He kisses her hard, pressing her against the wall, and she pushes her tongue deep into his mouth, just as hungrily. He tastes blood. He doesn’t know whose. Then he remembers his wife. “Don’t leave any marks,” he says.

Chapter 25

CHAPTER

25

Archie woke up from a hard nap on the sofa, disoriented and sore, his body slimy with cold sweat and a bag of melted ice next to his head. Ginger was snoring gently on the floor below him, one ear twitching. He glanced at his watch. It was almost three. He’d been asleep for hours. His headache had settled into a throbbing pain behind his eyes. Archie moved the melted ice to the coffee table and touched the scabbed lump on his scalp. He’d changed out of Jack Reynolds’s clothes and into a pair of sweats and an old T-shirt. Now the T-shirt was damp with sweat. He could smell it on himself. But his head felt clearer. He’d sweated out the painkillers.

He was still on the couch a few minutes later, imagining what Rachel’s Halloween costume might be, when someone knocked on the door.

Ginger lifted her head.

“Come in, Henry,” Archie called.

The door opened and Henry walked in. Ginger, seeing it was Henry, laid her head back down and closed her eyes.

Archie put his socked feet on the floor and sat up stiffly. That was the thing with painkillers, when they wore off they only reminded you how much pain you were in without them.

Henry sank down in the chair across from the sofa and put his feet up on Archie’s coffee table. There was a dead leaf stuck to the heel of his black cowboy boot. There were dead leaves stuck to everything in Portland in the fall. They had a way of appearing in the most unexpected places. Henry smoothed his mustache and then crossed his arms and looked at Archie like he was waiting for him to say something.

“Thanks for looking after the dog,” Archie said.

“I don’t like it,” Henry said, glancing at Ginger.

“Her,” Archie said. “You don’t like her.”

“She’s Gretchen’s dog,” Henry said.

“She’s my dog,” Archie said. “Gretchen only had her for a night before she gave her to me. I don’t think it was long enough to train her as an assassin.”

“When I was a SEAL,” Henry said, “I’m telling you, we worked on shit like that.” Henry’s blue eyes narrowed and he looked Archie up and down. “You sick?”

“No,” Archie said. “I was asleep.”

Henry shifted forward, anchored his elbows on his knees, and folded his hands. “You thinking about her again?”

Archie’s stomach knotted. He could feel a faint burn on his cheeks as he turned his head, eyes on the floor. “No.”