Софи Райан: The Fast Аnd Тhe Furriest

“She said it was very important that she talks to you.” I cleared my throat. “She asked me to tell you that she believes you.” I stopped talking then, mostly because I really didn’t know what else to say.

I watched emotions play across Mac’s face—fear, surprise, embarrassment.

“I owe you an explanation,” he began.

I shook my head again. “No you don’t. You’ve always made it clear that your personal life was private and I can respect that.” In the last hour and a half I’d decided that truly was how I felt.

Mac set his backpack at his feet. His movements were tight and controlled. “There are things I want to tell you,” he said. He glanced at the slip of paper. “I’m sorry. I need to call Erin first. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

I brushed bits of paint off my shirt. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Please stay,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone.

I watched silently as he punched the number into the phone, wrapping my arms around my midsection almost as though I was hugging myself. After a moment he shook his head. He waited a moment and then said, “Erin, it’s Mac. Please call me back.” He recited his cell number and ended the call.

“She’s staying at the Rosemont.”

“I need to go talk to her.” He put the phone in his pocket. “Can I stop by the house after?”

Behind me Elvis made a low mrr.

“Yes,” I said.

He nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll see you in a little while.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and started over to the truck.

I didn’t move until Mac pulled onto the street. What did Erin Fellowes want to talk to him about? Why was she here?

Elvis cocked his head to one side and meowed. It seemed he had questions, too.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, either,” I said.

I put the rest of my supplies away and locked the garage. Then I picked up Elvis and got in my SUV. We headed for home, Elvis backseat driving the way he always did.

Mac had all the answers and I was going to have to wait until he showed up to get them.

“I hate waiting,” I said, glancing over at Elvis beside me on the passenger seat. His green eyes were fixed on the road ahead of us.

“Mrr,” he said, mostly as an afterthought, it seemed to me. I was fairly sure it was the cat version of “whatever.”

Chapter 2

Close to two hours had passed and it was dark outside and raining before Mac knocked on my door. I was curled up on the sofa with Elvis and a bowl of buttered popcorn, watching a repeat of the last episode of Restless Days before the new episode of the campy nighttime soap aired in another day.

My house was an 1860s, two-story Victorian, divided into three apartments. I lived in the front unit. My grandmother lived in the upstairs apartment, or at least she had until she’d gone off on a very extended honeymoon with her new husband, John. Rose had moved into the third apartment at the back the previous winter, after her lease hadn’t been renewed at Legacy Place, the senior apartment complex where she’d lived for the previous two years. Rose derisively referred to the building as Shady Pines and hadn’t exactly been unhappy about being asked to leave.

I muted the TV and put the popcorn on the counter as I went to answer the door, which really wouldn’t dissuade Elvis if he decided he wanted some. He craned his neck to look at the red glass bowl and then yawned and stretched out across half the sofa, rolling onto his back. Licking butter and salt from the inside of the bowl wasn’t worth the effort of getting up and jumping onto the counter.

“Hi,” Mac said. “I’m sorry it took so long.” He looked tired. There were lines pulling at the corners of his mouth and his eyes.

“C’mon in,” I said.

He followed me inside, pulling off his damp sweatshirt. I took it from him, draping it over one of the stools at the counter. Then I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. Elvis, who had been watching the screen upside down, rolled over and turned his attention to Mac. I sat down next to the cat, curling one leg underneath me.

Mac took the nearby chair. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Sarah, did Erin say anything about why she wanted to talk to me? Or how she even knew I was here in North Harbor?”

I shook my head. “The only thing she said was that it was important that she talk to you and that she believed you.” I paused. “And that she was a friend of your wife.”

His gaze flicked away from mine for a moment.

“You didn’t find her, did you?” I said.

He shook his head. “I went to the inn but Erin wasn’t there. I checked all the nearby restaurants. I left two more messages on her phone. I drove around downtown but I couldn’t find her. I even went back to the shop in case she’d decided to go back and wait for me there.” He smoothed a hand back over his damp hair and turned all his attention to me. “I don’t want to talk about Erin right now, Sarah.” His mouth moved as though he needed to try out what he wanted to say before he actually said the words. “You know now that I was—and still am—married.”

I nodded.

He took out his wallet, pulled out a photo and handed it to me. Most people carried their photos on their phone but Mac wasn’t most people.

The photograph was of a woman, in her early thirties I was guessing. It looked to have been taken on the deck of a sailboat. She had a thick mass of dark curly hair, worn loose to her shoulders, dark eyes and dark skin. But it was her smile that was so striking. Even in the small photo it lit up her face. I wondered what it was like to have that smile turned on you in person.

“This is Leila,” I said, handing the picture back to him.

He nodded.

“You’re still married. Where is she?”

He swallowed, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She’s in a long-term care facility in Providence. She’s been in a coma ever since a carbon monoxide leak in our house two years ago.

It was the last thing I’d expected him to say. “I don’t understand. Why . . . why aren’t you there?”

It was impossible to miss the pain etched into every line on his face. “At first the police believed the leak was an accident,” he said. “There were renovations going on in the house and we’d been having problems with the gas water heater, but then there were some things that made them suspect that what happened to Leila was deliberate. I was their main suspect.”

I folded my arms over my chest, hugging myself against the unbelievability of what Mac was telling me. “I don’t understand. What things?”

“First of all, there was nothing to suggest anyone had broken into the house. And no one had been working on the water heater that day.” He cleared his throat. “The police thought it was . . . suspicious that there were no fingerprints on one section of vent pipe, but we’d had the water heater looked at twice that month. A repairman could have wiped it with a rag.”

“Were you charged with anything?” I asked.

“I was never arrested, and the police finally concluded what happened was just a horrible accident, but Leila’s parents filed a civil suit and went to court to get temporary guardianship of her. Eventually, I agreed to let them have control of her care.” He sat stiff and unmoving on the edge of the chair, the only movement the clenching and flexing of his left hand.

“The doctors said she would never wake up. Her brain had been without oxygen for too long. It was . . . it was very hard for everyone to accept.” He cleared his throat. “The only reason I agreed to let her parents have guardianship of Leila was because I knew if I didn’t they would bankrupt me and there wouldn’t be enough money for top-quality care for her. They kept putting up roadblocks to me seeing her. I’d put everything we had into a trust for her care and finally I left.”