“Since you’re part of the law,” Avery said, “I’m guessing it’s love. Tell me about her.”
“It sounds so easy when you put it like that. Simple and direct.”
“I blame my bluntness on law school. They teach you to zero in on the topic and push everything else aside.”
“You went to law school?” Walt asked, forgetting for a moment that the woman in front of him had a whole other life he was supposed to know nothing about. He sensed a shift in her demeanor as her two worlds overlapped.
Slowly, she nodded. “I did, but the whole attorney thing wasn’t for me. I figured that out after school, moved to LA to put my journalism major to use. But those same instincts are part of my job now. When I feel a story, or sense that there is something to be learned, I zero in on it with annoying focus. I apologize if I’m being too direct about this. You don’t have to tell me any more if it’s private.”
“No, I don’t mind. It’ll probably do me some good to talk about it. That’s what a shrink would probably say, anyway.”
“I can’t analyze, I can only listen.”
“Okay. Let’s see, the Cliffs Notes version goes something like this: Adultery sank my first marriage. She cheated, not me. We were both young and dumb, and not right for each other, so it was probably best that it blew up so fast. The ending of my second marriage stung a bit more. It fell apart because of children—I wanted them, she didn’t. And then, there was Meghan Cobb.”
There was a stretch of silence as Walt tried to figure out how to proceed.
“She’s the one who sent you to the Caribbean?” Avery asked.
Walt nodded. He took another swallow of rum and allowed the liquor to burn his throat. This last bit of rum pushed him past the tipping point, like it always did, and his mind drifted to the past.
For such life-threatening injuries, Walt’s hospital stay lasted only five days. Three had been spent in the ICU after surgery, and the final two in gen pop where he shuffled about with the other post-op patients proving he could walk and talk and pass gas. When the doctors were satisfied, they released him with a long list of restrictions. The discharge had come just in time. His partner’s funeral was the following day, and one way or another Walt planned to attend. If he had to pull the IV lines out of his arm and leave against medical advice, he was prepared to do so. But when Walt started to push, no one fought him. He had nearly died in an ambush that claimed his partner. No one was planning to deny him the honor of attending the funeral.
Walt was out of the woods. Dr. Eleanor Marshfield, the surgeon who had sewn him up, told Walt that the heart was a miraculous organ and as long as he didn’t overdo it in the first six months of recovery, he would be fine. The doctor, of course, could speak only to the physical recovery of Walt’s heart. She had no idea about the emotional damage he was about to endure.
Jim Oliver drove him home from the hospital.
“Thanks for the lift, Jim.”
“You need any help?”
“Nah, I’m good. A little slow but otherwise no worse for the wear.”
Walt opened the passenger-side door and slowly climbed out of the car, grunting in the process. After righting himself, he closed the door and leaned down to peer through the open window.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “You need a ride to the funeral?”
“No, I’m cleared to drive. And, I’m not sure what kind of shape I’m going to be in. I’d prefer to have my own getaway vehicle in case I have to make a stealth exit.”
“Understood. It’ll be a packed house. All the guys have been asking about you.”
Walt forced a smile and slapped the roof of the car a couple of times with strength he didn’t have.
“Thanks again, Jim.”
The following morning, Walt woke with a foggy brain jumbled with colliding thoughts and worries. First on his mind was his partner. Walt could not call Jason Snyder a close friend. Other than social work functions a couple of times each year, and the occasional beer when the timing was right, Walt had never spent much time with Jason outside work. Some partners clicked and became thick as thieves. Together for three years, Walt Jenkins and Jason Snyder had simply never grown close in that way. All Walt knew about Jason’s personal life was that he was married with no kids, and that he was close with his father, who had also been an agent back in the day. A shitty feeling of guilt plagued Walt throughout the night, causing him to toss and gingerly turn through the dark hours. By 4: 00 a. m. he considered himself a subspecies of the human race for never showing an interest in his partner’s life. And now that Jason was gone, Walt had the sudden desire to know him better. To be a better friend and a more protective partner. Walt had always claimed to have Jason’s back. An assertion that was as empty now as it sounded.
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror. The white bandage on his neck denied him the option of a necktie, and the gauze and tape were positioned too high for the collar of his shirt to conceal them. He carefully pulled on his suit coat and examined himself in the mirror. His ashen complexion and black-rimmed eyes, together with his bandaged neck, made him look like death warmed over. And though no one would blame him for that, Walt worried that his presence at the funeral might take attention away from Jason and his family. He concocted a plan to get in and out as quickly as possible.
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple rising and falling in the process and producing a sharp pain in his neck as the damaged muscles constricted. The bags under his eyes were evidence of a sleepless night, which was rooted in more than just sur vivor’s guilt. Something else bothered him. He picked up his phone and scrolled through the text messages for the hundredth time. Meghan had not called—no texts and no voice mails. He had found her mailbox full when he tried to leave a message during his first coherent day out of the ICU. All subsequent text messages had gone unanswered. He had heard from both his ex-wives while he was in the hospital, and the irony was not lost on Walt that the two women who hated him most in the world had managed to reach out to check on him, but the one woman who claimed to love him was MIA.
He’d last seen Meghan a week ago, two nights before he was shot. They spent the weekend at a bed and breakfast in upstate New York, and a pang of worry overcame him. He’d justifiably been preoccupied for the last few days by his brush with death, but now he considered that something might have happened to Meghan. He didn’t have her parents’ phone number, and even if he did, calling would be a bad idea. Walt had never met Meghan’s parents. The awkward conversation would likely set off unnecessary alarm. He also scrapped the idea of reaching out to Meghan’s sister. It would be a bit dramatic, and even selfish, to worry Meghan’s family over a few unreturned phone calls.
As he stood in front of the mirror, he scrolled through his phone and shot her one more text.
“Where are you? A lot’s happened since I’ve seen you. Call me.”
He dropped his phone into his coat pocket, looked once more in the mirror but quickly gave up trying to make himself more presentable. He clicked off the lights as he left the bathroom and headed to his partner’s funeral.