“No.”
He looks disappointed. “Okay. But I’m closing up in fifteen minutes. Remember. If I’m not in bed on time, my stress levels go up. My acid-base balance gets all mixed up, I start to get tense, can’t look after my horses, and…”
“We’ll be out of here on time, Will.”
I walk over to Paisley, sit down on the arm of the chair, and take the headphones off her ears. She starts as if she’d seen a ghost, but then sinks back down in relief. “It’s you.”
“Yeah. What are you listening to?” I put the headphones on, smile, then take them back off. “Simon and Garfunkel. Of course.”
“What are you doing here?”
I put the headphones to the side and tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her hair is so soft. “I wanted to ask you the same thing, Paisley.”
“I’m listening to music.”
“For hours,” I add.
“Yeah. Nothing wrong with that, right?”
“No.” I sigh and take her hand. “Come here.”
Her hand is so small. So delicate. Her fingers slip through mineif I don’t hold them tight enough. She is cold, as if she’d been standing out in the snow for hours and not under a blanket next to a crackling fire.
We sit down on the couch, me cross-legged, she with one leg tucked beneath her. There are dark shadows below her eyes, which stand out strongly from her light skin. She hasn’t slept well over the last few days. I could hear her footsteps above me, almost the whole night long, moving back and forth across the creaking wooden floor. And it was all my fault.
“I’m sorry. I amsosorry, Paisley.”
She looks at her fingernails. The one by her ring finger has two white flecks. She scratches them. “I’m angry at you, Knox.”
“I know.”
“You hurt me.”
“I know.”
She looks at me. Her stare goes deep. My stomach contracts.
“How could you think that I wouldeverdo something like that to you?”
“No idea. I don’t think I thought at all. It surprised me. From one moment to the next, my life was packed up as if it were a box full of odds and ends and turned upside down. I couldn’t find anything anymore. Everything was all over the place. Absolute chaos in my head.”
She nods. “I know something about that.”
Silence envelops us. I cast my eyes through the store, considering the best way to bring up the topic. William peeps out from behind another shelf. He points his finger at his watch. Then he performs a pantomime, first contorting his face, then making waving movements with his hand, and, in the end, pretending to vacuum.Acid-base balance. I roll my eyes and turn back to Paisley.
“Listen, Paisley.” Once again I reach for her hand, trace the lines on her knuckles. “Ivan Petrov is in Aspen.”
She doesn’t react. Her fingers become rigid, her whole body, I think, but not a single word crosses her lips. She stares at her lap.
She knows, I think.She already knows.
And that means that she must have seen him. I feel sick. Her fingers slide away from mine. They land on the cushions. “He found you.” She still doesn’t say anything. I start to panic. “What did he do, Paisley?What did he do?”
This is the moment her dam breaks and the waters flood her center. She doesn’t simply cry, she completely collapses. I hold onto her, her delicate body pressed close to mine, her tears damp, salty tracks on my throat.
I want to kill him. Right now. I want to find him and kill him for hurting her like this.
It takes forever for her to quiet down. William’s no longer there. Only in passing did I notice him place the keys on the counter next to the popcorn machine before softly closing the door behind him.
