Although therewerethe secret tunnels. I sat up in bed at that thought, straining to listen, but the noise wasn’t repeated. Surely if it was footsteps, I’d hear more. After ten more minutes of intense listening, I lay back and stared up at the ceiling again. “Lonely, lonely lonely. And it’s all Alden’s fault.”
I thought about how at fault he was, and decided to write him a note to let him know just what it was I found so objectionable about his actions. I pulled out a sheet of his notepaper that I’d filched and, with a book underneath it, sat on the edge of my bed and wrote.
Dear Alden,
You are probably feeling pretty sorry for yourself right now, telling yourself that you’ve done nothing wrong, and that I’m overreacting. So I thought, in the interest of Anglo-Canadian-American relations, to detail your wrongdoings.
“Yes,” I said, looking with approval at the letter. “It’s a good start. My English Comp professor would be pleased.”
You insist that I shot you when I’ve told you repeatedly that I didn’t.
You...
I stopped, frowning at the first item. Come to think of it, Alden hadn’t recently accused me of shooting him. He’d agreed that I hadn’t, and wondered who could have, since it hadn’t been me and most likely wasn’t Barry, unless the latter had smuggled a differently colored arrow upon his person. I struck out the first item, and restarted the list.
You didn’t tell me that your potential girlfriend was coming to visit.
Dammit. That wasn’t true, either. Hehadtold me that a woman was coming to stay with him, although I had gotten the idea that it was a blind date, an unwanted one at that. But never had he actually said that. I bit my lip and, after a soft oath to myself, struck out the item and started again.
You allow Lisa to fawn all over you when you and I have a thing. OK, I know I said that we don’t have a thing, but...
“Well, that’s just balls, too,” I snapped, scratching out that item with unnecessary force.
You told me that I loved you. Ha! Double ha with bells on it! For one thing, you don’t know my feelings, and for another thing, I don’t in any way, shape, or form love...
I said an extremely rude word, and sat staring at the paper. The wordloveseemed to grow and throb, like an engorged penis, dancing around the page trying to attract my attention.
“Love,” I scoffed. “Just who does Alden think he is that he can tell me what I feel? Pfft. He wishes it was love.”
I kept on that vein for another two minutes, then eventually worked enough scoffing out of my system that I could face facts.
What I felt for Alden was more than just a casual hookup. Was it love? It certainly wasn’t the crushes I’d had in college when I was a young thing. No, the emotions that Alden generated in me were more... deep. Profound. Unshakable. Oh, sure, I’d been angry with him earlier, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t at that exact moment want to be with him, touching him, kissing him, talking to him. I just wanted to bewithhim, to be a part of his life, to know I mattered to him.
“Well, hell, Iamin love with the great big toad,” I said, somewhat at a loss. “When did that happen? When I saw him swinging the sword the first time? When he sent me that first note? When I thought he’d fallen into a hole and killed himself? And why the hell am I sitting here asking silly questions and describing why I’m angry with him over things that have no merit or basis in fact? Get up and go molest that man, Mercy! Seduce him like he’s never been seduced before!”
I suited action to word, throwing away my note and donning my sexy nightie, figuring that if I had to make an apology for my behavior—and I definitely needed to do that—then I was going to do it in a garment that would give me the best chance of distracting him oncethe apologizing was over. I grabbed a shawl I’d bought when I was in Scotland, and padded my way barefoot to Alden’s door. I tried to open it, intending on slipping in to surprise him, but the door was locked.
“Crap. He must be pissed at me because I was so bitchy earlier. Guess he’s really going to earn this apology.” I tapped on the door, and waited, mentally practicing my explanation of why I was there, and all the ways I’d been wrong in accusing him of bad behavior.
I frowned at the door after a couple of minutes. Maybe he was in the bathroom? I knocked again, this time putting my ear to the door to listen for sounds that he was willfully ignoring me.
There was no sound, but a scent wafted out from the doorjamb.
I sniffed a couple of times, then froze in horror. I knew that smell—it was natural gas, the stuff Bestwood used to heat up the ancient radiators that lurked in every room. What on earth was Alden doing turning on the heat when it had to be at least eighty during the day?
“Alden?” I banged loudly on the door, putting my face right up to it to yell. “Alden, what are you doing in there? Alden?”
There was still no answer, but as I gave a couple more sniffs, the smell of gas was still present.
What if he’d fallen down in the bathroom, and somehow turned on the gas while doing so? What if a gas pipe had broken and was expelling deadly fumes into his room at that very moment?
What if someone was trying to murder him in his sleep?
I spun around, and raced back into my room,running to the windowsill, where I flung open the curtains, jerked up the window, and stuck a leg out while feeling for the six-inch-wide decorative stone ledge that ran under all the windows on that floor. I eased myself out, refusing to look down, clutching the smooth stone of the building as I got to my feet.
“Don’t look down, don’t look down,” I repeated in a desperate sort of mantra, edging my way along the building to the window of Alden’s bathroom, which was between our two rooms. The mantra changed to, “Don’t be dead, don’t be dead,” when I (breathlessly) arrived at the window.
The urge to look down was almost overwhelming, but I kept my attention focused on staying balanced on the narrow ledge while bending down to pull up the window sash. Luckily, the heat of the day meant that Alden had left the bathroom window partially open, so all I had to do was grasp it with the hand not holding on to a decorative stone rose that dotted a line above the windows, and yank upward.
