Chapter 9: Rule Two

I read Colby's text three times before I let myself look at the man asleep next to me.

Nathaniel slept on his back with one arm flung over his head.

In sleep his face lost its guard.

There were lines at the corners of his eyes, and a bruise coming up on his shoulder where my teeth had been.

I should have felt something clean and simple.

Instead I felt exposed, and I could not say why.

I put the phone down on the nightstand, and when I turned over his eyes were open.

"Good morning, Mrs. Lathrop," he said.

His voice was raw.

"It doesn't count," I said.

I had no idea why I said it.

His face went still for half a second.

"Of course," he said. "A bad night. We were wound up. It's forgotten."

He agreed too fast, and it stung.

I told myself that was what I wanted.

"Colby texted me," I said, and held the phone out.

He read it.

He read it again, and the color left his face.

"Bethany," he said.

"Colby says she knows what he told her the night of the crash."

"And he begged you last night not to let me ask."

"Nathaniel, what is it that he's afraid I'll hear?"

"I don't know."

"Then I'm breaking rule two."

"Imogen."

"You said I couldn't ask about your wife. I'm asking about the crash."

He looked at the ceiling for a long time.

I sat up in his bed with the sheet held to my chest and waited.

"I was in the car," he said.

"I know that."

"I remember dinner at my father's, for his birthday."

"I remember two glasses of wine, and her laughing about something my father said."

"And then?"

"Then I remember an ambulance roof."

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"My father was standing over me. He told me I'd been driving, and drunk, and that she was dead."

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