Chapter 6
I woke before Dante.
The sheet on my side of the bed was twisted as though I had spent the entire night trying to position myself correctly.
I examined the crease for a period I could not measure.
Gray Sunday light entered through the bedroom window with the specific quality of Boston in October, a cold brightness without shadows that made everything seem quieter than it was.
The city produced the low sound of a day in no hurry to begin.
I was in a hurry, though the urgency had no destination.
I sat on the edge of the bed for 1 full minute, trying to remember the last time I had awakened with a physical need to cry and found myself unable to do so.
It was not crying.
It was the opposite, a dry tightness without tears that needed a human voice nearby.
Only 1 person in the world knew how to receive Marceline Crowe at 8:00 on a Sunday morning without immediately asking questions.
I rose before reconsidering.
I washed my face, tied my hair into a crooked bun, put on the 1st gray sweater I found, and laced the old boots that had accompanied me through every investigation.
Outside, the October wind moved along the street with the narrow bite Boston delivered before winter properly arrived.
The pavement remained damp from rain that had stopped too early. The streetlights had not yet gone dark.
I walked 3 blocks without choosing a destination before realizing my feet had already decided.
I was going to Joss’s apartment.
She lived in a cramped triplex in the South End with 2 dead plants and a cat she insisted belonged to a neighbor.
When she opened the door, she wore flannel pajamas and the expression of someone who had slept for 3 hours.
She looked at me, at her watch, and then at me again.
“Marceline.”
Her voice was rough with sleep.
“It’s 8:40 on a Sunday morning.”
“I know.”
“The last time you appeared here before 11:00, you had lost the office key.”
“I know.”
She studied me for another second, then opened the door farther and moved aside without speaking.
I entered.
The apartment smelled of coffee prepared a few minutes earlier and grapefruit peeled over the sink.
Joss closed the door with her foot, went into the kitchen, and returned carrying 2 mugs.
She handed me 1 without asking.
Then she sat on the sofa with her legs folded beneath her and waited.
I could not sit.
I walked to the window, then to the bookcase where she stored books in unstable towers.
I returned to the middle of the room.
The mug burned my palm.
I did not care.
“Joss.”
“I’m here.”
“I think I’m in love.”
She drank from her coffee.
She did not appear surprised.
She did not appear to feel anything at all, which was exactly what I needed.
She was the only person capable of hearing such a sentence without creating a scene.
“With him?”
“With him.”
“The man you investigated for months?”
“With him.”
“The man you investigated for months who still doesn’t know?”
I sat.
My legs could no longer support me.
I rested my head against the back of the sofa and stared at the stained white ceiling. A patch of moisture remained in the corner, ignored by Joss with the same discipline she applied to the dead plants.
She waited with the patience she reserved for me.
“There was an auction last night,” I began. “Someone tried again.”
Her mug stopped halfway to her mouth.
“Again?”
“I saw it before it happened. The posture was wrong. The distance was wrong. His hand was positioned incorrectly. I pulled Dante back. I reacted too quickly, and he noticed.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I reacted too quickly.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That it was a journalist’s professional instinct.”
Joss placed her mug on the coffee table with the care of someone choosing words rather than a location for the cup.
She rested her forehead against her fingertips.
I knew the gesture.
It meant she was considering 5 possible sentences and deciding which would be useful.
“You know he didn’t believe it.”
“I know.”
“You know he stored it away.”
“I know.”
“And you know what will happen when he notices more details that don’t fit.”
“I know.”
“Joss, I know. I know. I know.”
The final word came out louder than intended.
A hard silence settled between us.
Joss did not interrupt it.
Over the years, she had learned that silence was more useful to me than advice.
I balanced the mug against my knee.
“I never wanted this,” I said quietly. “I never asked to want it. I accepted the case and wrote the reports. It was supposed to be like every other investigation: a dangerous man, a large payment, a closed file, and life continuing.”
I looked down.
“Then I learned about the girl. Then I went to the restaurant. Then he kissed me back as though he already knew me. After that, I couldn’t leave.”
Joss listened.
When she looked at me, the humor had left her face. It was the expression remaining after all possible jokes had passed.
“Marceline.”
She said my complete name without shortening it.
“You have never allowed yourself to want anyone.”
Something tightened behind my eyes.
This time, I could not force it away.
A tear fell without permission.
I wiped it away with the back of my hand as though erasing evidence.
“That’s why it hurts,” Joss continued. “It’s real. You know the difference. You have always known it. You simply never had to deal with the real version.”
“What do I do?”
She inhaled like someone preparing to dive.
“You tell him.”
“I can’t tell him.”
“You can’t refuse to tell him.”
“Joss.”
“Marceline.”
She leaned forward with her elbows against her knees.
“If he discovers it 1st, it will be worse. If he discovers it later, it will be worse. There is a brief space between those outcomes where you can tell him in your own words, and it is closing while we sit here.”
I looked at her, at the mug, and at the worn rug holding the history of a decade of rent.
“I’m going to tell him,” I said.
“Today?”
“Today.”
Joss nodded once.
She did not promise that everything would be fine or wish me luck.
She extended her hand across the sofa and held my fingers for a second longer than necessary.
I left the triplex around noon.
The wind had weakened, and sunlight attempted to break through the low clouds without succeeding.
I walked to the subway and returned home without hearing the world around me or forming a single sentence.
My mind had become empty in the way it did only after the body had decided something and the head had not yet caught up.
I spent the afternoon looking at the gray cabinet beneath the blanket.
As evening arrived, I showered beneath water heated to the edge of what I could tolerate, as though I might wash away everything I had contained.
I put on a simple black dress without a low neckline and chose flat shoes.
I took the apartment key, the telephone, and whatever courage I could locate.
After dark, I went to Dante’s penthouse without warning him.
The doorman recognized me and asked no questions.
He pressed the control for the private elevator traveling directly to Dante’s floor.
The ride was both long and short. I could not have explained how something could be both, but inside that elevator it was.
The walls were mirrored.
I did not look at myself once.
The doors opened into the living room.
Dante stood beside the tall window overlooking the city. He wore a white shirt without a tie, its sleeves rolled to the elbows. A glass of whiskey rested in his right hand.
He turned when the elevator opened.
He saw me and showed no visible reaction.
He placed the glass on a marble console and stepped aside.
He did not ask why I had come or offer a greeting.
He moved 3 steps away, leaving the path from the elevator clear as though he had expected my arrival without being informed.
I entered.
The room smelled of a dark, unfamiliar fragrance and firewood that had burned earlier inside the hearth.
Embers remained in the corner, producing a low orange pulse inside the silence.
Dante watched me walk to the center of the rug.
He waited without approaching.
“Dante.”
“I’m here.”
“There are things about me you don’t know.”
I swallowed.
“There are things I have to tell you.”
He moved then, only 2 steps.
He stopped before me, too close and too distant simultaneously, a balance only he seemed capable of creating.
He looked at me for what felt like the entire night.
“You came here as someone who has already made a difficult decision.”
My breath caught.
“How do you know?”
“I can see it.”
His voice was low and without softness.
May you like
“You entered carrying something. It has been visible since the elevator opened.”
“Dante—”
