Free A Fatal Debt by John Gapper

she said, beaming.
    When I went outside, Anna was standing by the Range Rover with her back to me, gazing at the sea. I stole another look at the graceful curve of her neck before she heard me and turned around. Her eyes looked pale blue in the ocean light.
    “Ready to go?” she asked.
    “All done. It’s kind of you to give me a ride. If you just drop me at the rail station, that’d be fine.”
    “You’d be waiting a long time if I did. People commute by helicopter around here, you know.” She walked across to me and laid her leftindex finger on my lapel, gently prodding me backward. “Get in the car, Doc.”
    I obeyed her, remembering the pleasurable sensation of the brief contact between us as she guided the Range Rover down the drive and out along the lane. She knew my profession, I noticed, even if the way she’d demonstrated it had been playful. There clearly couldn’t be many secrets between her and Nora. She gestured over to my left as we passed a low cottage set back from the lane.
    “That’s the guesthouse, in case they summon you out here again. I sneak over for yoga or a nap sometimes. Like Goldilocks.”
    “Ever been woken by a bear?” I said lightly, excited at having left the Shapiros’ estate and feeling as if I’d finally regained control of my life. Of course, I should have realized that it was an illusion. Sitting in Nora’s car with Anna driving wasn’t much different from sitting in Harry’s Gulfstream with Felix as my guide. It was all in the family.
    She giggled. “Not even a small one. Anyway, Nora doesn’t have to look far. He has the whole estate wired. I’m never out of reach.”
    “What’s that like?”
    “Uh, excruciating? It’s nice to escape to the city for a night. Look over there. That’s the big news around here,” she said, gesturing out of my window. We had snaked along a maze of roads with vast lawns and reached the junction to the main thoroughfare. There was a long curved pond surrounded by neat lawn.
    “What?” I asked, unable to see anything noteworthy.
    “The swan mother is on her nest on Town Pond. She had five cygnets last year and it was all anyone talked about. I felt like I was losing my mind.”
    As she said it, she pushed down on the accelerator and we sped out of the village as if we were being chased. Like me, she seemed to perk up just to be leaving the place behind. We were both silent for a while as we whizzed up Route 27, and I tried to catch glimpses of her face without her noticing me. Something was going on inside me that I hadn’t felt for a long time. It was foolish because I couldn’t do anything about it. The last thing that made sense was to start an affairwith Harry’s housekeeper, even if I stood a chance, which I probably didn’t. But I wanted to prolong the thrill I felt when I was with her even if I couldn’t act on it.
    I thought of the look she’d given me as she stood in the kitchen, one that suggested she knew all about me although we’d only just met. She could see all of the bad things inside me—my cruelty, my coldheartedness—and she didn’t care. It was only my fantasy, but that was how she made me feel. It was like the first time that I’d fallen in love as a teenager, the sensation of adoring someone for reasons I couldn’t articulate and of craving her physical presence. Laura Kendrick had been her name, and it had lasted a year. As I sat there, I thought of Laura, now married with two kids, and smiled to myself.
    “What?” Anna said. I hadn’t noticed her looking at me.
    “Nothing.”
    The sad thing was that it didn’t remind me of Rebecca. I’d been fond of her, admired her, even loved her, but I had never craved her in that desperate, chemical way. There were things I’d always kept from her, and I’d felt guilty that she cherished me so much.
He isn’t me
, I wanted to say to her.
That man you love. He’s a better person than I am
. I’d never said those words because she was my best friend