Really? That sounded wrong. “It feels like hours since I left the courthouse.”
Lukas walked fully into the kitchen and stopped on the other side of the island, directly across from me. “So, Aubrey Tanner is back.”
An interesting take. “You mean, she’s alive. That’s a surprise, remember? She’s supposed to be dead.”
“That was the town’s leading theory. Clearly, an incorrect one.” He glanced in the sink but refrained from commenting on the stack of dirty breakfast dishes, which had to be killing him. “The news of her unexpected arrival spread around the courthouse with lightning speed. I don’t even work in the same building, and I knew ten minutes after she left the hearing.”
Yeah, poor him.“Try to imagine the live version.”
He let out a long breath. “Did she say anything?”
“About what?” Another sip and I’d finished off this glass, too. I eyed the bottle for another round.
Lukas moved it closer to him. “Stella, come on. Just answer the question.”
“Right. Stay on task.” A sharp crack echoed through the quiet house when I set the now empty glass down a bit too hard on the quartz countertop. “Why are you so calm?”
“How should I be?”
The way he talked, all perfect and controlled, sent my frustration into hyperdrive faster than anything else. “How about concerned? Agitated. Scared shitless. Pick one or come up with a list of your own.”
I’d settle for a little ruffled. Some hint that the Aubrey-isn’t-dead news affected him. But I probably expected too much. Lukas had the most even temper of anyone I’d ever met. He rarely showed emotion. No fits of anger. No yelling. Which also meant limited excitement and enthusiasm. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard him swear, which was just unnatural.
As a husband,solidandunruffledhad sounded positive. Promising. That chiseled face and stoic nature, all serious and focused, reeled me in when we were dating. After a lifetime with a mother who bounced from numb to manic in the course of a sentence, I fell for Lukas’s drive and charm. With him I could take my foot off the brake and coast. Let him lead and handle everything. Problem was, I ceded control, then secretly seethed at his overbearing nature.
With some pushing and grumbling, I now could admit—not out loud—I hadn’t always been fair to him or about the position I put him in. Being a psychologist, I should have recognized my behavior and adjusted. Didn’t happen. I went with criticism, shifting blame, irrational levels of anger, and a heavy dose of bitterness instead. At least, that’s what he’d said during our divorce mediation.
Our marriage lasted less than six years. Five years and 201 days, to be exact. A pile-on of mistrust and ambivalence cracked our tenuous truce and outwardly happy façade until our marriage officially shattered into tiny, jagged pieces less than a year after the Tanners disappeared. Never expected to be an ex-wife at thirty-one.
“Don’t borrow trouble.” He put the nearly empty wine bottle in the sink.
“Says the esteemed prosecutor.” That’s what he did. He fought to take criminals off the street. He’d been instrumental in prosecuting a local businessman who ran drugs laced with sedatives that attacked the nervous system and increased the chance of overdose.
The work, along with his calls for clear and swift justice delivered with common sense, landed him on the governor’s short list to fill an interim vacancy on the state supreme court. A position Lukas craved and had dreamed about since before law school, and the big, career-defining decision should come within the next two weeks. One that required Lukas’s reputation remain pristine and unspoiled.
It was almost as if Aubrey knew that and figured it into herI’m alivetiming.
Of all the pacts and unspoken agreements made that day fifteen years ago, the one with Lukas ended up being the easiest to keep. It benefited me more than it did him. He’d lied for me. Provided an alibi when I needed it. That lie created a gulf between us that we could never bridge, and he could never forgive.
“She’s been somewhere for all these years,” he said.
Not helpful. “Are you making a point?”
He delivered one of those sighs that signaled his irritation with the topic. That was the Lukas equivalent of an explosion of anger. No matter how much I pushed, how much I poked and strained to drag a real reaction out of him, to make him prove he cared, that steady level of operating never changed. It was annoying as hell.
He finally answered. “My point is, if Aubrey wanted to show up and cause trouble, she could have done that long before now.”
The tone. The careful sentence that stated the obvious but hinted at more. “Did you know she was alive?”
“Maybe stop drinking. You’re losing it.” He reached over to take the wineglass.
I snagged it back. “I see you’re in a gaslighting mood today.”
He sighed again. “I’m trying to be reasonable.”
From anyone else the response would have come off as clueless. Lukas, with his big brain and blue blood pedigree, sounded the opposite. He didn’t miss a thing. He constantly assessed and stored information. He could fire it back at you verbatim when he needed to win an argument, which, mostly amicable divorce or not, exhausted me.
“You’re acting as if Aubrey Tanner is just some woman, as if she was a normal girl back then.” The idea was so absurd. “We both know that’s not true. She thrived on causing chaos. Clearly still does.”
