could do not to reach out and lay my palm on his shoulder.
“So,” Ma was saying, “you know who burned my daughter’s car?”
Gray shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Vandals, eh?” Pa was asking.
Gray looked him in the eye, a look Ma couldn’t see because Gray was turned to face Pa, but I saw it. It was the look between men when they wish to keep their secrets for later.
“Maybe,” Gray stated, and that was enough for Pa.
“You think she should move home?” Pa asked.
“Hey, what did I say?” I interrupted before Gray could answer and possibly ruin my life by accident. “I’m fine. I’m staying here. There’s no danger.”
But Pa was watching Gray. The detective’s eyes never wavered. “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” he said. “If I think she isn’t, I’ll bring her to you.”
Marone a mia, you’d think I didn’t exist. You’d think this was the old country. Here they were, two men, discussing my whereabouts and living arrangements like I wasn’t even in the room, like I didn’t count.
Gray took it a step further and saved himself from certain death at my hands. “Sophie’s a smart woman,” he said. “She took care of herself up North and didn’t seem to fare too poorly. I’m thinking a little town like New Bern won’t be too much of a challenge. She’ll be all right. And, like I said, I’ll be around.”
He looked at me then, as if it was a statement of fact, as if I hadn’t ever said, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
Gray stood, smiled and said, “I do need to ask Sophie a few more questions, just nitpicky details and the like for our records.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go sit out on the front porch.”
“No need for that, honey,” Pa said, standing up and assuming control of the family. “Your mother and me have to go.” He gave Darlene The Look. “You’d better get to work.”
Ma, utterly charmed by Gray, didn’t whisper a murmur of protest. “Mr. Detective,” she said, “you eat real Italian ever?”
Gray gave her everything he had—the smile, the eyes, the works. “Home-cooked Italian? No, ma’am, I can’t say as I ever have.”
Ma looked scandalized, turned to me and said, “Tonight you bring your detective home for supper, eh?” She didn’t wait for an answer. In Ma’s world, she commanded and we obeyed.
“Well, Ma, maybe he’s got plans.”
“No, I don’t have any plans,” Gray answered. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose….”
“Good. It’s settled then,” Ma said, smug in her superiority over my paltry attempt to head off what had to be certain disaster.
Tonight I would be taking Gray Evans to my parents’ house for dinner, alone with him in a car, forced to sit next to him, to feel the energy between us, doomed, as Darlene would say, by destiny and my mother.
I shook off the thought of sitting inches away from Gray Evans. “Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I muttered under my breath. Hearing him chuckle, I realized I’d spoken too loudly.
Pa got everybody moving. Joe personally escorted Darlene to her car, while Gray hung back, carrying mugs and plates to the sink.
“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll get them later.”
Gray kept on working. “I don’t mind.”
But I do, I thought. I mind.
Order was restored in the kitchen in only a few minutes. Gray poured himself another cup of coffee, easy and relaxed in my home, and then sat down across from me.
“Joe gave me the note. There probably won’t be any prints on it. It’s been handled, anyway, so that’s not going to give us too much.”
“I guess I touched it before I realized what it was,” I said.
“Who looks in their mailbox expecting threats?” he answered. But he peered at me like this was more of a question, as if he were wondering if there’d been others before this one.
“Nick blames going to prison on me. I know,” I said. I spread my hands, as if warding off Gray’s protest. “It was his own fault, he broke the law, but because I testified, he blames me.”
“That’s crazy,” Gray said.
“No, that’s just Nick. He has his own little reality where he never accepts the blame for his actions. In Nick’s world, he was right and I was wrong.” I looked at Gray and thought, what the hell, give him the whole picture. What did I have left to lose? Any chance of a relationship was long gone in my mind. Besides, I reminded myself, this man was taken, even if he didn’t act like it.
“Nick had a secret life. I thought he was an accountant. He left for work every morning and didn’t come home again until dinnertime. He ate supper and he went back to the office—at least, that’s what he always told me, and I had no reason to doubt him. He had no other life, no friends, no hobbies, no other interests really, other than work. The only socializing we did was with my friends or my family. So it was a total shock to me when the federal agents came to our home with a search warrant.”
I glanced down into my coffee cup and tried to pretend I was someone else, the woman telling the story and not the story itself.
“I’m sure the local FBI office already told you this yesterday.”
Gray nodded, his expression so kind I had to look away. “I’ve heard what they have to say—now I want to hear how you saw it.”
“The agents in Philly showed me what he was doing. They showed me the Web site and the pictures. They showed me the things they found in our home, the cameras, the microphones hidden in the walls.” I could hear my voice starting to crack, to shake with the same uncontrollable tremors that happened every time I tried to talk about it.
Gray’s warm hand covered mine, but I pulled back. I didn’t want to look up and see pity on his face or hear the words that everyone always said but couldn’t ever really mean.
“I’m all right,” I said, and made myself go on. “There were pictures of me on the site—video clips, too. I was asleep, naked, and he snuck in and took pictures of me. He had hidden cameras in our bedroom, in our bathroom—” I broke off, choking on the words because I knew Gray could see in his mind’s eye what those pictures had shown, my most intimate, private moments, my life detailed for the world to watch, my ignorance earning Nick money and ultimately destroying my false sense of security.
“That bastard,” Gray swore.
“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “It doesn’t change the fact that he blames me. I lose my world and he blames me.” I gestured to the note. “And now this.” I tried to laugh, but it rang hollow. “Guess it just goes to show, ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’”
Gray reached out, touching the tip of my chin with his fingers, forcing me to look up at him.
“Sophie, I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore,” he said. “You are strong and kind and good. You’re a survivor, not a victim. This is your new life, whatever you choose to make of it. No one has a right to take that away from you. I won’t stand by and let a scumbag like Nick Komassi destroy that.”
I looked at him and felt my eyes welling up with tears. Deep inside I felt a flicker of hope ignite and catch, but the rest of me was thinking, It’s too late already.
“Nick’s already ruined my life,” I said. “He started using drugs. He embezzled money from his clients at his accounting firm. It wasn’t enough that people kept coming up to me on the street and yelling at me, thinking I was in on it with him. It wasn’t enough that