“For granted? Really, Sisi?” The wooden chair groans as he slumps back.
Even if hehadbegun taking her for granted, toward the end, well, it was only because she was good. No, not just good. Better than he was. Better than he’d ever been. Would ever be.
And he was afraid that if she knew, she’d be the one to leave. And he would simply be the one who had been left. And now it doesn’t matter.
Because she’s gone.
Their starhadrisen, sure, but it hadn’t gone as far as he’d hoped.
And now it never would.
Malcolm sighs and shoves himself up to his feet. He shuffles up to the table, the bottle landing with a heavythunkbeside the tartan quilt. Feeling bold, he folds back one corner of the blanket, forces himself to look.
“Oh, Sisi,” he murmurs.
It isn’t so bad, from this angle. Her hair has tumbled across her face in a way that hides the worst of it. He brushes his knuckles against her cheek. Her skin is cooling, waxy to the touch.
He takes another swig—it really is good Scotch, and he’s reaching that perfect state, where he feels liquid, a melting-butter kind of warmth—but even though the face is tipped away, her disapproving look is burned into his mind.
“I know, I know,” he mutters. “But it won’t save you, and right now, it might save me.” He lowers the bottle. It’s not a half-bad line. It tickles something in his head, the pleasant flutter of a promising idea. Not for Fletch’s book, no, but something else, something new.
Malcolm begins to pace as he says the words again. “ ‘It won’t save you, but it might save me.’ There’s something there.” He raps his knuckles on the table. “A once-hardened detective, softened by the love of a good woman. Maybe he’s even out of the game. He’s happy. He’s sober. He’s left that world behind.”
He pauses, waiting for Sienna to reply before remembering she can’t. The whiplash of it stings, but he presses on.
“Then someone from his past shows up, and kills his wife.”
He can practically hear Sienna’s sigh. She’d tried to convince him, more than once, that axing a loved one for the plot was calledfridging, and it was to be avoided, but in Malcolm’s opinion, that was just good old-fashioned storytelling.
“Now,” he continues, because Sienna can no longer interrupt, “he swore he wouldn’t go back to that life, but he can’t rest until he figures out which of the criminals he put away has done this to him. Her death is the start of his new story. The catalyst. That could work, right?”
No answer, of course, but that’s okay, he just needs to talk it out.
“We’ll call him Hardwick. Leo Hardwick. And he’s standing over her, just like this”—He positions himself flush with the table—“full of helplessness, and rage, and Scotch, when he swears he’ll find the killer. He thinks he’ll be able to rest once he does, put that life to bed for good, but we know better. Because this is what he’s made for. What he loves.”
His heart is pounding now with the promise of it.
Malcolm looks around the cellar for a scrap of paper, a pencil, some way to capture the idea before it escapes. But his own pockets are empty, and the cellar isn’t much help either. He scours the floor and comes up dry.
His gaze drags toward Sienna, still dressed, in yesterday’s clothes, a rumpled sweater and jeans. She never goes anywhere without a notebook and pen. He can’t see either on her now, but he can’t imagine she’ll mind if he checks.
The drink has steeled his nerves, but he still tries not to think of words likerigor mortisas he pats her down, lets out a small “Aha!” when he frees a pen from her back pocket. And then, miracle, a piece of folded white paper in a front one.
He jots down the bones of the idea, hoping that when the whisky wears off, it doesn’t lose its shine. (More than once he’s scribbled something down mid-drink, convinced it was the Next Great Work, only to look at it with sober eyes and find only half-formed nonsense. But this, this is good.)
It’s only when he runs out of space and turns the paper over that his world comes slamming to a stop.
There are two words in the center of the blank page, one misaligned letter at the start.
GET OUT.
Malcolm’s heart begins to race. The bottle sloshes, the whisky somehow half gone, but his mind is stunningly clear. Life and art, in perfect parallel. Proof that Sienna’s death was no misfortune. She was murdered by someone in this house.
“I knew it,” he growls.
He knew it couldn’t be an accident. Not with so much at stake.
And Malcolm, loving husband that he is, will not rest until he finds out who did this to his wife.
