Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
Summer’s mouth was very dry and her eyes ached. It all wore at her, the cobwebby remains of the scotch, the lack of sleep, the crying. She longed for a glass of water, but she didn’t want to interrupt Reg’s train of thought by asking for it. This was probably the best interview she had ever done. If only Quentin were around . . .
“You thought no one would ever find out about the affair,” she said. “Even though Linda’s husband left her because of it.”
“He wasn’t going to tell anybody. He was probably more ashamed about it than we were and besides, I think he was looking for an excuse to leave.”
Those dust motes. Like angry little ghosts. “Okay,” Summer said. “So when you got that call on Father’s Day, you thought it was Linda, wanting to meet.”
“What’s that expression? No bad deed goes unpunished? And the longer you keep doing it, the worse the punishment is.”
“It’s ‘no good deed,’ actually. No good deed goes unpunished. It’s sarcastic.”
“Oh. Well, add that expression to the list of things I’ve been getting wrong for much too long.”
“You were at the gas station, waiting at the pump. When did you first notice your son?”
“Not until he started shooting. An old man went down. Then the woman with him. A Mexican lady in a white pantsuit. I think she was his nurse. Then somebody else. A young woman. It was like . . . some kind of sick dance. One body falling after the next. The sound of the gunshots. I turned to where the sound was coming from and there he was. I looked at the girl. I begged her to get him to stop shooting. My daughter. My little Kimmy . . . She dropped her plastic horse . . .”
“Did you recognize Gabriel?”
He stared at his hands. “Yes,” he said. “I saw his face and I recognized him right away. Even though I hadn’t seen him since he was a little boy. He looked . . .”
“Yes, Mr. Sharkey?”
Reg dragged the back of his hand across his closed eyes and stared up at the ceiling and said it very, very softly. “He looked like me.”
“Do you want to take a break?”
He nodded. Summer was glad for that. She needed a break too.