Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

And yet, ironically, his domineering side did have a certain appeal to Lis. As troubling as this was, she couldn’t deny it. She still recalled seeing him for the first time. She was in her midthirties, an age at which most Ridgeton women were sensible mothers several times over. Lis had attended a town-council meeting, where Owen was representing a building developer seeking a P &Z variance. Stern and unyielding, Owen Atcheson stood at the podium and comfortably withstood the assault of wrathful citizens. Lis stayed long after her own minor ministerial proceeding and watched him play the king’s knight. She was captivated by his cold articulation and, watching him grip the podium with his large hands, actually found herself aroused.

She engineered a chance meeting in the parking lot afterwards, suggesting they exchange phone numbers. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll need a good lawyer someday.”

One week later he asked her to dinner and she accepted at once.

On the first date he showed up scrubbed and trimmed, wearing a blue blazer and khaki slacks, carrying a dozen roses. Owen ordered for her, picked up the check discreetly, held open every door she walked through and capped the evening with a chaste kiss after escorting her to the door.

He did everything by the book and she felt absolutely nothing for him.

He didn’t call her afterwards and-despite a brief sting to the ego-she decided she was relieved not to hear from him. She went out with several other men casually, thinking no more about the austere Owen Atcheson. Then one Saturday, six months later, they ran into each other in a store on Main Street. He claimed he’d been meaning to call but had been traveling extensively. Why, Lis had wondered, did men think this made you feel better, explaining how much they’d wanted to call but had not?

As she and Owen stood awkwardly at the counter of Ace Hardware, he glanced down at the white plastic tubing she was buying. It was for her garden, she explained. Did she need any help installing it? When she hesitated he looked into her eyes and said he didn’t have many talents but there were a few things he was very good at. Plumbing was one.

“All right,” she said.

They returned to the small bungalow she was renting. With Owen supervising, together they hooked up the irrigation system in half an hour. When the work was finished, he walked to the spigot, beckoning her to follow. He took her hand and placed it on the knob then enfolded her fingers with his. “Shall we?” he asked, and turned the faucet on full as he lifted her chin with his free hand and kissed her hard on the mouth.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in Lis’s brass bed, not even bothering to climb beneath the blue gingham covers, their dirty work clothes strewn about them on the stairs and floor.

They were married eight months later.

Throughout their six years together Lis had frequent doubts about their future yet she’d never thought that infidelity would end the marriage; more likely, she believed, one of them would just pack and leave-maybe after, in a fit of temper, he finally delivered one of the slaps he’d come close to inflicting on her in the past. Or after she’d insisted, no, no compromises, that he choose between her and another weekend at the office.

So his affair was a sobering event. She was, at first, fully ready to divorce him and start life on her own. Initially this had a great appeal to her. But Lis Atcheson was not at heart an angry woman and as the weeks went by she found she needed to remind herself to be indignant about the affair. This equilibrium made the idea of living alone again less attractive. Besides, he was excruciatingly contrite, which gave her a curious power over him-the only upper hand she’d ever attained in the marriage.

A practical matter too: Ruth L’Auberget, who’d been ill with cancer throughout this time, finally passed away, and the daughters were heirs to a complicated estate. Lis, with no interest in financial matters, found herself relying more and more on Owen. Business and money were, after all, aspects of his profession and as he became involved in managing the estate the couple grew close once again.

Their life became easier. Lis bought the 4x4. As agreed among the sisters and Ruth L’Auberget, Lis and Owen moved into the Ridgeton house with its dream greenhouse and Portia received the co-op. Owen bought suits from Brooks Brothers and fancy shotguns. He went deep-sea fishing in Florida and hunting in Canada. And he continued to take business trips, often overnight. But Lis believed his pledge of fidelity. Besides, she reasoned, Owen clearly liked being wealthy, and the money, stock and house were all in Lis’s name.

So when, tonight-after they’d learned of Hrubek’s escape-Owen had stood before her, armed with his black guns, Lis had looked past his grim mouth and the consuming hunt lust in his eyes and had seen a husband trying the only way he could to fix a love altered by his own carelessness.

Well, bless you, Owen, for your errand tonight, Lis thought, taping the last of the windows. Your efforts are appreciated. But hurry home now, won’t you?

The wind was rising. It drove a whip of rain across the roof and north side of the greenhouse with such a clatter that Lis gasped.

It was time to leave.

“Portia! Let’s go.”

“I’ve got a couple more to do,” she called from upstairs.

“Leave ’em.”

The woman appeared a minute later. Lis studied her for a moment and was surprised to see that in these country clothes, so atypical of Portia, the sisters looked very much alike.

“What?” Portia asked, noting Lis’s gaze.

“Nothing. You ready?” Lis handed her a yellow rain slicker and pulled her own on.

Portia slung her backpack over one shoulder. Lifting her small Crouch & Fitzgerald suitcase Lis nodded toward the door. They walked outside into the rain that now was falling steadily. A sudden gust ripped the baseball cap from Portia’s head. She shouted in surprise and ran to retrieve the hat while her sister double-locked the back door, and they stepped along the soggy path to the edge of the parking area.

Lis turned to look back at the house. With the windows barred by X’s of tape, and the old, warping shingles, the colonial had a battle-weary air, as if it squatted in the middle of a no-man’s-land. Her eyes were on the greenhouse when she heard her sister ask, “What is that?”

Lis spun around. “My God.”

Spreading out before them was a field of mud and water, nearly a foot deep, covering much of the driveway and filling the garage.

They waded through the chill, slimy water and gazed at the lake. It wasn’t their levee that had given way; it was the sandbags by the dock-the ones that Owen had assured Lis he’d stacked high and solid. The rising lake had pushed them over and the water was backing into the creek behind the garage. Amid eddies and whirl-pools, the stream was filling the yard.

“What do we do?” Portia shouted. Her voice was harsh and unsettling; despite the quick-moving current, the flood was virtually silent.

There wasn’t much they could do, Lis decided. The water was flowing in through a twenty-foot gap-too large for the two of them to dam. Besides, the garage was in a low-lying area of the property. If the level of the lake didn’t rise much more, the house and most of the driveway would be safe.

She said, “We leave is what we do.”

“Fine with me.”

They waded into the garage and climbed into the Acura. Lis slipped the key into the ignition. She paused superstitiously-concerned that the flood had shorted out the battery or ruined the starter. She looked at Portia then turned the key. The engine kicked to life and purred smoothly. Backing out carefully, Lis eased the car through the flood up the incline of the driveway.