Chapter 15: Wine With the Wife

Mara's POV

"In danger from what?" I said.

I hung my coat on the hook, and I kept my voice as light as a woman who had spent the day crying over her father's desk.

Camilla patted the cushion beside her.

"Sit. Let me pour you something."

She had already poured it.

The glass was on my side of the table.

She put it in my hand and curled my fingers around the stem.

The red wine was dark and smelled fine.

I held it and did not drink.

"Daniel Westerfield called me," she said. "You remember him, the tall anesthesiologist from the dinner."

"I remember."

"He drove all the way up to the lake to apologize to you. He was upset when he left, and he said you weren't safe alone."

"He's a kind man."

"He's a wreck." She smiled, and her eyes were soft. "I've known him a while. He loved the idea of your sister, I think. Half the department did."

I said nothing.

Camilla had not said she was married to him. In two weeks of tea and blankets she had never once said she was married to anyone.

She believed that I did not know, and I watched her wait for me to ask.

"Is he married?" I said. "He wears a ring on a string."

Her glass paused in the air for half a second.

"Separated," she said. "It's a long, sad story. His wife is, well, she isn't well. He doesn't talk about it."

She drank, and I understood how easy it was for her.

She could look into my face and lie, and I would believe her, because everyone did.

I had been just as good at it for two weeks, and I was suddenly very tired of both of us.

"Poor Daniel," I said.