Jeff Abbott - No Rest for the Dead

But whom was she fooling? Her marriage to Stan had been foundering for some time. An unlikely pairing-he, an up-and-coming estate lawyer, and she, a cop’s wife. She thought about how they’d come together. It was the case, of course. The case she’d pushed Jon on-even when he’d told her he had a hunch the evidence was skewed. The case that ruined so many lives, but brought her and Stan together. He’d entered her life when she was vulnerable, showered her with love and attention, while Jon was disintegrating. Stan was ambitious, exciting, while Jon had always been a bit of a dreamer. But now she’d come to see those very qualities that had attracted her to Stan as nothing more than an example of his unmitigated selfishness.

She slipped out of bed. If Stan didn’t want to go to Rosemary’s memorial, she would. She owed it to herself, to Jon, to her previous life, the one she’d lost the day Rosemary Thomas was put to death.

It was noon.Jon Nunn usually got up around this time-he couldn’t face the morning gloom. He got out of bed, headed to the kitchen and straight for the coffeemaker.

The doorbell sounded. He yawned as he made his way to the door and opened it. Sarah, his ex-wife, stood on his doorstep, stylish heels planted firmly on the mat that said GO AWAY. Sarah. Looking as beautiful as the day they were married. Before he fucked it all up. But he could tell from the swelling around her eyes that she’d been crying.

He massaged the sleep out of his eyes, half convinced that when he removed his fingers, she would have disappeared.

But Sarah was still there, smiling apologetically, and saying, “May I come in?”

Jon shrugged, stepping aside as she walked into his living room, suddenly embarrassingly shabby and small. “Coffee? I was just putting some on.”

She raised a bag, holding it by its brown, string like handles. “Coffee. Two percent, three sugars, right?”

She’d remembered.

Jon took the coffee, thanked her, then pointed to the love seat, glad that he’d picked up his dirty laundry the night before. “I can’t say I’m not happy to see you. But why are you here, Sarah?”

He took a sip of his coffee, waiting for the answer.

“A certain invitation.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “You got one too?”

“Not me, exactly. Stan.”

“And what does Ballard say?” Jon asked, although he told himself he didn’t give a shit what Ballard thought or said about anything.

She shrugged. “We don’t see eye to eye on attending the memorial. He says we’re too busy and that we should just send flowers.” She stopped and, looking down at the floor, said, “But she was innocent, you know.”

Jon laughed out loud. “That’s ironic. Didn’t you say I was obsessed? That I should be locked up in a rubber room, along with my goddamn briefcase and a gallon of Jim Beam?”

“I know what I said,” she said quietly. “But I’ve had a long time to think about it.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

They stood there a long moment, looking at one another, Nunn not sure of what he should say or do.

“Since Tony Olsen’s invitation came, I’ve been thinking about it even more, and…”

Nunn raised an eyebrow.

“Well, the invitation was for Stan and I don’t care if he doesn’t want to go. I was hoping I could go, that you would take me.”

Another long moment, then Jon Nunn did what he’d wanted to do, had thought about doing for a long time. He took his ex-wife in his arms and tugged her toward him.

“Jon, no.” She pressed her hand to his chest. “That’s not why I came.”

Nunn didn’t say anything, just dropped his arms and turned away.

Later they haddinner at a nearby café, where brick-oven-baked pizzas were served on proper white tablecloths, and copper pots and sailboats dangled from the ceiling. Talking. Laughing. Like old times. Only this time it didn’t take booze to grease the wheels.

They were in bed by eleven. Separate beds. Sarah curled up on the double, hair spread out on the pillow, smudges of blue under her eyes, a bolster at her back and the duvet tucked under her chin. Nunn claimed the sofa and the remote control and fell asleep in the middle of Leno .

Seven a.m. now,and she’d hardly moved. Nunn got up, fetched his briefcase, then closed and locked the bathroom door. He perched on the toilet seat, balancing the briefcase on his knees. He eased open the catch, soundlessly, and began pawing through the contents, as familiar to him now as the deepening lines on his face when he studied himself in the mirror every morning.

A newspaper clipping, yellow with age, detailing Rosemary’s trip to Mexico, where she told friends she knew that Chris would never be coming home. Stupid-ass thing to say, Nunn thought, like that crazy nurse in Maryland who’d offed her husband with succinylcholine chloride-on Valentine’s Day no less-after telling colleagues exactly how she’d do it.

Nunn studied the black-and-white photos of the Thomas children, Leila and Ben, that accompanied the article. The same brown hair and inquisitive eyes as their mother, but where Rosemary’s hair had been long, Leila’s was cropped and curly, almost the same length as her older brother’s. He wondered if they’d show up at their mother’s memorial.

He exchanged the article for crime scene photos and a transcript of the trial, where he had testified for over two hours, the evidence he’d found in the back of Rosemary’s closet-the blouse stained with Christopher’s blood and the missing button that had been inside the iron maiden; the strands of Rosemary’s hair in Christopher’s fist.

Damn .

Nunn slid an issue of Vanity Fair out of its protective plastic sleeve, the one he’d saved for over a decade, the one containing the pre-execution interview from death row at California’s Valley State Prison for Women.

Nunn flipped to a picture of Rosemary wearing an orange jumpsuit and white sneakers. He skimmed the piece and reread a line here and there, Rosemary telling the world her story: how Christopher had asked her for a divorce; how they had fought at the museum; how she’d stormed out and how sad and desperate she’d felt. But that she had not killed him.

“So, your husband was a… whoremonger?” the interviewer had suggested.

And Rosemary, ever dignified, had refused to answer.

“So, how,” the interviewer had asked, “did your husband’s body end up in the Eiserne Jungfrau , the iron maiden that was on loan to the McFall?”

Rosemary claimed she had no idea.

“And all the evidence against you?”

Again, Rosemary could not supply the answer to a world waiting to hear a confession from one of the few women who was slated to die by lethal injection in the state of California.

Nunn closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool bathroom tiles. He remembered the exact moment he’d seen the magazine at a newsstand. By the time he got around to reading the article, it was two days after Rosemary Thomas was dead.

He put everything neatly away and closed the briefcase. He washed his face and shaved and eased into the same shirt and trousers he’d worn the day before, then gently shook Sarah by the shoulder.

“It’s nine o’clock. You getting up anytime soon?”

Sarah moaned and pulled the duvet over her head. “Go away.”

Nunn smiled. It suddenly felt as if they were an old married couple. “I’m going out for breakfast, a café just across the street. Want to join me?”

The duvet shrugged.

“I take that as a no.”

“I’ll be down soon.” Muffled.

Nunn stared at her a moment, trying to decide what it was he felt. It was like some B-grade movie, his beautiful ex-wife asking him-not her current husband-to escort her to such an important event. But the ache he felt in his heart was all too real and definitely not part of a script.