The fear. It was always there. Fear of rejection, fear of unrequited hope and love, fear of feelings still below the surface in me. It was all mixed in the blender and poured smooth as a milkshake into my cup until it was filled to the very edge. So full that if I were to move even a step it would spill over the sides. Therefore I couldn’t move. I stood paralyzed. I stayed home and lived out of a box.

I’m a believer in the single-bullet theory. You can fall in love and make love many times but there is only one bullet with your name etched on the side. And if you are lucky enough to be shot with that bullet then the wound never heals.

Roy Lindell might have had Martha Gessler’s name on a bullet. I don’t know. What I do know is that Eleanor Wish had been my bullet. She had pierced me through and through. There were other women before and other women since but the wound she left was always there. It would not heal right. I was still bleeding and I knew I would always bleed for her. That was just the way it had to be. There is no end of things in the heart.

16

On the way into Woodland Hills I made a quick stop at a Vendome Liquors and then headed to the house on Melba Avenue. I didn’t call ahead. With Lawton Cross I knew the chances were always good he’d be at home.

Danielle Cross answered the door after three knocks, and her already strained face took on a deeper scowl when she saw it was me.

“He’s sleeping,” she said, holding her body tightly in the door’s opening. “He’s still recovering from yesterday.”

“Then wake him up, Danny, because I need to talk to him.”

“Look, you can’t just barge in here. You’re not a cop anymore. You have no right.”

“Do you have the right to decide who he does and doesn’t see?”

That seemed to stall her anger a little bit. She looked down at the toolbox in one hand and the box I had under my arm.

“What is all of that?”

“I got him a gift. Look, Danny, I need to talk to him. People are going to be coming to see him. I have to talk to him about it so he’ll be ready.”

She relented. Without further word she stepped back and opened the door wide. She signaled me in with an outstretched arm and I stepped over the threshold. I found my way to the bedroom.

Lawton Cross was asleep in his chair, his mouth open and a spill of medicinal-looking drool curved down his cheek. I didn’t want to look at him. He was too much of a reminder of what could happen. I put the toolbox and the clock box down on the bed. I went back to the door and closed it, making sure it banged in the jamb loud enough to hopefully startle Cross awake. I didn’t want to have to touch him to wake him up.