Her Last Letter (6 page)

I shook my head. “They don’t even really know it was him.”

“They don’t?”

I’d said too much, and regretted it. “How can they know? They questioned him once and then he took off.”

Josh blinked, staring at me. “They’ll find him. Eventually they’ll find him and then you’ll know.”

I didn’t want to argue the validity of that premise, since Josh didn’t have all the facts. But at least he wasn’t talking about my marriage anymore. “I’m sorry, but I really do have to run, Josh. I want you to call me though.” I gave him my cell phone number and he took it and didn’t ask why. “It was great seeing you. You will promise to call, won’t you?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be hearing from me.”

He rose as I stood up from the table to leave, but didn’t try to follow me out.

It had been forty-five minutes since I’d talked to Trevor on the phone. I race-walked through town, then ran, getting a few dirty looks as I narrowly missed fellow pedestrians. I burst through the door of the busy restaurant and quickly scanned the bar. But Trevor wasn’t there.

I asked the hostess if he’d left a message, and the girl, her eyes glassy with disinterest at first, suddenly showed life. “He’s still here. We put him upstairs.” She turned to locate a menu, but I didn’t wait and hurried toward the stairs.

I saw his back first. He was leaning over the woman’s table, nodding his head and gesturing with his hand. The woman was younger, very attractive, loose brown curls cascading down her back. She smiled up at him, her skirt riding high, tan legs crossed, flipping the toe of a high-heeled pump. It left no question about her feelings. She liked the attention.

I chose to ignore him, noticing instead his jacket draped over the back of a nearby chair. I took the seat opposite his, still facing him. After several minutes, he turned and looked back toward the table. Again, he turned toward the woman, but he was standing straighter and I guessed he was about to leave. He reached into his back pocket and presented the woman with a card, then walked over.

He took a seat and looked at me, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“I ordered an appetizer,” he said, “but I already ate it. Did everything get settled? Did you get the painting for the price you wanted?”

“No, it didn’t work out after all. They wanted too much, and I just couldn’t see it. But I’m looking at some others.”

He waited, as if I might have more to say on the subject. “Oh, well.”

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Couldn’t be helped.”

He was obviously upset, but I decided not to comment on it. “Did you find some skis?” I asked.

“Yes, as a matter-of-fact, I did. And I found some for you too. I’ve got them on hold for you to look at, if you’re done with your-browsing.”

“What are they?”

“Actually, I found two pair you might like, but the graphics are a little bolder on one. You can see them after we eat.”

The waiter appeared and we ordered. I complained of a nervous stomach and chose a small salad and decaf coffee. Trevor chose a steak sandwich, soup, and dessert.

“So, who were you talking to over there?” I asked finally.

“Maybe a potential client. She might be looking to buy a place in Aspen. Might be bullshit too.”

“I’m sorry I was late.”

“It’s over. Forget it.”

He smiled more on the ride back to Glenwood. We had visited the ski shop, purchased the skis, along with two ski sweaters and a one piece ski outfit for Trevor that he seemed interested in. He joined me at the art fair and I took him through it. I ended up making a few minor purchases, but decided to wait on the LaRoche, though I knew that would probably be a mistake. At six, I changed into the good skirt and leather boots I’d left in the car and we walked to The Chart House and had dinner. I didn’t see Josh again, and was thankful I wouldn’t have to explain anything to Trevor.

“So, it was a good day?” he asked as we pulled into the driveway, the garage door rolling upwards as the Cadillac neared.

“Yes, I enjoyed it. Did you?”

“Yeah, can’t wait to go there again and ski. We’ll need snow first.”

He closed the driver’s door and walked with me to the side entrance. “I saw Joshua Newbury today,” he said.

“You did?”

“Yeah, this morning after I dropped you off. I don’t think he saw me though. Did you run into him?”

“Yes, I did see him, but we barely talked. I guess he’s visiting his family.”

Trevor yawned and covered his mouth. “I almost didn’t recognize the guy. The beard’s gone. It never looked good on him anyway.”

I shrugged noncommittally, then started for the stairs and bed. Trevor moved in behind me, pulling me backwards into his arms. “You’re not tired tonight, are you?”

“No, not really.”

