“Well, maybe I can do something else for you tonight that could take it into the top five…”
“Maybe you could…”
Although the real reason tonight can’t make the top five has nothing to do with dinner tonight, which was delicious, or with what he will do in the bedroom tonight, which I’m sure will be amazing as usual. The second he presented me with that snowflake necklace, the night was ruined. As much as I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t put it entirely out of my head.
“Also,” he adds, “I have some good news.”
“What’s that?”
“I got a great lead on a new job for you.” He squeezes my knee. “I have a friend who works at a primary care practice like fifteen minutes away from here, and he said they’re looking for a nurse practitioner. They’re desperate, actually. They want to meet you ASAP.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Isn’t that great? It sounds perfect for you. And then you wouldn’t have to work at that prison anymore.”
“Yes, but…” I tug at the hem of my black dress. “I have a one-year contract at the prison, so…”
“Oh, come on. They won’t hold you to that. Just give them like a month’s notice.”
“I don’t know…”
Tim turns to look at me at another red light. The whites of his eyes glow slightly in the moonlight. “You do want to leave that job, right? You don’t want to keep working at a men’s penitentiary, do you?”
I squirm in my seat. “It’s not as bad as you think. Most of them are just so happy to be getting medical care.”
“And not to mention,” Tim continues like I hadn’t even spoken, “the fact that Shane Nelson is a prisoner there. I don’t know how you could even work there knowing he’s around. What if you had to treat him?”
We talked briefly about the fact that I was working at the same prison where Shane is incarcerated. Tim was flabbergasted, but when I explained it was the only job I could find, he eventually calmed down. But I had to swear to him that I never treated Shane.
That is to say, I lied.
“If I had to treat him,” I say, “I could do it.”
“Seriously? Because you took one look at a necklace that reminded you of that night, and you looked like you were going to have a panic attack. And Christ, what if he found out about Josh?”
I frown. Tim is worried about me working at a maximum-security prison, but it’s not as bad as he thinks. And maybe Shane isn’t as bad as he thinks either.
“What if…” I clear my throat. “What if I got it wrong? What if Shane wasn’t the one who tried to strangle me that night?”
Tim’s hand abruptly leaves my knee. “What?”
I hug my chest. “I’m just saying, it was so dark in the living room. I couldn’t see a thing. I never even saw his face.”
Tim slams down on the brakes, inches away from rear-ending the car in front of us. “You have got to be kidding me, Brooke.”
“I just think—”
He swerves the car to pull over to the side of the road. I can make out a vein throbbing in his temple. “Maybe it was too dark for you to see him, but I saw him. He came at me with a goddamn knife and buried it in my gut. All I could do was hit him with that bat, but the bastard didn’t go down. He looked right into my eyes, Brooke, and he told me you were next. Trust me—it was him.”
The police found Tim unconscious and bleeding on the floor of the farmhouse with a stab wound in his belly. In the last month, I’ve had the opportunity to see the scar left behind from that night. It’s a one-inch line of raised skin a few inches from his belly button. I always thought it would be bigger.