The Perfect Husband (43 page)

Then one day she'd shown up and he was gone. He'd dressed himself in his bloody clothes and walked out the front door. There had been nothing the hospital staff could do to stop him, and nobody had seen him since.

Difford's body was recovered from the rooftop, where Jim had placed it as a decoy after he'd killed the sniper. A store mannequin's head had been attached to Difford's neck. Tess had attended the memorial service for the lieutenant and the sniper. Following Difford's wishes, his body was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Atlanta Braves spring training field in Florida.

Two days later Tess had attended Marion's funeral, where Marion was laid to rest next to her father in Arlington. J.T. still hadn't shown up. It was as if he'd fallen off the face of the earth. That's when Tess had known he'd returned to Nogales.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded hoarse, either from whiskey or tobacco or disuse. Maybe all three. His fingers picked up a cigarette case. He didn't open it, he just twirled it between his fingers. It was the cigarette case that had belonged to Marion.

“You shouldn't be down here,” she said.

His gaze slid down her body, then dismissed her. “Too virginal. I'm not interested.”

“I'm not in the sinning business.”

“Well, I am.”

“Come home, J.T.” She touched his cheek lightly. His beard was so long, it was silky. She reacquainted herself with the line and feel of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. She ached for him. She looked at him and she hurt. “Tell me how to help you.”

“Go away.”

“I can't.”

“Women are always trying to change a man. You think there's something more inside us, and frankly it's just not true. I am what I am.” He jerked his hand around the bar. “Honey, this is me.”

“You are who you are. But this isn't it. This is you drunk. I've seen you sober. I care for that man an awful lot. I think that man is one of the best men I know.”

His gaze fell to the table and the tumbler full of amber liquid. Shame stained his cheeks.

“I'm haunted,” he said abruptly. “Like an old house. I close my eyes and I see Rachel and Marion again and again. Sometimes they're happy. Sometimes they're sad. There's nothing I can do about it. I reach out my hand to them and
poof
, they're gone.” He opened his palm on the counter and flung the emptiness into the air.

Tess didn't know what to say. She wasn't an expert on how to heal. She did the best she could. She kissed him. And he didn't taste of whiskey or cigarettes. He tasted suspiciously of apples.

Her gaze went from him to his glass to him. He sat stiffly while she sniffed the contents.

“Apple juice?”

“Yeah.” Shame infused his cheeks again. “I tried whiskey. I truly, truly did. And every time I raised the glass, I just saw Marion shaking her head at me. Christ” — he hung his head — “I'm a teetotaler!”

“It's okay,” she assured him, stroking his hair. “It'll get easier. It will.”

He didn't look convinced. Her fingers traced the beard on his cheeks, the purple puffiness beneath his eyes, the fullness of his lips. “J.T., I love you.”

He groaned like a trapped beast. His eyes closed. “Why can't you just go away? Why can't you just leave me alone? You killed him, you survived, isn't that enough for you?”

“I don't want to live in the past.”

“I can't escape it.”

“You can, it's just going to take a while.” She gave up sitting beside him and slid onto his lap. In this bar few people noticed. His thighs were hard and masculine beneath her, the denim of his jeans soft and worn. She kissed his lips, then his cheek, and then the scar on his chest.

She rested her head against his shoulder, and after a heartbeat she felt his arms slide around her waist. He buried his face in her hair.

And after a ponderous moment his broad shoulders began to shake.

“Tell me,” she commanded softly.

“I love you. Christ, I love you.”

And he was dying and there was nothing for him anymore. No place he could go where he didn't see Marion lying in the dirt, no room to sit in where he didn't see Rachel waving to him and blowing a kiss as she got into her car, and Teddy's little arm waving in the backseat. He wanted to find them each again. He wanted to hold them in his arms and whisper, Please, please be happy. I love you, I just wanted you to be happy. I love you.

Remember me young, for both of us.

He raised his head. There were tear tracks on his cheeks. He didn't care anymore.

“Make me whole. I want to be whole.”

She pressed his face against her throat and stroked his hair. She smelled of roses. He inhaled deeply and felt the scent finally soothe his shattered senses.

