He tried to call Ethan late last night, as Ethan had requested, but Abigail answered, her voice brittle over the line. “Swifts.”
Jackson’s tongue fumbled in his mouth. Should he hang up? But what if she pressed *69, dialed him back?
“Yes, hi, is Ethan available?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Jackson. Ford. We’ve met a few times. Hi.”
“Yes,” she said plainly.
“I’m a local decorator, and I told your husband I’d try and refer some clients his way.”
At this, she warmed, her voice whirring like cotton candy spinning in a vat at the county fair. “Oh, hi, Jackson! Forgive me! Long night. Just finished with the dishes. But I’m sorry, Ethan’s out.”
Jackson’s heart plummeted. Had he waited too long to call? Could he be out with Ethan right now if he’d just called half an hour earlier?
“No problem! Just tell him I called. He’s got my number. My business card, I mean.”Hang up the phone, Jackson, before you screw this up.
“Will do! So lovely to talk! He’ll be so happy you rang!”
Jackson stirred in his living room for the rest of the night, debating going to Sullivan’s to see if Ethan was there. But Ethan could’ve called him from the pay phone. No, he didn’t want to look desperate.
Like he does right now, traipsing through the Swifts’ pasture, hunting for signs of life.
Ethan’s truck is parked out front, and like the other evening, the house is darkened, curtains drawn, cloaked.
Jackson phoned a few hours ago, but the line just rang and rang.
Call me later tonight. I have to see you again. Soon as possible.
Ethan’s words from yesterday are what drew him out here, hoping that, like last Sunday night, he’d be by the pond, sipping whiskey.
Jackson’s halfway to the water when a crow caws at him, causing him to start.
He turns back to look at the house, making sure the ruckus hasn’t stirred the occupants. But the house lies dormant, asleep. Ethan’s probably inside, snoozing next to his wife; Jackson entertains the juvenile thought of sneaking up to their bedroom window, softly pelting it with pebbles, then realizes that might get him shot dead.
It’s pitch-black out, only a sliver of moon and a few stars straining from behind the clouds in the crushed-velvet sky, and Jackson can just make out the footpath encircling the pond.
As he crests the hill, the rickety dock comes into view, a postage-stamp-size square from where he’s standing.
There’s someone on it. Lying on it.
It must be Ethan.
Jackson has to suppress the urge to break out into a sprint.
He’s ready to get on that dock, do what they did the other night. And more.
But as he gets closer and it comes into clearer view, it’s not Ethan he sees at all.
It’s Abigail.
Naked from the waist up, full breasts glowing in the sieved moonlight, her dress pooled around her hips. She arches her back as she grinds over someone underneath her.
Jackson gasps, scoots over to the tree line to take cover.
Fuck. He’s just walked up on Ethan having sex with his wife.
