FORTY-TWO

I left Carolina’s and spent a couple hours busying myself with errands—groceries, gas, mail. But nothing cleared my head and I eventually found myself pointed in the direction of Coronado. I wanted to see Liz. After seeing Simington so isolated, I didn’t want to be alone, not even for a night.

The rain was splashing off the bridge, billowing into the bay like small explosions as I crossed over to the island. The normally bright lights of downtown were muted and murky.

I ran up the path to Liz’s house, and she opened before I could knock, waving me in from out of the tropical weather. She handed me a towel.

“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you,” she said.

I wiped off my face, dropped the towel, and pulled her to me, kissing her. Her hands were on my chest at first, protesting being pushed up against a soaking wet human being, but then her hands slipped around my neck and she forgot about my wet condition.

When I finally let her go, she stepped back and put her hand to her chest. “Wow. Nice to see you.”

I smiled. “You, too.”

“What brought that on?”

“Seeing you.”

“Ah.”

“I’d like to see more of you. Right now.”

She reached out for my hand, an electric charge between us that I’d never felt.

“This way,” she said, pulling me toward the bedroom.

Our clothes were off before we made it to the bed, and our bodies clung together like magnets. All of the anger and sadness that had permeated my existence for the last few hours dissipated as I lost myself in Liz, the one person I knew for certain wanted nothing from me other than for me to be who I was. And as we moved together, everything feeling right and simple, all I wanted was to love her.

When we’d finished, we lay there in the dark, the rain moving down her window in silver streams. Her head was on my chest, and her breathing was in rhythm with mine. I put my face into her hair, taking in the scent of coconut, mint, and sweat. I kissed the top of her head.

She rolled over so her head was on my shoulder and she could see me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but was there something in the water in San Francisco?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Because if there is, we should bottle it and start selling it. Sales will dwarf every other sex drug on the market, and we’ll be able to bathe in the money.”

I laughed and rubbed her back. “I just missed you.”

She wrapped an arm around my chest. “I missed you, too.”

The rain tapped against the window like it wanted in.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

“It went.”

“That bad?”

“I don’t know, Liz,” I said, sighing. “I don’t know if was bad or good or something else.”

“You wanna tell me?”

I didn’t want to talk about it, but I wanted to tell her because if anyone could make sense of it, Liz could. I trusted her.

I told her about my conversation with Simington and then meeting up with Keene in the airport. None of it sounded any different than when I’d spilled it all to Carolina.

Her arm tightened around my chest when I’d finished. “Rough,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded awkwardly, my head sunk into the pillow.

“Simington didn’t know about Darcy’s death?”

“If he did, he didn’t show it.”

“You believe what he said about Keene?”

“I guess. I don’t think I can know for sure, though,” I said. “He could be maneuvering me, but so far what he’s said seems to be true.” I pressed my hand into the small of her back, feeling the heat of her skin up against me. “Keene’s a bad guy. That’s one thing I’m positive of.”

She threw her leg over mine beneath the sheets. The rain was tossing awkward shadows into the room, and I stared over Liz at the window. The moon was obscured by a thick rain cloud.

“Simington was definite about not getting another attorney?” Liz asked.

“Yep.”

She put her hand on my cheek and moved my face down so I could see her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I nodded without saying anything. I tried to look away, but she held my face in place.

“I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with all of this,” she said, the intensity in her eyes clear even in the dark. “But it doesn’t change who you are.”

“I know that, Liz,” I said. “I do. I’m past that.”

“So where are you, then?”

I traced her spine with my fingers. “Trying to figure out what to do next. If anything.”

She shivered against me. “If anything?”

“Why am I doing this?” I said. “Simington’s going to die no matter what I do. Darcy’s dead, and I’m not going to change that. Keene deserves to go to jail—or worse—but I’m not sure it’s my place to see that that happens. If digging any more into what happened puts Carolina or me in jeopardy, I don’t see the justification. So why not just let it go?”

“Do you feel responsible for Darcy?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I really don’t. She came to me. She had to know what she was getting in the middle of. I’m not saying that makes what happened to her any less wrong, but I don’t feel like it was on my watch.”

“I talked to Klimes this morning,” she said. “They still don’t really have anything.”

“I’m not surprised. It feels to me like Keene knows what he’s doing. He wouldn’t have left any tracks.” “You’re certain it was him?”

“Yeah.”

A gust of wind blew against the house, a surge of rain hitting harder and louder with a sound like someone had overturned a bucket of water on the roof.

“You asked why you were doing this,” she said.

“Right. I’m not sure why.”

She propped her head up on her hand, her elbow buried in the pillow. She pushed her hair away from her face, so it fell over to the side, covering her arm. “I think I know why.”

I rolled on my side and matched her pose, putting my head on my hand. “Tell me.”

“You sure?”

“Your opinion matters more than the rest combined.”

She smiled, her long eyelashes fluttering in the dark. “Because it’s right. And it’s a way of helping him. Your father.”

I had blanched every other time someone had called Simington that. But Liz wasn’t saying it to make a point. She was merely stating the truth, and it was time for me to start letting that go.

“How?” I asked.

“You can’t save him from execution,” she explained. “But you can make sure he doesn’t die solely responsible for the murders of those men. You can let the world know Simington wasn’t the only bad guy involved.”

“Is that worth it?” I said. “People will think what they want to think.”

She placed a finger on my chest. “It will change the way you think. You’ll know that even if Simington wasn’t who you wanted him to be, at least it wasn’t all on him. He told you this was going to be the one good thing he does.” She leaned closer. “Maybe it’s up to you to see that that’s what happens. That the one good thing Simington ends up being responsible for is the arrest and punishment of Keene.” She paused. “And maybe that will let you remember him in another way than the way you think about him now.”

I put my hand on the finger she had in the center of my chest. I pulled it to my lips, and kissed her fingernail.

“I’m not sure if you’re right,” I said. “But thank you.” “For what?”

“You’re giving me permission to keep going on this,” I said. “You don’t even know if you’re right, but it’s your way of telling me not to give up.”

She slid closer to me, the mint from her hair washing over me again. “Just do what you have to do. Do what’s right.”

I pulled her close and kissed her. I tilted my forehead against hers. “I love you.”

She pushed me onto my back and slid on top of me, a here-comes-trouble grin flashing through the darkness. “Prove it.”