Will didn’t answer. He seemed to be gauging whether or not he could lie to her and get away with it.
She pressed, “Don’t you live off Linwood?”
“You’re the opposite direction.”
“I can cut through the park.” She started walking, giving him no choice. They were silent as they headed down Ponce de Leon. The traffic noise was loud enough to fill the void, but even the exhaust from the cars couldn’t overshadow the fact that they were in the middle of a brilliant spring day. Couples walked down the street hand in hand. Mothers pushed baby carriages. Runners darted across four lanes of traffic. The cloud cover from this morning had rolled eastward, exposing a sky of denim blue. There was a steady breeze in the air. Sara clasped her hands behind her back and looked down at the broken sidewalk. Tree roots pushed against the concrete like gnarled old toes.
She glanced at Will. The sun picked out the sweat on his brow. There were two scars on his face, though Sara had no idea what had caused them. His upper lip had been split open at some point, then badly stitched together, giving a raffish quality to his mouth. The other scar followed the line of his left jaw and dipped into his collar. When she’d first met him, she’d taken the scars for signs of boyhood mischief, but knowing his history, knowing that he had grown up in state care, Sara now assumed the damage had a darker story.
Will glanced at her and she looked away. He said, “Dale seems like a nice guy.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Doctor, I guess.”
“That’s right.”
“Looked like a good kisser.”
She smiled.
Will shifted Betty in his hand to get a better grip. “I guess you’re dating him.”
“Today was our first date.”
“You seemed friendlier than that.”
Sara stopped walking. “How’s your wife, Will?”
His answer didn’t come quickly. His gaze fell somewhere over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen her in four months.”
Sara felt an odd sense of betrayal. His wife was gone and Will had not called her. “You’re separated?”
He stepped aside so that a runner could pass. “No.”
“Is she missing?”
“Not exactly.”
A MARTA bus lurched up to the curb, its engine filling the air with a protracted grumble. Sara had met Angie Trent almost a year ago. Her Mediterranean looks and curvaceous figure were exactly the sort of things mothers were thinking of when they warned their sons about loose women.
The bus pulled away. Sara asked, “Where is she?”
Will let out a long breath. “She leaves me a lot. That’s what she does. She leaves, and then she comes back. And then she stays some and then she leaves again.”
“Where does she go?”
“I have no idea.”
“You’ve never asked her?”
“No.”
Sara didn’t pretend to understand. “Why not?”
He glanced out into the street, watching the traffic zoom by. “It’s complicated.”
She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Explain it to me.”
He stared at her, looking ridiculous with the tiny dog in one hand and a pizza box in the other.
Sara narrowed the space between them, moving her hand to his shoulder. She could feel hard muscle beneath his shirt, the heat from his skin. In the bright light of the sun, his eyes looked impossibly blue. He had delicate eyelashes, blond and soft. There was a stubbly spot along his jaw that he’d missed shaving. She was a few inches shorter than him. She stood on her tiptoes to look him straight in the eye.
She said, “Talk to me.”
He was silent, his eyes tracing back and forth across her face, lingering on her mouth, before meeting her gaze again.
Finally, he said, “I like your hair down.”
Sara was robbed of a response by a black SUV slamming on its brakes in the middle of the street. It skidded to a halt about twenty yards away, then jerked into reverse. The wheels squealed against the asphalt. The smell of burned rubber filled the air. The SUV stopped directly in front of them. The window rolled down.
Will’s boss, Amanda Wagner, yelled, “Get in!”
They were both too stunned to move. Car horns blared. Fists were waving. Sara felt like she was caught in the middle of an action movie.
“Now!” Amanda ordered.
“Can you—” Will began, but Sara was already taking Betty, the box of pizza. He fished into his sock and handed her a house key. “She needs to be locked in the spare room so she doesn’t—”
“Will!” Amanda’s tone didn’t leave room for equivocation.
Sara took the key. The metal was warm from his body. “Go.”
Will didn’t have to be told twice. He jumped into the car, his foot skipping along the road as Amanda pulled away from the curb. More horns blared. A four-door sedan fishtailed. Sara could see a teenager in the back seat. The girl’s hands pressed against the window. Her mouth gaped open in terror. Another car was coming from behind, speeding, but swerved at the last moment. Sara locked eyes with the young girl, then the sedan straightened and drove away.
Betty was shaking, and Sara wasn’t much better off. She tried to soothe the dog as she walked toward Will’s street, holding it close, pressing her lips to its head. Both of their hearts were pounding wildly. Sara wasn’t sure what was making it worse—thinking about what might have happened between her and Will or the bad accident Amanda Wagner had nearly caused.
She’d have to watch the news when she got home to find out what was going on. Surely, wherever Will was going, the news vans would follow. Amanda was a deputy director with the GBI. She didn’t ride around looking for her agents on a whim. Sara imagined Faith, Will’s partner, was probably doing her own mad rush to the crime scene right now.
She had forgotten to ask for his house number, but thankfully, Betty’s collar had a tag with the details. Even without that, she easily spotted Will’s black Porsche parked in a driveway toward the end of the street. The car was an older model that had been fully restored. Will must have washed it today. The tires were gleaming and her reflection bounced off the long nose of the hood as she walked past.
She smiled at his house, which she’d never seen before. He lived in a red brick bungalow with an attached garage. The front door was painted black. The trim was a buttery yellow. The lawn was well tended with sharp edges and sculpted shrubs. A colorful flower bed circled the mimosa tree in the front yard. Sara wondered if Angie Trent had a green thumb. Pansies were hardy plants, but they had to be watered. From the sound of it, Mrs. Trent wasn’t the type to stick around for that kind of thing. Sara wasn’t sure how she felt about that, or even if she understood it. Still, she heard her mother’s nagging voice in the back of her head: An absent wife is still a wife.
Betty started to squirm as Sara walked up the front path. She tightened her grip. That was all she needed to make the day worse—lose the dog that belonged to the wife of the man she’d just been longing to kiss in the middle of the street.
Sara shook her head as she climbed the front steps. She had no business thinking about Will this way. She should be glad Amanda Wagner had interrupted them. Early on in their marriage, Jeffrey had cheated on Sara. It had nearly ripped them in two, and putting their relationship back together had taken years of hard work. For better or worse, Will had made his choice. And this wasn’t a fly-by-night romance, either. He had grown up with Angie. They had met in the children’s home when they were kids. They had almost twenty-five years of history together. Sara didn’t belong between them. She wasn’t going to make another woman feel the same pain she had, no matter how dismal her other options.