The Killing Game (2 page)

“It’s really dark in here,” she said apologetically.

“I kind of like it.” And his hand had slipped along her forearm, sending her nerve endings into high gear.

She honestly couldn’t remember all that much about the rest of the evening, except that he drove her home and kissed her lightly on the lips at the front door of her crappy apartment. She’d told him she was a teacher’s aide, and had said she was working on her degree; she remembered that much. And she did recall throwing herself into his arms and planting a sloppy kiss back at him.

Embarrassing!

But he’d laughed, squeezed her, and said that he would keep in touch.

She’d thought that would be the end of it, but he was as good as his word, texting her from every city he visited. Two weeks after that first encounter he was back, and that time she’d let him into her bedroom. Actually, she’d practically dragged him in, and he’d made love to her so sweetly she’d fought back tears. Luckily, she hadn’t broken down and cried. How juvenile would that have been? At the door he’d kissed her hard enough to make her toes curl.

“When will you be back?” she’d asked, dying inside at the thought of not seeing him for a while. She would die without him. Just die.

“Next Saturday night. Take the last ferry out of Friday Harbor to Orcas Island,” he told her.

“The last ferry? I could come earlier,” she said eagerly.

“No. The last ferry. Go to the upper deck. I’ll have something special for you.”

So, here she was, cruising along. The sun had sunk into the sea and there was a quiet somnolence to the humming engines and near empty boat. She couldn’t concentrate on her book. She half-expected something amazing to happen, like he might suddenly appear or something, but so far there’d been no surprises.

Bzzz.
She jumped when she heard the text.

I see you, little bird.

She looked around wildly, eagerly. He was here?
Where?

And then she spied him on the outside deck, peering through the window at her. He lifted a hand in greeting, his grin a slash of white. Abandoning her book, she ran to the door, sliding it open, and was greeted by a slap of cold sea air and a buffeting wind. When she rounded the corner he’d disappeared from where he’d looked at her through the window. “Where are you?” she called, but the wind threw her words back into her throat.

“Right here.”

He was behind her, grabbing her around the waist.

She laughed in delight and tried to turn to face him, but he wouldn’t have it. She realized he was humping her from behind.

“I want you, little bird. Right here. Right now.”

“Are you crazy?” She giggled. “Anybody could come up on us!”

“But they won’t. Come on.”

And then she was, sprawled facedown on the wet deck and he was yanking down her jeans and pulling up her hips, jamming himself inside her, pumping hard and fast. It hurt like hell and she couldn’t help the little yelp of pain, though she tried to stifle it. She acquiesced, her eyes sliding around in fear, hoping against hope no one would discover them.

She was relieved when it was over. “Good, huh?” he breathed in her ear, one hand gripping her breast almost painfully.

“Good,” she murmured, reaching for the jeans that were pooled around her ankles. She was in an ungainly position, on her hands and knees, when he suddenly swooped her to her feet, finally turning her to look at him.

“My pants,” she whispered, trying to grab them with her right hand.

“You don’t need them where you’re going.”

“What?”

“Birds need to fly.”

And then he picked her up with furious strength and tossed her over the rail. She was so stunned she didn’t cry out until the water closed over her head. She gulped in a deluge, flailing, dragged down by the jeans tangled around her ankles, unable to kick with any strength. By the time she could make a sound, the ferry had churned away into the blackness, and the wind shrieked louder than her voice. She screamed and screamed, but she was no match for the gales that tore across the surface of the water.

The last sight she had on this earth were the ferry lights, growing smaller and smaller, finally winking out.

Then she sank beneath the cold, black water one final time.

Chapter One

Andi gazed down at the toes of her black flats, her most comfortable work shoes. The right heel was scuffed from long hours resting on the carpet of her Hyundai Tucson as she’d pressed down on the accelerator. She supposed she really ought to put some polish on it. It wasn’t going to get better by itself.

She sat in a chair with polished oak arms and a blue cushion, her vision focused on the commercial gray carpet that ran the length of the reception area. Minutes elapsed, their passing accompanied by a flat hum in her ears. She’d been in this same suspended state for over three months, ever since Greg’s death. Friends and family had consoled her over losing her husband, murmuring words of encouragement and hope, and she’d tried to acknowledge their kindness.

