"I was. But I was also terrified. And at that point, I still didn't have a job and didn't know what I was going to do."
"But you made it."
"Yes," she said. "I did." Her gaze was focused on some distant point. "It's not the kind of life I ever imagined for myself."
Alex's tone was gentle. "I'm not sure anyone's life turns out exactly the way they imagine. All we can do is to try to make the best of it. Even when it seems impossible."
She knew he was talking as much about himself as he was about her, and for a long moment neither of them said anything.
"I love you," he finally whispered.
She leaned forward and touched his face. "I know. And I love you, too."
26
By late June, the flower gardens in Dorchester that had been ablaze with color in the spring were beginning to wilt, the blooms turning brown and curling inward. The humidity had begun to creep up and the alleys in downtown Boston began to smell of rotting food and urine and decay. Kevin told Coffey and Ramirez that he and Erin were going to spend the weekend at home, watching movies and doing a little gardening. Coffey had asked about Provincetown and Kevin had lied and told him about the bed-and-breakfast where they'd stayed and some of the restaurants they'd gone to. Coffey had said that he'd been to all of those places and asked if Kevin had ordered the crab cakes at one of them. Kevin said that he hadn't but would the next time.
Erin was gone, but Kevin still looked for her everywhere. He couldn't help it. As he drove the streets of Boston and saw the glint of gold brushing a woman's shoulders, he would feel his heart catch in his throat. He would watch for the delicate nose and green eyes and the graceful way she walked. Sometimes he would stand outside the bakery, pretending that he was waiting for her.
He should have been able to find her, even if she'd gotten away in Philadelphia. People left trails. Paper left trails. In Philadelphia, she'd used a phony name and phony social security number, but that couldn't last forever unless she was willing to keep on living in cheap hotels and changing jobs every few weeks. To this point, though, she hadn't used her own social security number. An officer from another precinct who had connections checked for him, and that officer was the only one who knew that Erin was gone, but he'd keep his mouth shut because Kevin knew he was having an affair with his underage babysitter. Kevin felt dirty whenever he had to talk to him because the guy was a pervert and he belonged in prison, since the Bible says Let there be no sexual immorality among you. But right now, Kevin needed him so that he could find Erin and bring her home. Man and wife were supposed to stay together because they'd made their vows in front of God and family.
He'd known he would find her in March; he'd felt sure she would turn up in April. He was certain that her name would surface in May, but the house stayed empty. Now it was June and his thoughts were often scattered and sometimes it was all he could do to go through the motions. It was hard to concentrate and the vodka didn't seem to help and he had to lie to Coffey and Ramirez and walk away while they gossiped.
This he knew: she wasn't running any longer. She wouldn't move from place to place or job to job forever. It wasn't like her. She liked nice things and wanted to have them around her. Which meant she had to be using someone else's identity. Unless she was willing to live a life continually on the run, she needed a real birth certificate and a real social security number. These days, employers required identification, but where and how would she have assumed another's identity? He knew the most common way was to find someone of a similar age who'd recently died, and then to take on the identity of the deceased. The first part of that was conceivable, if only because of Erin's frequent visits to the library. He could imagine her scanning the obituaries on microfiche, looking for a name to steal. She schemed and planned in the library while pretending to peruse the bookshelves, and she'd done those things after he'd taken time out of his busy day to drive her there. He showed her kindness and she repaid him with treachery, and it infuriated him to think of the way she must have laughed while she did it. It made him so angry to imagine those things, and with a hammer he smashed the set of china they'd been given for their wedding. Having let off steam, he was able to focus on what he had to do. Throughout March and April, Kevin spent hours in the library just as she must have done, trying to find her new identity. But even if she had found a name, how had she retrieved the identification? Where was she now? And why hadn't she come home?
These were the questions that tormented him, and sometimes it was so confusing he couldn't stop crying because he missed her and wanted her to come home and he hated to be alone. But other times, the thought that she had left him made him dwell on how selfish she was and all he wanted to do was kill her.
July rolled in with the breath of dragons: hot and moist and horizons that shimmered like a mirage when seen from a distance. The holiday weekend passed and another week started. The air conditioner had broken in his home and Kevin hadn't called the repairman. He had a headache every morning when he went to work. Trial and error proved that vodka worked better than Tylenol, but the pain was always there, pounding in his temple. He'd stopped going to the library, and Coffey and Ramirez asked about his wife again and he said that she was fine but said nothing else about her and then he changed the subject. He got a new partner named Todd Vannerty, who'd just been promoted. He was happy to let Kevin do most of the questioning when they talked to witnesses and victims, and that was fine with Kevin.
Kevin told him that, almost always, the victim knew the murderer. But not always in an obvious way. At the end of their first week together, they were called out to an apartment less than three blocks from the precinct, where they found a ten-year-old boy who'd died of a bullet wound. The shooter was a recent emigrant from Greece who had been celebrating a Greek soccer victory when he'd fired his gun at the floor. The bullet passed through the ceiling of the apartment below him and killed the boy just as he was taking a bite of pizza. The bullet entered the top of his head and the boy fell face-first into his pizza. When they saw the boy, there was cheese and tomato sauce on the boy's forehead. His mother had screamed and cried for two hours and had tried to tackle the Greek as he was led down the stairs in handcuffs. She ended up tumbling down to the landing and they'd had to call an ambulance.
Kevin and Todd went to a bar after their shift ended and Todd tried to pretend he could forget what he'd seen, but he drank three beers in less than fifteen minutes. He told Kevin that he'd failed his detective exam once, before finally passing it. Kevin drank vodka, though because Todd was with him, he told the bartender to add a splash of cranberry juice.
It was a cop bar. Lots of cops, low prices, dim lights, and women who liked to hook up with cops. The bartender let people smoke, even though it was against the law, since most of the smokers were cops. Todd wasn't married and had been there often. Kevin had never been there before and wasn't sure he liked it, but he didn't want to go home, either.
Todd went to the bathroom and when he came back, he leaned closer to Kevin.
"I think those two at the end of the bar are checking us out."
Kevin turned. Like him, the women appeared to be around thirty. The brunette noticed him staring before she turned back to her redheaded friend.
"Too bad you're married, huh? They look pretty good."
They looked worn, Kevin thought. Not like Erin, who had clear skin and smelled of lemon and mint and the perfume he'd bought her for Christmas.
"Go ahead and talk to them if you want," Kevin said.
"I think I will," Todd said. Todd ordered another beer and walked to the end of the bar and smiled. He probably said something stupid, but it was enough to make the women laugh. Kevin ordered a double vodka, no cranberry juice, and saw their reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The brunette met his eyes in the mirror, and he didn't turn away. Ten minutes later, she sauntered over and took a seat on the stool that Todd had been occupying.
"Not feeling social tonight?" the brunette asked.
"I'm not good at small talk."
The brunette seemed to consider this. "I'm Amber," she said.
"Kevin," he replied, and again, he didn't know what to say. He took a drink, thinking it tasted almost like water.
The brunette leaned toward him. She smelled musky, not like lemon and mint. "Todd says that the two of you work homicide."
"We do."
"Is that hard?"
"Sometimes," he said. He finished his drink and raised the glass. The bartender brought another over. "What do you do?"