explained that he would return the next afternoon. âAs soon as my plane lands, as soon as I can, Iâll get in my car and drive directly to the station. Can you tell me whatâs going on there?â
âTo be honest, Iâd rather talk to you in person.â The man sneezed into the phone, and Lovell jolted.
âIâm sorry,â Lovell said before he hung up. âIâm sorry I didnât let you know where I was.â
âIt was a strange decision,â Duncan said. âAt any rate, Iâll see you tomorrow.â
The traffic on the drive to the airport in San Francisco, the wait at the gate, the delay before the plane took off, the flight itself, the wait to get off the plane while the other passengers reached for their overhead baggage and zipped up their jackets and cleaned off their seats and wriggled their way down the narrow aisleâeverything moved with infuriating sluggishness in front of him.
On the drive out of Boston, he thought of one of their earliest arguments, the morning after a party at her parentsâ house on the Vineyard. He had sneaked into her bedroom before the sun rose. He watched her as she slept tucked into herself, her rosy mouth open as she breathed. The bed was positioned alongside a bay window that looked out over the Atlantic, glittering with the waning moonlight. After she woke, she sat up in bed and gave him a kiss on his arm. She began to discuss her familyâs behavior the previous night: her motherâs tendency to subtly compete with her sister; her name-dropping cousin who worked in a Manhattan law firm; her sisterâs resentment of their father, who showed no interest in Leahâs academic successes. Lovell tried to hide a yawn and began to gently wrestle Hannah back to bed, but she resisted. âDid you notice any of that?â she asked. âNot really,â he admitted. âDoesnât it interest you at all?â she said.
Lovell, his hand around her naked thigh, finally said, âI donât know. I guess all families are weird. Oh, and you should have prepared me for your fatherâs boat, which, by the way, is really a yacht. You could fund a nation with that thing.â
She pulled away. âYou canât stand this, just sitting here and talking. You are happier screwing or just sitting across from me, silent, than actually engaging in any conversation.â She may have had a point; he loved little more than lounging on his couch with her, both of them lost in a book or a movie. âSue me for just loving to be with you,â he finally said. And what could she say to that?
A thought landed on him like a tentative moth: maybe they should never have gotten married.
But then another thought: Tunisia. It stood behind them like a lighthouse in a forest. Nothing like what a honeymoon should be. No starry-eyed murmurings while lying in bed together. No marathon sessions of lovemaking, just a moment of rescue, or near heroism, and the grateful look on her face, the belief that they had absolutely done the right thing in coming together.
The parking lot at the police station was almost full, and Lovell sped past the other cars, drumming the heel of his palm against the steering wheel. He finally found a spot on the street adjacent to the station and hurried inside.
Bob Duncanâs office door was closed, so Lovell knocked. As he waited, he began to wonder why he had been so anxious to get here. What newsâwhat good newsâcould there be at this point?
Duncan pulled open the door and led him into the office. âIâll get right to it. The guys found fingernail marks on a pier at Carson.â
âFingernail marks? Do you know theyâre even hers?â This was Hannah they were talking about. Tu. This was his wife.
âI want you to think back hard now and make sure thereâs nothing you might have forgotten to tell me. No store she once went to near Carson, no old friend
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