Touch & Go
ALSO BY LISA GARDNER
Novels
The Perfect Husband
The Other Daughter
The Third Victim
The Next Accident
The Survivors Club
The Killing Hour
Alone
Gone
Hide
Say Goodbye
The Neighbor
Live to Tell
Love You More
Catch Me
Short Works
The 7th Month
DUTTON
DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First printing, February 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Gardner, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
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materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61101-2
Designed by Leonard Telesca
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
| ALWAYS LEARNING | PEARSON |
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
HERE IS SOMETHING I LEARNED when I was eleven years old: Pain has a flavor. The question is, what does it taste like to you?
TONIGHT, MY PAIN TASTED LIKE ORANGES. I sat across from my husband in a corner booth at the restaurant Scampo in Beacon Hill. Discreet waiters appeared to silently refill our glasses of champagne. Two for him. Three for me. Homemade breads covered the white linen tablecloth, as well as fresh selections from the mozzarella bar. Next would be tidy bowls of hand-cut noodles, topped with sweet peas, crispy pancetta, and a light cream sauce. Justin’s favorite dish. He’d discovered it on a business trip to Italy twenty years ago and had been requesting it at fine Italian restaurants ever since.
I lifted my champagne glass. Sipped. Set it down.
Across from me, Justin smiled, lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. His light brown hair, worn short, was graying at the temples, but it worked for him. He had that rugged outdoors look that never went out of fashion. Women checked him out when we entered bars. Men did, too, curious about the new arrival, an obvious alpha male who paired scuffed work boots with two-hundred-dollar Brooks Brothers shirts and made both look the better for it.
“Gonna eat?” my husband asked.
“I’m saving myself for the pasta.”
He smiled again, and I thought of white sandy beaches, the salty tang of ocean air. I remembered the feel of the soft cotton sheets tangled around my bare legs as we spent the second morning of our honeymoon still sequestered in our private bungalow. Justin hand-fed me fresh peeled oranges while I delicately licked the sticky juice from his calloused fingers.
I took another sip of champagne, holding it inside my mouth this time, and concentrating on the feel of liquid bubbles.
I wondered if she had been prettier than me. More exciting. Better in bed. Or maybe, in the way these things worked, none of that mattered. Didn’t factor into the equation. Men cheated because men cheated. If a husband could, he would.
Meaning that, in its own way, the past six months of my marriage hadn’t been anything personal.
I took another sip, still drinking champagne, still tasting oranges.
Justin polished off the selection of appetizers, took a restrained sip of his own champagne, then absently rearranged his silverware.
Justin had inherited his father’s twenty-five-million-dollar construction business at the age of twenty-seven. Some sons would’ve been content to let a successful business continue as is. Not Justin. By the time I met him when he was thirty-four, he’d already doubled revenue to the fifty-million mark, with a goal of achieving seventy-five million in the next two years. And not by sitting in some office. Justin prided himself on being a master of most trades. Plumbing, electrical, drywall, concrete. He was boots on the ground, spending time with his men, mingling with the subcontractors, first one on the site, last one to leave.
In the beginning, that’s one of the things I’d loved most about him. A man’s man. Comfortable in a wood-paneled boardroom but also played a mean game of pickup hoops and thought nothing of taking his favorite .357 to light up the firing range.
When we were first dating, he’d take me with him to his gun club. I’d stand, tucked into the solid embrace of his larger, stronger body, while he showed me how to position my hands on the grip of a relatively petite .22, how to sight down the barrel, home in on the bull’s-eye. The first few times, I missed the target completely, the sound of the gunshot startling me, causing me to flinch even with ear protection. I’d fire into the ground or, if I was very lucky, hit the lowest edge of the paper target.
Time and time again, Justin would patiently correct me, his voice a low rumble against the back of my neck as he leaned over and helped me level out my aim.
Sometimes we never made it home. We’d end up naked in the closet of the rifle range, or in the backseat of his SUV, still in the parking lot. He’d dig his fingers into my hips, urging me faster and harder, and I’d obey, out of my mind with gunpowder and lust and pure mind-blowing power.
Salt. Gunpowder. Oranges.
Justin excused himself to use the bathroom.
When he left, I rearranged the pasta on my plate so it would appear as if I’d eaten. Then, I opened my purse and, under the cover of the table, doled out four white pills. I popped them as a single handful, chased down with half a glass of water.
Then I picked up my glass of champagne and steeled myself for the evening’s main event.
JUSTIN DROVE US THE FIVE MINUTES HOME. He’d purchased the Boston town house pretty much the same day we’d confirmed that I was pregnant. From doctor’s office to real estate office. He brought me to see it after reaching a verbal agreement, the big-game hunter showing off his trophy. I probably should’ve been offended by his high-handedness. Instead, I’d walked through four and a half stories of
gorgeous hardwood floors, soaring nine-foot ceilings and intricate hand-carved moldings, and felt my jaw drop.