But what if you don’t feel anything? What if your husband’s infidelity creates a different truth? What if your grief is from the shock of change and not the actual loss of your spouse?

The only person she’d told her true feelings to was Dr. Knapp, her therapist, the woman to whom Greg had steered her when she’d been so depressed, and that was
before
his death.

But you loved Greg once, didn’t you?

She reopened her eyes. After four years of marriage, three failed IVF procedures, one ugly affair—his, not hers—where Greg’s lover had turned up pregnant—oh, yes,
that
had happened—her love for him was a whole lot harder to remember.

She looked around the waiting room. A twentysomething woman with dark hair and the drawn, faraway look of the utterly hopeless sat across the room. Andi wondered if some terrible fate had befallen her. She suspected she’d had that same look on her face when she’d learned the last IVF implantation hadn’t taken. And she may have looked that way when she’d learned Greg’s Lexus had veered off the road that encircled Schultz Lake and plunged into the water. One moment she was lost in her failure to start a family, the next she was a widow.

Greg’s two siblings, Carter and Emma, were grieving and sympathetic to Andi’s loss until they learned she’d inherited 66 percent of Wren Development, the family business started by Douglas Wren, Carter and Emma’s grandfather, whereas they’d only gotten 17.5 percent apiece. Andi had become the major stockholder upon Greg’s death. Now they couldn’t stand dealing with her, especially since she’d become part of the company. Couldn’t stand that she was “in the way.” Her business degree didn’t matter. They just wanted her gone.

The inner door opened and a nurse in blue scrubs said, “Mrs. Wren? Dr. Ferante will see you now.”

Slinging the strap of her purse over her shoulder, Andi followed after her through the door she held open. They walked down polished floors that squeaked beneath the crepe soles of the nurse’s shoes. She hadn’t wanted to make this appointment, but the gray fog that wouldn’t lift from around her wasn’t normal. And the weight on her chest was killing her. Her therapist had prescribed pills for her, but they hadn’t seemed to help and she’d stopped taking them.

But she’d been so tired that she’d made an appointment and had blood work done. This was her follow-up.

Dr. Ferante was a middle-aged Hispanic woman with short, curly black hair, white teeth, and a brisk, friendly manner. Andi sat down on the crinkly paper on the end of the examining table and waited for some answers.

Now, she studied the woman who’d been Greg’s doctor first, after the family’s longtime physician had retired. Greg hadn’t known what to think of his first woman physician, but Andi had sensed Dr. Ferante was a straight shooter.

“So, am I going to be okay?” Andi asked, smiling faintly, though it was an effort.

When Dr. Ferante didn’t immediately answer, Andi’s heart clutched a bit. Oh, God. She hadn’t believed she was really sick.

“You’re pregnant.”

Andi’s mouth dropped open. “What! No. I’m not.”

“I ran the test three times.”

“I can’t be. I
can’t
be.”

“I assure you, you are. You’re a little over three months, best guess.”

Andi stared at her. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t
think.

“I even checked to make sure your results weren’t mixed up with someone else’s,” Dr. Ferante went on,” though it would be highly unlikely. The lab’s extremely careful and has a wonderful reput—”

“I don’t believe you!”

Dr. Ferante cut off what she was about to say and nodded instead. “I understand this is overwhelming. You’ve been through a lot in a very short time. But I think this is good news, right?” she said gently.

“But the IVFs failed.”

“You’ve said you’ve been lacking in energy. That you haven’t been able to focus. This is why. This and your grief,” she said. “Call your gynecologist and make an appointment.”

Andi couldn’t process. Boggled, she quit arguing with Dr. Ferante and allowed herself to be led toward the door. Her brain was whirling like a top. Three months . . . the baby, of course, was Greg’s. They’d had that attempt at reconciliation after the horror of learning about Mimi Quade’s pregnancy, which Greg had furiously denied being any part of. Greg had died before any testing could prove otherwise, and in the three months since, there had been no contact with Mimi or her brother, Scott.

