Carla Neggers - The Widow

“I don’t think so. He had a rusted saw that probably hadn’t been sharpened in fifteen years, and he had only a split second to act-not enough of an opening for someone of his abilities and limitations to have succeeded in doing more than what he did.”

“You can be so calculating sometimes,” Grace said.

“I’m just trying to be objective and understand the situation.”

Linc had heard enough. He let the screen door bang shut on his way out. Abigail and Owen had headed out to look for Mattie even before the police had arrived, but as well as they knew their way around the surrounding woods, Mattie knew them better. He’d grown up there, he’d photographed them. With the fog and the oncoming darkness, no one would find him unless he wanted to be found.

The police hadn’t asked Linc outright if he’d seen Mattie. He hadn’t volunteered what he knew, but he hadn’t lied.

One of the FBI agents-Special Agent Capozza-stood in front of the shed door, brushing at a cloud of mosquitoes hovering over him.

Linc gave him a sympathetic smile. “They’re bad tonight, aren’t they? Early morning and early evening are the worst times. You want to be careful of West Nile.” He peered past him into the shed. “Was Mattie in there for sure?”

“You’ll have to talk to Lieutenant Beeler or ChiefAlden.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Capozza whacked a mosquito on his arm, grimacing when it spurted blood. “Looks like I got that one too late. Your father and sister still here?”

“They’re having tea in the kitchen. I want to go look for Mattie.”

“Why?”

Linc felt a surge of emotion. “Because he’s my friend. Because I don’t think he’d ever hurt anyone. I don’t want some trigger-happy cop to shoot him just because-”

“Whoa, whoa. Watch what you say, Mr. Cooper.”

“He didn’t kill Chris Browning.”

The FBI agent tilted his head back and eyed Linc. “Why do you say that?”

“Chris was my friend, too. And he was Mattie’s friend.”

“Sounds like everyone’s friends up here.” Capozza wasn’t paying attention to the mosquitoes now. “But we’ve got a string of unsolved burglaries, an unsolved attack and robbery, an unsolved murder, and now-”

“I need to go.” Linc sniffled, pushing back an urge to cry. “Ellis has bug repellent inside if you want some.”

“Suppose you and I go in together and find it?”

“What?”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

An hour later, Linc sat stiffly in his sister’s car as they headed back to Somes Sound. She was driving too fast for the conditions. Thick fog, high emotion. He was too scared to say anything in case he threw off her concentration and she wrapped them around a tree.

“What did you and Special Agent Capozza talk about?”

“Nothing much. How well I knew Chris. How well I know Mattie. I didn’t tell him anything people around here don’t already know.” I didn’t tell him about the blackmail and the four grand.

“Did he ask about me?” She gripped the wheel with both hands. “Because I deserve to know if he did.”

“He was trying to get all our relationships straight in his head. That’s all.”

She took in his words with a nod. “I don’t want anything to happen to Mattie, but if it does, it’s not my doing. Or yours. Or Father’s, no matter how frustrating he can be. And Ellis-did you see him, Linc? He’s a wreck.”

“He just doesn’t want Mattie to slit his wrists under one of his rhododendrons.”

“Linc!” She pounded on the brake, the car screeching to a halt in the middle of the fog-enshrouded road. “Damn you. You inconsiderate little bastard. I’ve stood by you as you’ve flunked out and gotten yourself thrown out of school after school.”

“Two.”

“Two colleges. How many prep schools? Father and I both pulled strings to get you into good schools. He’s not an easy man, but he’s only ever wanted the best for you.”

“What’s good for me is good for him.”

“Just stop.”

Linc sank back into his seat and sighed, as if he didn’t care how upset she was. “I wish you’d start driving before someone rear-ends us.”

“I was proud of you for going to Owen and asking him to train you.” Grace was half crying. “I hope he does. I hope it works out. You can make a difference, Linc, if you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself and being mad at the world.”

“Who says I want to make a difference? Maybe I just want to train with Owen so I can look good.”

“He’d see through you in a heartbeat.”

Linc paused for a beat. “If you admire him so much, why don’t you marry him?”

“We’ve never had that kind of interest in each other.”

“Because you’re in love with a dead man.”

His sister reacted instantly, slapping him across the face.

In the darkness, his face stinging, Linc could see tears shining in her eyes as she turned back to the wheel and pressed her foot on the gas.

“Oh, shit.” He choked back a sob. “Shit, Grace. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not staying here. I’ll leave tomorrow. I have plenty to do back in Washington.” She was crying openly now. “Linc-my God, Linc. I love you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

“Nothing will, Grace. I promise.”

“I’m here for you. Always. Do you understand?”

Tell her. But he couldn’t. “I do understand. And you-I’m here for you, too.”

She smiled at him, tears still streaming down her face. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.”

“I mean it. Grace-I really am sorry about what I said. About Chris.”

“Chris. My God, Linc. I did love him.” She sucked in a breath, slowing in the thickening fog. “We were just never meant to be.”

“Did he ever love you?”

“He loved Abigail.”

I don’t want to think about death tonight.

I want to think about love.

I don’t want to think about violence.

Again. Love.

I don’t want to hear Abigail’s voice.

Love.

My heart bursts with a love so deep and pure and fulfilling that it alone is all I need to sustain me.

So few ever have this kind of love in their lives.

I don’t pity them so much as I stand apart from them.

Separate.

Alone.

Isolated.

All those words come to mind and yet don’t describe how I feel, because they imply loneliness and desperation. Incompleteness. But I am not lonely or desperate or incomplete.

Because of my love.

I love.

It’s not just a state of being but of action.

Love as a verb.

I’ve lied. I’ve misled. I’ve cried. I’ve killed.

Ways of loving. All of them.

I feel so free, writing in this stream of consciousness manner. Allowing myself to put aside all my inhibitions.

I don’t want to kill again but to say I won’t is to say my ability to love has weakened.

And it hasn’t.

It won’t.

Not ever.

Wherever Mattie was, he’d be there through the night. Abigail didn’t like the idea, but who did? The warm day had turned cool with nightfall and the fog. If he didn’t have proper attire, a good blanket, water, food-if he panicked and got lost, or kept running in the woods-then anything could happen.

She watched Owen, crouched down on one knee, build a fire in his woodstove. She’d pulled a fleece throw over her as she sat in one of his fireside chairs, but he showed no sign of cold or fatigue. “If you’d climbed Cadillac and got whacked today, you’d be as wiped out as I am,” she said.