Chapter 36
Mitch had just poured a shot of the whiskey when Dylan emerged from the bedroom carrying a bundle of bedsheets, towels, plus the articles of clothing she had borrowed. Except for Beth’s sneakers, she was dressed in her own clothing, including the fantasy-making, memory-stirring silky blouse.
Seeing the liquor bottle on the table, she stopped in her tracks. When she looked at him, he raised his chin a half inch, as though daring her to challenge him. He picked up the glass he’d poured and extended it toward her. “Join me for a drink?”
She gave him a withering look. “Is there a washing machine?”
He pointed. “Outside that door, hook a right. Washing machine and dryer are in the enclosure on the back gallery.”
She headed that way, but before reaching the door, she dumped the laundry onto the floor and turned to face him. “What are you doing, Mitch?”
“What’s it look like?”
“Like you’re being an idiot.”
She was right, and he knew she was right, and that made him furious. He slammed the glass down onto the table and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
She said, “What’s wrong?”
“What’swrong? Hell, I could alphabetize all that’s wrong.”
“Specifically, in this moment, what’s the wrongest of all that’s wrong?”
“Why can’t I get to Malone? Who is Oz? I’m smarter than this, dammit. I’m spinning my wheels, getting nowhere.” He lowered his hands from his eyes and looked at her with frustration. “Why the devil can’t I figure this out?”
“For one thing, you’re exhausted. Did you sleep at all?”
“Cat naps between trying to figure out what I’m missing and worrying about how I’m going to protect Andrew and you from Malone.”
“Andrew?”
“He let him live once. If he finds out my son is under my roof again, he may rethink that.”
He sat down in one of the dining chairs and pushed aside both the whiskey bottle and the glass he’d poured but hadn’t even tasted. He propped his elbows on the table and massaged his temples.
“I feel like there’s something I know, but it’s gotten lost up here somewhere.” He pressed his skull between his hands. “Two dots floating around inside my brain that I can’t connect no matter how hard I try. Something important that I’m supposed to remember.”
“Like what?”
He unlocked his elbows, and his forearms and fists dropped onto the table with a thud. “If I could remember what it was, Iwouldn’t be pouring a neat Jack Daniel’s before the sun comes up, would I?”
Even he was offended by his rebuke. Turning his head away, he looked out the front windows. A ponderous rain was falling. Without gutters, it streamed off the sloping tin roof in sheets, obscuring everything beyond the overhang of the porch. “Not that the sun will shine today.”
When he turned back, he was surprised to see that Dylan had left the laundry where it had landed and had sat down at the table directly opposite him. He said, “I’m being a jerk. Sorry.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“Yes. No. I’m more angry at myself, but taking it out on you.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“I asked for your help, Dylan. You said no.”
“Not that way,” she said, gesturing toward the card table and his laptop. She was searching his eyes, no longer with censure but with the concern and empathy of a clinician. “You’re striving to remember something, but the pressure you’re applying may actually be working against you.”
“So, what do I do? Stop striving?”
“In essence, yes. You know how when someone’s name, or a movie title, any fact that you know you know, but it’s escaped you. And when you strain to call it up, it’s not there. Later, when you’re not thinking about it at all—”