“Good.”

But as we walked up the stairs, I had the uneasy feeling that Trevor could see right through me.

“Thanks for getting me in on such short notice, Janet,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem at all. I’ve been meaning to call and say hello anyway. It’s good to see you, Gwyn.”

I hung up my coat and took a seat in one of the comfortable chairs that faced each other, my usual spot near the window.

“You’ve made a few changes,” I said. I noted a new lamp on a corner table, some chocolate-brown throw rugs on the wood floor, and updated pictures of her teenaged children, Ben and Sarah, atop her desk.

“Yes. Small improvements. Thanks for noticing.”

Janet herself had not changed, a wisp of a woman, wide-eyed with a warm engaging smile. She barely looked thirty, though I knew for a fact she would be celebrating her forty-second birthday in December. I found her easy to talk to, extremely likeable, and worldly savvy in a way that couldn’t be taught. Though I’d never asked, I’d sometimes wondered what life experiences might have drawn her to this particular profession.

She took a seat opposite me, crossing her ankles, mirroring my own. “We haven’t seen each other in a while, not for a few months. What brings you here today?”

“Well, I needed to talk to someone I trusted, someone who would keep my secrets,” I said with a short laugh.

“Oh. Secrets. Well, this is serious.”

“Actually, it’s not so much secrets. It’s more-things I can’t talk to anyone else about right now.” I took a deep breath, folding my hands one into the other. “I’ve been having some issues concerning Trevor. I haven’t been treating him all that well lately, but every time I think I should be more … truthful with him, I back off. He tried to make love to me the other night and I just couldn’t connect, and that’s not usually a problem for me at all.”

“So, what is it you’re not being truthful about?”

“Well, I ran into Josh, my old boyfriend, in Aspen this past weekend. He’s in town, just visiting. It was an accidental meeting. We bumped into each other at an art fair, but I felt guilty about it and didn’t say anything to Trevor. The problem is, I enjoyed seeing Josh-a little too much, I think-and might want to see him again.”

“And why does that worry you? What do you think will happen if you see him again?”

“I don’t know. Actually, I don’t think anything will happen. I just want to see him again. It’s almost like I need to. I hated the way we broke up. Our relationship ended so quickly. After all the time we’d been together, Josh just took off and left the state, disappeared from my life completely. My fault, of course.” I glanced up, but Janet’s expression hadn’t changed. “I don’t want to lead him on, but if I start to see him again, of course, I will be. It’s totally selfish. I’ll be hurting Josh, and I could end up hurting Trevor too, severely damage what we have. It’s crazy.”

“So, knowing this, why do you think you’re still willing to take the chance?”

“I think I need closure with Josh. I need to try and explain to him why I left. He was more than a boyfriend to me, he was a friend. I miss him … a lot. As for Trevor, I don’t want to talk to him about this because he’s the reason I left Josh. And I still have a lot of mixed emotions about that. As much as I blame myself, I blame Trevor more. Recently, I’ve been questioning his reasons for marrying me.”

Janet reached for her glass, took a sip of water. “Go on.”

“I really didn’t get to know Trevor all that well before I became involved with him. I was seeing Josh, in love with him-not wildly anymore, we’d been seeing each other for so long-but it was love. Then Trevor came along and I wanted him so badly I couldn’t think of anything, but him. I literally forgot about Josh-just threw him away-for a man I barely knew. Now, looking back, I’m wondering if the money had more to do with Trevor’s decision to marry me than I thought. He likes having money. He enjoys spending it and he does, though not … excessively. Oh … what am I saying? He’s not bad about it. I encourage him to spend on himself. I spend money on him. I want to. I mean, what is it for if not to make the people you love happy? The thing is, with Josh I always knew I was loved for me. I didn’t have a dime when Josh loved me. I barely had two cents in my savings account.”

“So, seeing Josh has made you question your relationship with Trevor?”

“Yes.”

“Has anything else happened that would make you feel this way? Besides, Josh, I mean.”

“No … well, maybe some little things. Trevor has been working a lot lately. That bothers me. I don’t get to see him as much.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“No.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“I don’t think it would do any good.”