“Come on. It's time to go home and meet my daughter.”

He kissed her. He held her close.

And he let her take him home.

LATER, ALMOST TWELVE months after that bloody night, he had the dream for the first time. Marion and Rachel were in a field of wildflowers, wearing white dresses and whimsical summer hats. Teddy picked daisies at their feet, his chubby hand filled with the flowers. They were talking and laughing, enjoying the day.

J.T. stood at the edge of the field, invisible to them and unable to touch. They spread out in the field and opened their arms to the sun.

It was a ridiculous dream, he thought upon waking. But he held it in his mind anyway.

He liked to remember them laughing, he liked to remember them happy. In the end maybe that was the most any of us can do — remember the ones we loved the way we loved them.

He rolled over and curled his arm around his wife's supple waist.

“Bad dreams?” she murmured sleepily.

“No.”

“Okay. Stop hogging the covers.”

She drifted back to sleep. He pulled the covers over her shoulders, then settled her against him. She whispered his name and even in her sleep returned his embrace.

Dear Reader,

I hope you loved THE PERFECT HUSBAND, and now I’d like to share with you a sneak peek at my next novel, ALONE. I’m very excited to be working on such a dark, twisted tale, this one featuring a homicidal cop, a manipulative widow, a vengeful father, and a happy-go-lucky psychopath. I like to think that it’s psychological suspense at its finest, where the person you love the most should be the person you trust the least.…

Read on for a thrilling preview of Lisa Gardner’s
latest novel of suspense, ALONE,
coming in hardcover from
Bantam Books in January 2005!

HE’D PUT IN a fifteen-hour shift the night the call came in. Too many impatient drivers on 93, leading to too much crash, bang, boom. City was like that this time of year. The trees were bare, night coming on quick and the holidays looming. It felt raw outside. After the easy camaraderie of summer barbecues, now you walked alone through city streets hearing nothing but the skeletal rattle of dry leaves skittering across cold pavement.

Lots of cops complained about the short, gray days of February, but personally, Bobby Dodge had never cared for November. Today did nothing to change his mind.

His shift started with a minor fender bender, followed by two more rear-enders from northbound gawkers. Four hours of paperwork later, he thought he’d gotten through the worst of it. Then, in early afternoon, when traffic should’ve been a breeze even on the notoriously jam-packed 93, came a five-car pileup as a speeding taxi driver tried to change four lanes at once, and a stressed-out ad exec in a Hummer forcefully cut him off. The Hummer took the hit like a heavyweight champ; the rusted-out cab went down for the count and took out three other cars with it. Bobby got to call four wreckers, then diagram the accident, and then arrest the ad exec when it became apparent the man had mixed in a few martinis with his power lunch.

Pinching a man for driving under the influence meant more paperwork, a trip to the South Boston barracks (now in the middle of rush hour traffic, when no one respected anyone’s right-of-way, let alone a trooper’s), and another altercation with the rich ad exec when he balked at entering the holding cell.

The ad exec had a good fifty pounds on Bobby. Like a lot of guys confronted by a smaller opponent, he confused superior weight with superior strength and ignored the warning signs telling him otherwise. The man grabbed the doorjamb with his right hand. He swung his lumbering body backward, expecting to bowl over his smaller escort and what? Make a run for it through a police barracks filled with armed troopers? Bobby ducked left, stuck out his foot, and watched the overweight executive slam to the floor. The man landed with an impressive crash and a few troopers paused long enough to clap their hands at the free show.

“I’m going to fucking sue!” the drunken ad exec screamed. “I’m going to sue you, your commanding officer, and the whole fucking state of Massachusetts. I’ll own this joint. You hear me?
I’ll fucking own your ass
!”

Bobby jerked the big guy to his feet. Rich exec screamed a fresh round of obscenities, possibly because of the way Bobby was pinching the man’s thumb. Bobby shoved the man into the holding cell and slammed the door.

“If you’re gonna puke, please use the toilet,” Bobby informed him, because by now the man had turned a little green. The rich executive flipped him off. Then he doubled-over and vomited on the floor.

Bobby shook his head. “Rich prick,” he muttered.

Some days were like that, particularly in November.

