“This girl was loved,” Nessa informed him. “And not that it makes a difference where these things are concerned, but she wasn’t an addict. When she died, she was strong and healthy.”
Franklin studied Nessa’s face. “What makes you so sure?” he asked quietly, as if he knew he was entering dangerous territory.
The night Jonathan died, Franklin was the officer who’d answered Nessa’s frantic phone call. Few other cops would have given a wife’s intuition a second thought. But Franklin had listened—and he’d taken her seriously enough to check on Jonathan. He’d been just a few minutes too late. When someone had to call Nessa back with the news, Franklin had stepped forward. The connection they’d forged during those calls would last the rest of their lives.
Later, at her husband’s funeral, Franklin had come to stand beside Nessa at the coffin.
“You knew something was going to happen,” he’d said.
“Yes,” she told him, never taking her eyes off her husband’s face. “And it made no fucking difference.” It was one of the few times that she’d ever said the word fuck.
“It will make a difference someday,” he told her. He wasn’t repelled by her grief or intimidated by her rage. “God doesn’t give gifts like yours for no reason.”
For a few years following the funeral, they’d stayed in touch. Then one day an email went unanswered, and the next was never sent. As fond as she was of Franklin, his voice always reminded her of the worst day of her life. But now, standing on the side of the road with a dead girl’s body fifty feet away, she no longer felt the urge to flee.
“Nessa, what more can you tell me?” Franklin pressed her.
She turned her eyes away from him and watched as a photographer and a forensics technician were swallowed up by the scrubland along Danskammer Beach. “I’m still not sure what I know.” It wasn’t a lie, she tried to tell herself, but it certainly wasn’t the truth.
By the time the three women were free to go, the sun was well on its journey toward the ocean on the opposite side of the continent. They’d spent almost an entire day at the beach. Back in the car, the three of them were lost in their thoughts—or so Nessa assumed. Then, just as the car’s wheels rolled over the town line, Harriett broke the silence.
“That man Franklin wants to sleep with you, Nessa,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Nessa couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “I thought you were contemplating the meaning of life back there, and instead you’re thinking about sex? Have you forgotten where we spent the afternoon?”
“It’s perfectly normal to think of life in the presence of death,” Harriett replied. “I don’t know if you were paying attention, but your friend’s not bad-looking.”
“If you say so,” Nessa replied. “I hadn’t thought much about it.” Not really. Not until that very moment.
“You should have sex with him,” Harriett encouraged her. “You may find the experience much more pleasurable now than when you were younger. There’s certainly a lot less to worry about. I try to have sex whenever possible.”
Jo, who’d felt hopelessly shell-shocked by the morning’s discovery, burst out laughing in the passenger seat.
“What?” Nessa nearly swerved off the road. “Harriett, I’m married!”
Jo’s laughter trailed off, and a pall fell over the car. Whether Nessa could see him or not, it was clear that Jonathan’s ghost never stopped haunting her. Suddenly, they could all feel his presence. He was there with them now.
“Do you think having sex with a living man will make you love your dead husband any less?” Harriett wasn’t afraid to tackle the subject head-on.