Jennifer Sturman - The Key

That was odd.

I scanned the index of previous Web pages along the left-hand side of the browser more carefully and selected the second listing. This took me to a Google search on Jake Channing.

There was only one explanation for it, assuming I hadn’t been Googling Jake in my sleep. And that was that Peter had been Googling Jake while I slept in.

“Peter?” I called out.

His head appeared in the doorway, the phone clasped to his ear. “That sounds like it meets the specifications,” he was saying, presumably to whichever one of his company’s engineers was on the other end. He held up an index finger to indicate he’d be done in a minute, and his head disappeared again. “And when do you think it could be ready? I see…” His voice trailed off into the living room.

I tried to think of reasons why Peter had been Googling Jake, but I wasn’t yet sufficiently caffeinated to come up with anything that made sense. Instead, I found the link to the new e-mail account and checked it. Still nothing. And Peter was still rambling on about specs and timetables.

Then I checked my regular home e-mail account, just in case. But while I had a whole slew of new e-mails from the Viagra folks, here, too, there was radio silence from Man of the People. And Peter was still on the phone.

I got out my BlackBerry to check messages at work, pressing Send without thinking. The number for my office voice mail was usually the last one I dialed every night, and when I pressed Send, the device automatically dialed the last number I’d used. So I was surprised when, instead of the familiar voice welcoming me to Audix, I heard Dahlia Crenshaw inviting me to leave a message.

Peter chose that moment to reappear in the study. “What can I do for you?” he asked. Startled, I hung up on Dahlia’s recording.

“I was just wondering why you were Googling Jake Channing.” It may have been a trick of the morning light, which was lending a rosy glow to the small room, but I could have sworn he blushed.

At least he didn’t try to pretend he hadn’t been doing any such thing. “I-I was curious. How did you find out? I thought I’d closed down the browser.”

“You did. But I was using the history function. Why you were curious?”

“The history function? Why were you using that?”

“To get to the new e-mail account you set up for me. But I got to your Google search instead.”

“Interesting. Did you-actually, never mind.”

“I do mind. You haven’t answered my question.” It was a good thing I was still under-caffeinated, because with more stimulation, my voice would have sounded shrewish rather than just schoolmarmish.

“Which question?”

“Why were you curious about Jake Channing.”

I was increasingly confident that it wasn’t the light. Peter was blushing.

“Well, he called last night. Which was good, because I could check to make sure you wouldn’t miss anything if I let you sleep in a bit.”

“You Googled him because he called me?”

He hesitated. “It’s just that then I scrolled through the caller ID and saw that he’d already called a couple of times, before I even got home.”

“So?”

“Rachel. This is embarrassing.”

“What’s embarrassing?”

“Are you going to make me say this?”

“Say what?”

“Say that I was jealous.”

“You were jealous?” I asked. “Jealous of what?” I probably should have been touched, or flattered. But instead I was angry.

“You keep mentioning him. And you’re spending most of your waking hours with him.”

“I work with him. We have a deal underway. I have to spend time with him.”

“It’s more than that, Rachel. Gallagher’s dead and you’re getting strange e-mails. And now that you’ve told Jake about Man of the People-I just wanted to make sure that you can trust him. So I thought I’d do a little research.”

“I can trust him,” I said.

“Did you know that he worked at Gallagher’s old firm?” Peter asked. “Did he tell you that?”

“Of course I knew.”

“And you don’t think there’s a chance he could be in on any of this? You think it’s just a coincidence?”

“You’re being absurd. Jake joined Winslow, Brown way before Gallagher came over from Ryan Brothers. And if Jake was in on anything with Gallagher-and by the way, we still don’t know if there’s anything to be in on in the first place-Gallagher sure had a strange way of showing it. He was nearly as much of a jerk to him as he was to m-to anyone.”

“Maybe. But I’m worried that you’re not being as careful as you should be. That you’re letting your feelings get in the way.”

“What feelings?”

“Are you going to make me say this, too?”

I looked at him but didn’t say anything. There was a long moment of silence.

Then he turned away from me. “Your feelings for Jake,” he said.

Something inside of me switched off and something else switched on. It was as if I’d been waiting for a reason-any reason-to blow up at Peter, and he’d just handed it to me. When I spoke again, I felt like I was on autopilot or having an out-of-body experience. On some level I fully recognized that I was lashing out at the wrong person, but I couldn’t help it.

“Jake is my colleague and my friend, Peter. Nothing more.” My autopilot voice was cold. I stood up and began gathering my things. “And I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time. Since before I met you and since before you moved in.”

“Rachel, I was-I am concerned. I’m only trying to help.”

“By accusing me of being involved with other men?”

“I wasn’t accusing you of being involved-”

“And completely invading my privacy?”

He took a step back. “How was I invading your privacy?”

“Investigating my colleagues. Spying on my caller ID.”

“Spying on your caller ID?”

“What would you call it?”

“First of all, I couldn’t help but see the caller ID when I went to use the phone. And second of all, it happens to be my caller ID, too.”

“How is it your caller ID?”

“I live here. Remember?”

“How can I forget?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, following me as I crossed the living room.

“It means I gargled with your aftershave yesterday. Your stuff is everywhere.”

“That’s because you don’t have a spare second to help me figure out where I can put everything.”

“I’ve been working,” I said, shoving my arms into my coat sleeves.

“It’s not just about finding a place for my stuff, Rachel, or about giving me a set of keys.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that it’s about finding a place for me.” He took a deep breath. “Do you even want me here? And I don’t just mean in this apartment or in this city.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to be here?”

“No-”

“You want things to go back to the way they were?”

“No-”

I tore his ring off my finger and threw it down on the hall table. “Because that can be arranged, Peter.”

“Rachel-”

“And now I’m really behind schedule. We’ll have to talk about this later.”

He caught my arm. “Rachel,” he said again.

I pulled my arm away. “I don’t have time for this. We’ll talk about it later,” I repeated.

And then I slammed the door.

I was off autopilot and completely appalled with myself by the time I hit the street.

My friends had been right. I was scared. The fear was so tangible I could practically taste it. And it was safer to feel angry than to feel vulnerable.

So I’d just picked a fight-a really big, potentially irreparable, and wholly unjustified fight-with my fiancé. I’d been horrible to him, all because our relationship and everything that came with it terrified me. Something inside me seemed determined to torpedo the entire thing, to preserve my single but stable independence rather than take the risk that things with Peter might not work out.