Andi’s hands felt cold and numb and she stared down at them as if they weren’t attached to her arms. She climbed into her Hyundai Tucson and sat there for a moment, staring through the windshield. Then she pulled out her cell phone, scrolling to her gynecologist, Dr. Schuster’s, number. When the receptionist answered, she said in a bemused voice, “This is Andrea Wren and I’ve been told I’m pregnant, so I guess I need an appointment.”

“Wonderful!” the woman said warmly. Carrie. Her name was Carrie, Andi recalled.

“I’m having trouble processing this. I just want to be sure.”

“How far away are you? Dr. Schuster had a last-minute cancellation today, but the appointment’s right now.”

“Oh God. I can be there in fifteen minutes. Will that work?”

“Just,” Carrie said, then added, “Drive carefully.”

Andi aimed her car out of the medical complex and toward the familiar offices of Dr. Schuster’s IVF offices, which were across the Willamette River to Portland’s east side. She made the trip in twenty-three minutes, gnashing her teeth when it took several more minutes to find a parking spot. Slamming out of the SUV, she remote locked it as she hurried toward the covered stairs on the west side of the building, refusing to wait for the elevator. She hadn’t felt this much urgency since before Greg’s death.

When she entered the reception room, her face was flushed and her heartbeat light and fast. She scanned the room and settled on the woman at the curved reception counter. Carrie, who was somewhere in her forties, with straight, brown hair clipped at her nape, about Andi’s same shade and length, though Andi’s was currently hanging limply to her shoulders. She’d combed it this morning, but that was about as far as she’d gotten after showering, brushing her teeth, and getting dressed. She’d thrown on some mascara, the extent of her makeup.

“Go on through,” Carrie urged her, coming around the desk to hold open the door to the hallway beyond. “Second door on your right.”

“Thank you.”

She seated herself on the end of the examining table. Suddenly her body felt hot all over, and she sensed she was going to throw up. It was as if her mind, having accepted this new truth, had convinced her body. She knew where the nearest bathroom was and ran for the door. Too late. She was already heaving. She grabbed the nearest waste can, with its white plastic kitchen bag, moments before losing the remains of her earlier coffee and a muffin.

When her stomach stopped feeling as if it were turning itself inside out, she grabbed some tissues from the box of Kleenex on the counter and wiped her lips. Then she leaned under the faucet at the small stainless-steel sink and washed the sour taste from her mouth. Pregnant, she thought again, struggling to process.
Pregnant!

Her eye fell on a pictorial representation of a woman’s body in the last trimester, the position of the fetus, the swelling of the mother’s abdomen. Tentatively, she placed her hand over her still quivering midsection.

The doctor bustled in a few minutes later. She was in her fifties, with thick, steel-gray hair that curved beneath her chin and looked surprisingly chic and healthy. Behind frameless glasses, her eyes were a startling light blue and peered at you as if you were a specimen in ajar. Dr. Schuster worked hard to effect pregnancies, but she didn’t exhibit a warm and fuzzy manner.

Andi confessed, “I threw up in your trash can.”

“We’ll take care of it. I understand you think you’re pregnant?”

“My doctor, Dr. Ferante, just told me I was.”

“Okay.”

She gave Andi a routine exam, and once again her blood was drawn. The doctor looked thoughtful but wasn’t going to give out any answers before she was ready. It was another ten minutes before she returned to the room and, holding Andi’s file to her chest, said with a slight softening of her manner, “Yes, you are pregnant.”

Heat flooded Andi’s system. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Greg’s been gone for three months.”

“That’s about how far along you are.”

“After all this time . . . all the effort,” Andi said now, swallowing.

“When the stress is off, sometimes it happens like this.”

Andi knew that. She just hadn’t completely believed it.

She and Dr. Schuster talked about what was in store in the next few months: a healthy diet, light exercise, plenty of rest. At the reception desk Andi consulted the calendar on her cell phone and lined up future appointments. She left the medical offices in a state of wonderment, driving back toward her house, the one she’d just sold, feeling like she was living a dream. She wondered briefly if she should have held on to the house, but it was too late now. She’d purchased one of the older cabins on Schultz Lake, the very lake that was the scene of Wren Development’s latest endeavor—a lodge at the north end that had just begun construction—and her real estate agent had delivered the keys the night before. She’d sold the house she’d shared with Greg because that part of her life was over.