Page 131 of Bonetide

Where do you go? I think, but I don’t say.

I think about saying it, though. About sitting up and asking him why he’s up at three a.m. with his clothes on, like a normal person would. But there are doors in him I can open and doors I can’t, and I’m learning that the difference between the two is the difference between the man and the monster and lying here performing sleep, I can’t always tell which side of that door a given night is on. Most nights it’s the loch. Most nights he’s just going home to the water for a while, to kill time.

But I can’t tell, from here, whether tonight is most nights.

I can’t tell if he’s killing time or…killing in general.

And I’ve decided, in some place deep inside of me, that not knowing is the price of keeping him. That if I asked, and he told me, because he hates to lie to me (so he says), I’d have to do something about the answer.

So I don’t ask. I just pretend to sleep.

He turns from the window and comes back to the bed. He leans down over me, and I keep my eyes shut and my breath slow. I feel the cold of him near my face, and his mouth touches my temple; the same kiss he’s given me a hundred times. He inhales once at my hair. Then he straightens.

I almost give myself away, the desire to reach for him and pull him to me that strong.

But I stay still.

When I crack my eyes again, he’s at the window, and then he’s through it, over the sill in one fluid motion no man with that much height should make look that easy, no hand on the frame, no weight transferred, there and then not. The curtain settles behind him, and the cold comes in off the bay where the window’s open, filling the now empty room.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

Iwake to the smell of coffee and the sound of him in my kitchen, and for one, warm, unguarded moment, I’m just a woman whose man is up before her.

The bed is cold on his side, but the cold has the staleness of a few hours, which means he’s been back a while. He probably never returned to bed. The whole cottage has the particular warmth it only has when he’s tended it, and I lie there in it the way you lie in a bath that’s still hot, knowing it won’t last, stealing the minutes anyway. In other words, I’m being lazy as fuck.

Eventually, though, I have to pee. I reluctantly get up and pull my robe over the marks that are fading now to yellow-green at my shoulder and the dull bruise at my hip, fading reminders of that first time I had him knowing the truth. I feel that once the bruises are gone completely, I’ll settle into full acceptance, whatever that means.

Once I’ve done my business, I pad out into the kitchen, and he’s at the window the way he always is, in a navy shirt, his hair drying in that loose black wave. He turns when I come in and looks me over.

“You slept in again,” he says.

I give him a tired nod and yawn my response. I don’t need to let him know I was up half the night worrying about him.

The thing is, I’ve been up worrying about him ever since he left in the night fully clothed. It’s been two nights since then, and both those nights he’s gone out the window dressed, which means he’s not going to the loch, at least not right away.

So naturally I lie there all night, wondering where the fuck he is going, and when I’m going to find the nerve to ask him.

We’ll see if I find my nerve today.

I sit down at the table while he makes me my coffee and some oatmeal, then he sits across from me with his tea and watches me eat with that steady gaze of his. I don’t know why he likes to watch me eat and drink, but I no longer feel self-conscious about it. I don’t even feel self-conscious when I use the olive oil anymore, and that’s saying a lot.

I’ve drunk about half the mug of coffee and am vaguely awake when my phone goes off.

It’s on the windowsill beside the salt jar. I think about not answering it, when Alasdair gets up and hands it to me.

I thank him and peer down at the screen. Unknown number. Probably a telemarketer, but I don’t get many calls so I answer it anyway, just in case it’s Maddie or Andrew, even though I loathe the phone.

“Hello?”

“Miss Galloway.” It’s Sinclair, that flat careful voice. “DI Calum Sinclair. I’m sorry to ring so early.”

“It’s fine.” I stand, because I can’t sit here like this and talk to a cop. I take the phone to the window over the sink, my back to Alasdair, because of course this is about Alasdair. “Everything alright?”

“I’m making some calls round the south shore, that’s all. Routine. A woman’s been reported missing. Last seen two nights ago at the Torridon Hotel. She was by herself. Didn’t come home, didn’t turn up for her work yesterday or the day before. I’m asking everyone if they’ve seen anything on the roads or the water. Anyone about who shouldn’t be about, if you catch my meaning.”

Two nights ago.