pub and let the dogs loose. The place was still dark.
“Ned?”
I took the dogs through to the back and up the stairs. I threw them a couple of Wufers each, keeping my fingers well clear, then went back down to the pub. Ned still hadn’t come through.
I’d seen him, hadn’t I? It was hard to tell people in winter gear apart, of course. But Ned had that patient, loose-jointed walk. Not a hurry left to be had, especially when you needed him to hustle.
I poured a Coke with the soda gun and sipped at it, letting a few customers try the door up front and go away confused. Quin, probably. Let him find another Saturday office for whatever it was he was gearing up to sell us.
Next door, there were a few halfhearted bangs but I couldn’t get up the ire to go tangle with whoever was making the mess over there.
I stared at the bar phone, wondering if I should call Alex and warn him about the damage I’d seen over there.
I wasn’t sure what he’d do, though, and we couldn’t afford any more conflict right now.
Detective Aycock’s visit—that little twitch of a grin that Alex and I were “covering” for each other—had put me on notice.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
Alex had certainly been covering for me, at least, room and board. And now I was shielding him. How had we come to this?
Joey. He’s the one who left me. Why couldn’t he just stay gone?
But that was probably the meanest thought I’d ever had.
Someone tugged at the vestibule door. I looked up as a shadow moved across the front window.
But really, why hadn’t he stayed away from here? Because … because he had a reason. Quite a good reason to see me, Heather had told Detective Aycock. Aycock just hadn’t said what it was.
I stared at the phone again, but there was no way around it. I had to make another trip to the suburbs. I had to see Joey’s sister in person, even if I had nothing but dread about doing it.
Well, at least a pregnant lady probably wouldn’t pull a gun on me. Right?
LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, I watched the 68 bus trundle away toward the far northwest suburbs. My confidence receded along with it.
I had met Joey’s younger sister, Heather, and her husband, Sachin, lots of times, of course.
I’d spent the last two years celebrating holidays with them, birthdays.
The last time I saw them, we’d met at their favorite neighborhood Italian place, the one I’d seen from the bus.
After dinner we’d walked a block or two to their house for coffee, dessert—and an ad for married bliss, I’d thought snarkily.
That’s when Heather had dropped the news. They were having a baby.
Joey was so happy, but I could see the layer of envy below it. His younger sister was already married, had already bought a house. Had a career that didn’t involve trampolines at all. And now would start building her family.
Maybe I was a little mad at her, because I knew he couldn’t be.
Anyway, when Joey and I returned to our apartment that night, instead of staying over at Heather’s as we’d planned, we fought. About where we were going, or not. About how stiff I was around the topics of family, home, career. The future.
That was a few months ago. I hadn’t been back to Heather and Sachin’s since.
I didn’t actually know their address. I scratched along the salted sidewalks to the Italian place and stood on the street corner, wishing I had called ahead. I gazed down the street, a line of tidy, identical houses fanning out into the distance.
Well, I’d tried, right? It was the thought that mattered.
I felt a warm rush of relief, a plan forming to catch the next bus back to the pub, where I could call, pay respects, maybe ask a few gentle questions—
“Dahlia?”
Joey’s brother-in-law stood in the open door of the Italian restaurant, a big white paper handle bag hanging from one hand.
Sachin was deeply, deeply boring, a guy with a job Joey hadn’t been able to explain who loved to discover things the rest of us already knew. Bands famous ten years ago, chain restaurants, movies that had won lots of awards last decade.
He wasn’t wearing gloves. He’d been painting, and pale blue splotches were stark against his brown skin.
“You came,” he said.
I couldn’t tell if he was moved or surprised. I had finally recovered enough to think of the human thing to say. “How is … Is she … I don’t know what to ask. I know she’s not okay.”
“She’s having a hard time,” Sachin said. “But you must be, too.”
“I— To tell you the truth…” But neither of us wanted the truth to be vocalized. “I’m numb.”
“I get that. You were coming to the house?”
“If I could remember which one it was.” There, that was honest.
He led me down the sidewalk. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“You are?”
“We haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Heather was beginning to think…”
“It wasn’t for her lack of inviting us,” I said. “Or Joey’s not wanting to come.”
Sachin’s loafers slowed on the icy sidewalk. “So…”
“I’m a bit of a nightmare, Sachin,” I said. More honesty. “I don’t usually foist myself on nice people.”
“Oh, come on,” Sachin said. “If Joey liked you, you can’t be all that bad.”
I wasn’t exactly sure if we could say that Joey had liked me, there at the end.
But I had come this far, to their door. Light was dim inside, befitting a house in mourning. I peeled off my jacket and kicked off my boots at the door, and followed Sachin through the kitchen.
In the next room, the shades were angled to let in a bit of light reflected from the snow outside. The Christmas tree loomed, dark, in the corner. The string lights had been unplugged.
“Babe,” Sachin said into the darkness.
I realized there was a shape on the sofa, under a blanket.
“Heather, guess who I brought back with me?”
“I don’t want to see anyone,” the shape said.
Sachin glanced at me. “I think this is—”
“I don’t want visitors and I don’t want anything to eat, like I told you. That smell is going to make me puke.”
Sachin stood back uncertainly, then turned back toward the kitchen. He placed the bag next to a block of knives on the island. I edged toward the exit. “Maybe I should go,” I whispered.
“Please,” Sachin said. “Let me find room for this in the fridge. She’s thirty-six weeks along. With the baby, you know?”
I didn’t know anything about it, other than people somehow peopled the planet. Was that a lot of weeks? Was it a safe number of weeks to suffer a tragedy?
“Who are you talking to?” Heather said. A shadow rose to a sitting position. The blanket fell away. “Who is it?”
“It’s Dahlia,” Sachin said.
“Heather, I’m so sorry,” I said.
The shadow shifted slowly, ungainly, as Heather got to her feet. Then the shape rushed across the room so quickly I took a step back. Heather came to a stop with a big baby belly pushed up against the island.
“Babe?” Sachin said, a warning edge to his voice.
He scooted the knife block out of reach.
“Dahlia,” Heather spit out, her hands claws on the stone counter. “What are you doing here?”