“Hmm. I’m sensing some anger here.” Janet stared at me, waiting for me to respond. Finally, after what felt like an interminable silence, I did.

“If I’m angry, I’d have to say that I’m mostly angry at myself. I’m stupidly naive when it comes to the people I care about. I blindly accept whatever they put in front of me, when instead I should take a step back and see what’s really going on.”

“Are you still talking about Trevor here?”

“Trevor, sure.”

“Not Kelly?”

“Well, yes, Kelly too. I was certainly stupid with her. If I hadn’t been so stupidly naive, maybe she’d still be alive.” I had to stop talking for a moment, reign in all the old feelings that engulfed me whenever I spoke her name. “I didn’t know her either. I really didn’t. When you love someone that much, you can’t see them. I couldn’t anyway. And maybe I didn’t want to see who she really was, because then I’d be forced to admit she wasn’t everything I wanted her to be. Still … why couldn’t she trust me? If she had a drug problem, why couldn’t she tell me about it? I could have helped her. I wouldn’t have stopped loving her. Didn’t she know that? I never would have stopped loving her.”

“But maybe she wasn’t willing to let you. Unfortunately, we’ll never know why she was reluctant to seek help.”

“I wish so much that I could talk to her. I do, sometimes, when I’m alone. I want so much to know what happened … why it happened. How could anyone do that to her? Only a monster could have slaughtered her like that. He ran her down-like she was nothing-like she was dirt. I swear if I could, I’d kill him. I’d kill him and never regret it for a single moment.” My stomach rolled and I felt the searing hatred rise in my throat, bubbling up its caustic acid.

“Linda told me Kelly was on drugs, said it was obvious, but I didn’t believe her. I even took Kelly aside one day and stood her in front of me and asked her point blank, ‘Are you taking drugs? I don’t want to think so, but if you are I need to know. So please, tell me the truth.’ Do you know what she said? Right to my face she said, ‘I’m not doing drugs, Gwyn. I wouldn’t do that. God, I can’t believe you’re asking me this.’ I told her I had to ask because I was worried about her, that she didn’t seem … right. She got a little angry, then told me I shouldn’t worry about her, that I worried about everything, that I’ve always worried too much and maybe I was the one with the problem. Then she took that back and apologized, told me again that, no, she didn’t do drugs. Well, maybe a little weed, when she was in school, but that was stupid and she knew it, so she’d quit. She had me convinced that Linda was absolutely wrong. It was a real relief at the time. But then, of course, they found cocaine in her system, and other drugs I can’t even pronounce were stashed in her medicine chest disguised as cold medicine or cough drops or whatever. God, it hurt. It hurt so much to think she would lie to me like that.”

Janet sat quiet, then finally spoke.

“You can’t blame yourself, Gwyn. We’ll never know exactly why Kelly felt she had to lie. But you do have to stop thinking you could have changed her.”

Numbly, I brushed away tears with the back of my hand.

“I know how very much you loved Kelly, and I believe she knew that too. Maybe she felt you were the only one left who still believed in her, who saw something in her that was truly special. Maybe she wasn’t willing to let that go. Though I’ve never spoken to her, I think from what you’ve told me that she must have loved you too, very much. After all, you looked after her after your mother died.”

“Well, my father was there too.”

“Yes, but from what you’ve told me, he wasn’t around too much.”

“No.” I took a deep breath, finally shaking myself of the bizarre feeling that had taken hold of me a while ago. “You are right, of course. Kelly couldn’t have handled the thought of losing me too, losing my love. She’d lost Mom, then Dad. And Linda, well … Kelly and Linda weren’t exactly best friends. I suppose Kelly couldn’t take the chance that maybe she’d mess things up with me too.… It’s so strange. I’ve had dreams since she died where I died too, where I lost my footing and fell into this cold dark bottomless crevasse, and for one horrible instant, I feel my insides shrivel, because I know this is it. No one can save me. I can’t even scream I’m so terrified. Maybe that’s how it was for her that night. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know, because if it’s as bad as it must have been, how can I …?” I stopped abruptly, sat very still. Finally, I looked up at her. “I have said all this before, haven’t I?”

“Gwyn, you are not at fault. You are not the one to blame.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You’re right. He is.”