With my head nestled against his chest, I listened to the sound of his heart beating gently. “Did you mean what you said?” he suddenly whispered.
I knew what he was talking about. “Yes,” I whispered back.
“So how do you know if it’s the real thing?” he asked.
Lifting my head off his chest, I looked at him and said, “To be honest, Vincent, I don’t know. What I do know is, I have never felt anything like this before.”
“How does it feel?” he asked.
“Like I’m not alone, if that makes sense?” I said. “With other guys, even though I’ve been with them, there has still been a part of me that has felt alone...empty. Like you, Vincent, I guess I’ve been searching for someone to love me for who I am – rather than what they think I am or what I think I should be. Am I making any sense?”
“Perfect sense,” he smiled at me. “I knew from the very first moment I met you, I’d found someone who liked me for just being me.”
“How did you know?” I smiled back at him.
“Because you didn’t tell me to piss off when you saw how badly my dancing was,” he laughed.
“You are a pretty bad dancer,” I laughed back. “For a moment I did actually think you were throwing a fit or something.”
“What else did you think?” he smiled, stroking the side of my face with his thumb.
“I thought you were probably the craziest guy I’d ever met,” I said. “You do the strangest of things at times – but are the most caring and honest man I’ve ever met...”
“Caring? Honest?” he smiled.
“What you said earlier about being a cop and making sure always to do the right thing – to try and make a difference,” I reminded him. “You really care about people – you really want to help people. You really want to help Molly Smith. Even though she is dead, you want to help get justice for her. That says a lot about a person. That says a lot about you, Vincent.”
“Do you think?” he asked, sounding unsure.
“To stand by your convictions, even though there will be plenty of people who wished you hadn’t, takes a lot of courage. Only a strong person can do that,” I said. Looking away, I added, “That’s the difference between people like you and me. I didn’t have the strength to stand up to my father. When he suggested the idea of covering for me, I should have told him no. I should have torn up the statement he brought around here. I should have been strong enough to face the truth, whatever that meant for me and my future.”
“And we will...you will,” he said.
“But how?” I said, slipping from his arms and sitting up. “We have no proof about what really happened to Molly Smith.”
“There must be something we’re missing,” Vincent said. “It’s probably staring us right in the face.”
I sat looking through the gap in the bedroom door and into my living room. “It is staring me straight in the face,” I suddenly whispered, looking at the empty Coke bottle with the note Vincent had left on the coffee table for me.
“What is it?” Vincent said, sitting up next to me on the bed.
“I dreamt of a message in a bottle,” I breathed, turning to look at him. “In one of my nightmares, when I was standing at the bottom of the well, there was a bottle floating in the dirty rainwater.”
“So?” Vincent frowned.
“When I went looking for that well,” I started to explain, “I knew I’d found the right one, because just like in my nightmare, there was a bottle with a folded piece of paper sealed inside.”
“So you think it’s connected to what happened to Molly?” he said, staring at me.
“What are the chances of me dreaming about that bottle, only to discover one floating in the well?” I gasped, clambering from the bed. “Perhaps Molly was trying to show it to me. Perhaps that piece of paper inside is a message from her? Perhaps it has the name of the person who pushed her into that well written on it.”
“That’s a bit farfetched...” Vincent said rationally.
“Hey,” I said, pulling my clothes back on. “I thought it was you who said we had ourselves an X-File!”
“I know, but...” Vincent said, starting to put on his uniform again.
“Just come with me and take a look at the bottle,” I said. “If it turns out to be just a piece of litter that’s been tossed into the well, I promise I will go and see my father first thing in the morning and tell him I want to withdraw my statement about the crash.”
“But it’s gone one-thirty in the morning,” Vincent said, glancing at the bedside clock. “Can’t we go and take a look tomorrow?”