Free Love Gone Mad by Mark Rubinstein Page B

neighbors?”
    “There’s no other house for half a mile. And the cop said it wasn’t kids.”
    “What’re you doing about the cottage?”
    “I called a biohazard removal company. They practically sanitized the place. A new bed’s coming tomorrow. And a security company installed a motion detector in the cottage and a photoelectric beam at the driveway entrance. It’ll trigger a signal five hundred feet before anyone gets to the front door.”
    “The driveway’s five hundred feet long?”
    “It’s a gravel-covered roadway.”
    “Adrian, it’s so isolated.”
    “But it’s alarmed now. And Chief Mulvaney said he’d contact Hartford.”
    “Adrian, we have to talk about something.”
    He can feel the tension in her voice.
    “What is it, Megan?”
    “It’s too important to discuss on the phone. We’ll talk about it tomorrow night, when you’re here.”
    A drian watches Megan tuck Marlee into bed. The child’s milky-white skin reminds him of porcelain.
    It’s really crazy, Adrian thinks, but in a few hours, he’ll be driving that sinuous road back to Simpson in the dark, listening to his Pink Floyd CD, The Dark Side of the Moon , and thinking of Megan: the redolence of her hair, the taste of her mouth—all a faint ghosting, a memory of desire. And he’ll spend the night alone.
    Marlee stayed up later than usual to play checkers with Adrian. She’s a great kid—smart, too—caught on to the game in a flash and squealed with delight every time she cried “King me!”
    With the bedcover up to her chin, she peers at Adrian through partly closed eyelids. She turns to Megan and says, “Mommy, can we go to the aquarium?”
    “Of course, honey. That would be fun.”
    “Can Adrian come too?” she asks in an audible whisper.
    “Sure he can.”
    “We can see the mermaids … especially Ariel.”
    “It’s very hard to see the mermaids. You know they can’t be with humans.”
    “And we can see Flounder the fish and Sebastian the crab.”
    “Yes, we’ll see them there.”
    “You know who Adrian looks like?” Marlee half whispers, glancing at him.
    “Who, sweetie?”
    “Eric the human prince.”
    Adrian feels his face flush.
    “And Ariel has red hair … just like you, Mommy.”
    Adrian feels lightness in his chest as he and Megan move toward the door.
    “Night, Mommy.”
    “Good night, sweetie.”
    “Night, Adrian.”
    “Good night, Marlee.”
    “I love you both,” she murmurs.
    The light goes out.
    A lump fills Adrian’s throat.
    “S he misses her father,” Adrian says in the living room.
    “She has no memory of him.”
    “She misses having a father.”
    Megan nods, sits on the sofa, regards him somberly, and says, “Adrian. I need to tell you what happened with Conrad and me. I think it’s connected to the break-in.”
    A chilled wave sluices through Adrian. Unease invades him, a disquiet he recognizes as a harbinger of trouble, even danger.
    “It’s hard to talk about,” she says. She looks pasty, but a plum-colored flush creeps across her throat.
    “Megan, you can tell me anything.”
    “It’s so strange. I always thought it was awful that I didn’t know my real parents. Now Marlee asks about her father and all I can say is he’s gone.” She swallows hard, clasps her hands, and then says, “Adrian, I think he’s back.”
    “Your ex? He’s back from Colorado?”
    “Yes. And I’m scared to death.”
    Adrian moves closer to hold her. His throat closes off. “You’ve never told me about him.”
    “Things with Conrad changed after we were married. It was gradual, but he changed.”
    “Changed how?”
    “Adrian, the man went crazy.”

Ten
    “I met Conrad when I was at Yale. I was out one evening with two girlfriends.”
    Describing it, Megan recalls the Trumbull Roadhouse with its mix of bully-bikers and pretend cowboys. It was like a Western saloon right out of Unforgiven or Shane , but with a contemporary twist: an electrified band and a twangy country singer who