Page 36 of I Would Die for You

A searing heat overwhelms me as I allow for the possibility that everything that’s happened has been orchestrated by a woman who wants something she hasn’t got. Maybe this is about a woman scorned, an unrequited love for my husband. Did Brad know that his mistress was behind Hannah’s disappearance? Was that why he met with her last week—to warn her off, to tell her she’d gone too far?

Maybe this isn’t about me at all. Maybe it’s pure coincidence that the woman at my door looking to dig up my past just happened to appear on the same day that Hannah was abducted. The idea works its way into my psyche, and I find selfish relief at the thought that this has everything to do with Brad having an affair, and nothing to do with me. I shock myself at the admission.

He looks at me with a deeply furrowed brow, as if waiting for me to bring him bang to rights. Does he know the game’s up? That the net’s closing in? Is he about to beg for my forgiveness, or just waiting for the right moment to tell me that the marriage I thought was rock-solid is over?

I shake my head, unable to believe that we wouldeverfind ourselves in this position… but isn’t that exactly what makes us vulnerable?

“What about?” I ask, needing to be put out of my misery.

“I don’t want to do it here,” he says, looking around the living room at the minutiae of the life we’ve built together. At the dominoes we brought back from Cuba after the locals had taught Hannah the basics. At the picture he commissioned my favorite artist to paint to mark our tenth anniversary. “I thought we could go into town.”

“But we’ve got no one to stay with Hannah,” I say, stalling.

“I’ve asked Barbara across the street to babysit for a couple of hours.”

So, this is premeditated—he knows exactly what he’s going to do.

I suddenly want to backtrack to this being about me, instead of it being the end of us—though I fear that once Brad finds out who I really am and what I’ve done, the outcome will undoubtedly be the same.

“I don’t know…” I say, shaking my head. “What if she wakes up and we’re not here?”

“That woman’s not going to come into our house and take her again,” he says brusquely. If his words are supposed to reassure me, they do the exact opposite. It’s as if he knows for afactthat she won’t. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll meet you in the car in five minutes.”

I can’t help but feel grateful that Tino’s is unusually busy. The live band is so loud that customers are having to shout to talk over them. Orders are being called out from behind the bar and glasses are smashing against each other as they’re being cleared from tables. Which all provide a myriad of distractions that I’m hoping will make it difficult for Brad to call time on our marriage.

“Hey, Nic,” a voice calls out over the din of the band as they start up another number.

“Hi, Jules,” I say, smiling and waving to Hank’s wife, who’s sitting in a booth with her girlfriends wearing what looks to be her husband’s Stetson.

“You here for the karaoke?”

I bite my lip, chastising myself for forgetting that Tuesday is open-mic night. The first and last time we’d stumbled inadvertently into the sing-along was a couple of years ago, when I’d unusually had one too many drinks and been cajoled into taking to the stage with a group of moms from school. I’d momentarily lost myself as we hollered out Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” and imagined I was back at Dallinger’s in London. I allowed myself to dream for a second that instead of Brad looking up at me from the audience, it was Ben,on that first night when he came in and told me I had something special. I’d sung as if I were singing to him, without realizing that, one by one, the other girls had stopped and had all turned to look at me with their mouths agape.

The music had continued, but I’d immediately clammed up, fearful that I’d revealed more of my true self than it was safe to.

“When did you learn to sing likethat?” Brad asked incredulously when I got back to our table, suddenly stone-cold sober.

“Wh-what?” I said, having hoped he was too drunk to notice.

“You sounded incredible up there,” he said, looking at me with a renewed respect. If he had any idea of the trouble my voice had gotten me into, he’d know his pride was woefully misplaced. “How did I not know you could sing like that?”

“I didn’t know I could,” I’d said blithely, while vowing there and then never to let my guard down again—though that was recently put to the test when Hannah brought home a guitar from school. It had taken all my willpower to sit back and watch her as she clumsily strummed the chords, every fiber of my being itching to teach her how to play properly. But how could I explain why I was able to read guitar tablature and knew the difference between a major and a minor chord, when I’d never mentioned it before? So, I’d patiently listened as she tried to master the fretboard and gently encouraged her to practice her scales, then secretly inhaled the cedarwood to incite nostalgia once she’d gone to bed.

I shake my head, both in response to Jules’s question and to rid myself of the pull to another time.

“Just a bite to eat,” I say, ruefully.

“Well, good luck for tomorrow,” she calls out. “We’ll be there rooting for you.”

“Thanks, I think I’m going to need it.”

The thought of standing up in front of the San Diego community to appeal to their common decency had, up until now, filled me with unbridled passion and pride—nothing was more important tome than the petition to close La Jolla beach so that the seals would be able to thrive in their natural habitat without the constant threat of unwanted human interaction. But in the past week my world has changed on its axis and it’s taking all my energy to keep my head above water, to save the lifeIhad, let alone give the seals the lifetheydeserve.

“So…” says Brad, heading into the shadows of the bar and putting two bottles of beer on a high-top table. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

I tip the beer back, desperate for the alcohol to anaesthetize my brain as to what’s coming.

“I need you to listen,” he goes on. “Before jumping to conclusions.”

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