Betrayers(12)

Runyon went back into the vestibule and thumbed the bell on the box marked Adams, the name of the woman who’d seen Madison and Piper leaving with their suitcases. No answer. He rang the other bells one at a time, got three responses. One of the three wouldn’t talk to him; the other two were willing enough, if hardly a font of information.

“I heard Madison got arrested for selling drugs,” one of them said, “but he never tried to push any around here. I’d’ve turned him in if he had. I don’t have nothing to do with drugs, mister. One of my sister’s kids died of a heroin overdose three years ago.”

“The Piper woman?” the other neighbor said. “Sure, I seen her around. Unfriendly as hell. Stare right through you like you were a piece of glass. No, I don’t know where she works. Don’t work anywhere, for all I know. I seen her around here all hours, day and night.”

So much for Valencia Street, at least for the time being. Next stop: Noe Valley.



He wondered what Bryn was doing right now.

Funny how thoughts like that popped into his head lately. He’d be thinking about something else or not thinking about anything, driving someplace or no place, and then all of a sudden she’d be there in his mind. Just the way Colleen had been in the twenty good years before the cancer diagnosis. Happened all the time then, not just occasionally, but he’d been deeply in love with Colleen—the love of his life. He wasn’t in love with Bryn. Or was he? Maybe, a little . . . more than a little. But not in the same way, now or ever.

With Colleen the connection had been so complete that when the cancer had finally destroyed her, it’d nearly destroyed him, too. With Bryn it was different. A closeness built on friendship, understanding, a gradually hardening bond of trust. Gentle intimacy, even in bed the past month. Two damaged people, her by the stroke that had paralyzed one side of her face, him by Colleen’s lingering death and the black hole it had left inside him. Leaning on each other for support, sure, but it was more than that—it was helping each other learn how to feel again, how to care about themselves again.

She’d be working now, he thought, as she did most afternoons. Maybe on one of her watercolors or charcoal sketches, maybe on the computer-generated graphic designs that paid her bills. She’d refused spousal support when her cold, selfish ex-husband divorced her after the stroke. Too proud, too self-sufficient. She’d even insisted on paying a share of the support for her only kid, nine-year-old Robert Jr., Bobby.

Bobby had spent this past weekend with her—one of the two weekends a month she was allowed to have her son to herself. The ex-husband, the kind of lawyer that gave the profession a bad name, had manipulated it that way. Made some sort of arrangement with a family court judge who granted him full custody except for the monthly weekend visits and one week in the summer, the decision based on the lie that Bryn’s stroke and disfigurement made her less than fit to raise the boy as a single mom. Bastards. And now Robert Sr. was getting married again, which meant a new “mother” for Bobby, an increased feeling of alienation for Bryn.

Nothing she could do about it. Nothing Runyon could, either, except be there for her when she needed him—particularly during one of her periodic bouts of near-suicidal depression. He’d been suicidal himself after Colleen died, come close more than once to eating his gun; he knew all about the waves of black melancholy and the death-wish impulses. He’d fought them, beat them off, finally buried them. Bryn would do the same with his help and support. He believed that and he felt that she was starting to believe it, too.

He hoped the weekend had gone well. He hadn’t talked to her since Thursday night, didn’t feel it was right to intrude on her private time with her son. Had she taken his advice to be more affectionate with the boy? So afraid Bobby would pull away from her because of her deformity that she’d let an uncomfortable distance build up between them, not once in his presence removing the scarf she wore constantly over the frozen side of her face.

That wouldn’t change, at least not for some time. She still wouldn’t let Runyon see her without the scarf, or touch her face or kiss her. Sex in the dark, bodies close but heads apart at awkward angles.

Hurt and lonely, both of them. It was what had drawn them together, what would keep them together until something happened to end their relationship or make it permanent.

Better not think about that now. Carpe diem. It had been so long since he’d felt like seizing any day, looked forward to something other than filling up the long empty hours with work and aimless driving. Enjoy it while it lasted. Be grateful for the chance to feel alive again.