Before Cain Strikes. Joshua Corin
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ivy were breathing. Almost as if it were alive. And hungry. Then the green veins bent toward her face and slowly extended, wrapping around her wrists, her forearms, her biceps. She called out for Rafe. She called out for Sophie. She called out for Tom. Her bedroom door at the end of the hallway opened. Henry Booth—Galileo—stood there. He was naked. In the center of his hairless, muscular chest was a peephole. Esme could see through it to the other side. Rafe and Sophie were on that other side, cowering, so small. Panicking now, Esme looked back at the door to her daughter’s room and her arms were no longer being held by veins of ivy but by a pair of hands, and Esme knew they were Lynette’s hands and Esme knew they were angry and would never let her go, and Galileo took a step toward her now and his hands weren’t hands at all but eels, eels with jaws and teeth, snapping jaws, and he held them out to her and the jaws snapped as they approached, snapped, snapped, and soon they would be at her left ear, snap, and soon they would be at her left eyeball, snap, and then her—
She awoke in her own sweat. The bedroom was ablaze with early-morning sunlight. She checked her iPod. It was 6:58 a.m. Apparently, this weekend she was destined to undersleep. Great. At least Rafe, from the sound of it, had finally achieved some semblance of shut-eye. She curled her body around his, careful not to disturb his rhythmic snoring, and forced herself back into dreamland, all the while fearful of what might come.
They woke up together around 10:00 a.m., all warm and toasty under the wool blanket. The mesh of their body-to-body heat didn’t hurt, either. They snuggled.
At that moment both Esme and Rafe were thinking about the same thing, and both wondering what the other was thinking about. It hadn’t always been this awkward, surely, but they hadn’t had sex in more than half a year. They knew each other’s bodies as well as any two people could but at that moment, in that bed, they might as well have been desperate strangers.
The first, obvious step was that they needed to face each other, and since Esme currently had her face nuzzled against Rafe’s nape, that meant the pressure was on him. And he knew it. His eyes were open but he wasn’t looking at anything but what the next few minutes could become. And all the while he heard the tick-tick-tick of Dr. Rosen’s two weeks.
Her hands were near his paunch. How easy it would be to simply guide them a few inches south. He would enjoy that. She would enjoy that. She always said she enjoyed that. She had always been honest with him. She was a good person. He’d married a good person. Why did he always let all of this extraneous bullshit get in the way? Hell, why was he ruminating about his wife, who was lying there right beside him, instead of making love to her? Why not just—
“I’m going to put on some coffee,” she said, and he heard her walk away.
Way to go, Hamlet, he mused. Overanalyzing has won you yet again. He rolled over and buried his face in her pillow. He was his own cold shower. Shortly thereafter, he roused himself out of bed and joined Esme in the kitchen for some Sunday morning joe. Had Lester subscribed to the newspaper, they could have at least spent those few minutes perusing the headlines, trading entertainment section for sports section, but the old man had, of course, since relocating to Oyster Bay, let his subscription lapse, and so the only news Rafe and Esme had to occupy them was their own.
So they sipped in silence.
When they were through, Esme called home. She spoke to Sophie for a few minutes, assured her they would be back soon, and yes, she would be there tomorrow to chaperone the trip to the science museum. Then she handed the phone to Rafe.
“Hi, cupcake.”
“Hi, Daddy!”
Esme started packing.
“So what did you and Grandpa Les do yesterday?”
“We built a snowman and it was tall except he added two pieces of snow to the front so it became a snow-woman.” Sophie giggled. Her father didn’t. “I miss you, Daddy.”
“I miss you, too, cupcake. Very much. Do you have any homework to do for tomorrow?”
“Just some math. But I’m waiting until you come home because I know you like to help me with my math.”
He smiled. “I think you waited because you don’t want to do it.”
“I hate math. It’s boring.”
“I know. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t like so we can do the things we like to do.”
“Like watch TV after my bedtime?”
“Maybe,” he replied. “We’ll see. Put your grandpa on the phone, okay? I love you ten times infinity.”
“I love you ten times one hundred plus infinity and twelve!”
Once Lester got on the phone, Rafe informed him when they expected to be home. Lester chided him about the condition of his old house and warned him to make sure everything was left in good working order and that the faucets were still dripping and the windows were all shut, etc. Finally, Rafe was able to get to the goodbyes.
It was shortly after eleven.
Both Rafe and Esme were hungry for brunch, so they stopped at a twenty-four-hour diner that was on the way to downtown. Rafe didn’t need to look at a menu. As a teenager, he must have eaten at this place, well, ten times one hundred plus infinity and twelve. The food was cheap and the service was quick. This was a no-nonsense establishment and, even as a teen, Rafe had been a no-nonsense type of guy. The kind who’s too indecisive to get laid by his own wife, he noted, and paid for the check with a credit card.
Their next stop was the Robinson house.
They were still receiving visitors, of course. Many relatives had arrived from out of town to pay their respects. Misery may have loved company, but it was company which kept misery at bay.
Lynette’s mother hugged Rafe.
“She was always very fond of you,” the woman said.
And Rafe shattered into a million pieces.
Once he’d regained his composure in the bathroom, which took some doing, he found Esme in the corner of the den, noshing on an Asiago bagel. She had never been one for mingling. Back in Oyster Bay, he had to push her to get involved in local civic activities. For all of her toughness and acumen, his wife could be astonishingly shy.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
She finished her bagel in two bites and they headed outside to the Prius. Around them trickled the sound of melting snow. It had to be in the low fifties already, and probably was going to climb half a dozen digits more by midday. The highway would be clear of ice and Rafe wondered if they might even get to spend some of the drive with the windows down.
He checked his mirrors and shifted into Drive. He was eager to get the hell out of here.
“Can we stop at the station before we go? I want to say goodbye to Sheriff Fallon.”
So instead of taking a left, toward the interstate, they took a right and pulled into the now-familiar parking lot, crowded if only because of the church across the street.
“Want me to stay in the car?” he inquired.
“Don’t be silly.”
They locked the car and mounted the steps to the weather-beaten brick-and-cement building, and were halfway across the front hall, which also led to the county’s many other offices, but neither of them spotted the man by the door until he called out her name.
“Hello, Esmeralda,” said Tom.
“But I thought…” said Esme.
“So did I,” Tom replied. “And then my girlfriend slapped me upside the head for being a fool and got me on the next flight here.”
“I can’t wait to meet her.”
“She can’t wait to meet you.”
Rafe didn’t want to meet any of them. He stood off to the side while his wife