Now it was shortly after ten p.m. The rich ad exec had been bailed out by his overpriced lawyer, the holding cell was washed down, and Bobby’s shift, which had started at seven a.m., was finally done. He should go home. Give Susan a buzz. Catch some sleep before his alarm went off at five, and the whole joyous process started once more.

Instead he was jittery in a way that surprised himself. Too much adrenaline buzzing in his veins, when he was a man best known for being cool, calm, and collected.

Bobby didn’t go home. Instead he traded in his blues for jeans and a flannel shirt, then headed for the local bar.

At the Boston Beer Garden, fourteen other guys were sitting around the U-shaped bar, smoking cigarettes and nursing draft beer while zoning out in front of flat-screen TVs. Bobby nodded to a few familiar faces, waved his hand at the sixty-year-old bartender, Carl, then took an empty seat a bit down from the rest. Sally brought him his usual order of nachos. Carl hand-delivered his Coke.

“Long day, Bobby?”

“Same old, same old.”

“Susan coming in?”

“Practice night.”

“Aye, the concert. Two weeks, right?” Carl shook his head. “Beautiful and talented. I’ll tell you again, Bobby — she’s a keeper.”

“Don’t let Martha hear you,” Bobby told him. “After watching your wife haul a keg, I don’t want to think of what she could do with a rolling pin.”

“My Martha’s also a keeper,” Carl assured him. “Mostly ’cause I fear for my life.”

Carl left Bobby alone with his Coke and nachos. Overhead, a live news bulletin was reporting on some kind of situation in Revere. A heavily-armed suspect had barricaded himself in his home after taking potshots at his neighbors. Now, Boston PD had deployed their SWAT team, and “nobody was taking any chances.”

Yeah, November was a funny kind of month. Wired people up, left them with no defenses against the oncoming gloom of winter. Left even guys like Bobby doing all they could do just to hold the course.

He finished his nachos. He drank his Coke. He settled his bill, and just as he had convinced himself it really was a good idea to go home, the beeper suddenly activated on his belt. He read the screen in one instant and was bolting out the door the next.

It had been that kind of day. Now it would be that kind of night.

Catherine Rose Gagnon didn’t like November much either, though for her, the real problem had started in October. October 22, 1980, to be exact. The air had been warm, the sun a hot kiss on her face as she walked home from elementary school. She’d been carrying her books in her arm and wearing her favorite back-to-school outfit: knee-high brown socks, a dark brown corduroy skirt, and a long-sleeved gold top.

A car came up behind her. At first she didn’t notice; but dimly she became aware of the blue Chevy slowing to a crawl beside her. A man’s voice. “
Hey, honey. Can you help me for a second? I’m looking for a lost dog
.”

Later there was pain and blood and muffled cries of protest. Her tears streaking down her cheeks. Her teeth biting her lower lip.

Then there was darkness and her tiny, hollow cry: “Is anyone out there?”

And then, for the longest time, there was nothing.

They told her it lasted twenty-eight days. She’d had no way of knowing. There was no time in the dark, just a loneliness that went on without end. There was cold and there was silence, and there were the times when he returned. But at least that was something. It was the sheer nothingness, endless streams of nothingness, that could drive a person insane.

Hunters found her. November 18. They noticed the fresh dirt, poked around with their rifles, and were startled to hear her faint voice. They dug her up triumphantly, unearthing her four-by-six earthen prison and releasing her into the crisp fall air. Later she saw newspaper photos. Her dark eyes oversized, her head thin and bony, her body curled up on itself, like a small brown bat that had been yanked harshly into the light.

The papers dubbed her the Thanksgiving Miracle. Her parents took her home. Neighbors and family paraded through the front door with exclamations of “Oh, thank goodness!” and “Just in time for the holidays,” and “Oh, can you really believe…?”

She sat and let people talk around her. She slipped food from the overflowing trays and stored it in her pockets. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched around her ears. She was still the little bat and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she was terrified of the light.

More police came. She told them of the man, of the car. They showed her pictures. She pointed at one. Later, days, weeks — did it really matter? — she came to the police station, stared at a lineup, and solemnly pointed her finger.