The Devil's Equinox Read online

  “Wherever you want,” she said. The translation was, Take me someplace where I’ll have a good time, and if I don’t…you’ll be sorry.

  Great, Austin said to himself. No pressure.

  * * *

  Regina showed up that night in a long, ruffled sundress swirled in gray and purple and indigo. Austin answered the door but tried not to look at her face, because he really didn’t want to talk to her. But staring at her dress wasn’t that much better.

  She was weirdly provocative no matter where your eyes landed.

  “So, you don’t mind sitting for the night, really?” Angie asked, breezing into the foyer just as Regina stepped inside.

  “Who wouldn’t want to watch a baby?” she answered.

  “That’s what I used to say,” Angie said. “It’s great until it’s twenty-four seven.” She grinned and then moved to the stairway. “I’ll be right down,” she said.

  When Angie disappeared, Regina leaned in and whispered, “You know, if you get home early and want to have a nightcap at the Secret Room, I might be interested in hearing about whether you still think your wife should die or not….”

  Austin’s eyes flared. Regina only smiled. Silently.

  “I was upset that night,” he whispered.

  “I understand.” She shrugged. “Everyone’s entitled. Do you feel differently now?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. “It’s complicated,” he said.

  Footsteps thumped behind them, and Angie reappeared, holding a small purse. “Now I’m ready,” she said. “Come on, I’ll show you where Ceili’s bottles and things are.”

  The two women moved down the hall and Austin took a deep breath and shook his head. Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? That’s all he needed, for Angie to get pally with Regina and for Regina to start shooting her mouth off about what he’d said. Then the silent war would go on for a month. That said…having the two women become friends could be the best thing that had happened to Austin in months. Angie had only gotten more and more depressive and withdrawn since having Ceili. Sitting in the house all day with nobody to talk to but a screaming infant was enough to drive anyone a little nuts. And if Angie was going nuts…Austin was going to pay the toll. He wandered down into the kitchen and leaned against the table to wait.

  When the two women returned, Angie was grinning. She took Austin’s arm and pulled him toward the garage door.

  “Thanks again, Regina,” she said. “You’ve got my number – call if you have any problems. But like I said, I just fed her and hopefully she’ll sleep for a couple hours. We won’t be late!”

  A moment later, they were in the garage and Austin stepped around the car with her to open the passenger door.

  “Such a gentleman,” Angie said with a hint of sarcasm.

  Austin restrained the sudden urge to backhand her. They hadn’t had a night out together in weeks, but he wasn’t looking forward to the next few hours. What did that say about the state of their relationship?

  He slid into the driver’s seat and backed the car out. As the garage door went down, Angie asked, “So, where are you taking me, darling?”

  She drew out the word darling, so that it wasn’t a term of endearment at all.

  “I thought we could have dinner at Esteban’s,” he said. The Spanish tapas house was one of her favorite places, so it seemed a sure bet.

  “Mmmm, garlic mashed potatoes,” she said with a smile. Then her attention shifted away from him as she pulled out her cell phone and started scrolling through Facebook.

  Austin considered saying something but decided that the silence was preferable to an argument. He didn’t speak again until they pulled into the restaurant parking lot.

  “It you want, we can head over to the Secret Room after dinner for a martini or something?”

  She shrugged and thumbed off her phone. “We’ll see.”

  * * *

  Things did get better after the first glass of wine. Angie started talking about a mutual friend from college, and the time they had gotten so drunk that all three of them together walked arm in arm down the middle of a street to navigate the three blocks back to their dorm.

  He grinned and laughed with her.

  “I didn’t even remember how we got back to the dorm,” he said. “You told me about that walk the next day.”

  She nodded. “You tried to get us to climb the alma mater statue,” she said. “You were going to pee off the top.”

  He laughed. “All I remember is the headache the next day. I think it was the worst hangover ever.”

  He could smile at the memory now. It had been a good time in their lives, when they had everything in front of them. Maybe it had been the best time for them. But the reality of the moment soon chased the smile away. That was then, this was now. And now was not a carefree time for them.

  After Angie downed her third glass of wine, the tenor of the night out grew darker. Instead of happy memories, she started dredging up complaints. Bitterness.

  “Here’s a thought,” she said, after draining the glass and licking her lips. “Maybe tonight, you could get up when she cries and change Ceili’s diaper instead of me. I’m not the nanny service, you know. She’s your kid too.”

  “That’s not fair,” he complained. “I do change her. But you’re home all day while I’ve got to be ‘on’ at work.”

  She held her fingers to her thumb and mimicked a duck’s bill in silence as he talked. When the waiter asked her if they wanted another drink, Angie said “yes” as he was saying “no.”

  “Don’t you think we should head home soon?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Regina has it covered. I texted her a little while ago and everything’s fine. Tonight?” She took a deep breath before completing the thought. “I’m enjoying myself for once.”

  Enjoyment to Angie seemed to be critiquing every action and opinion of her husband. When they finally pulled up in the garage at just after eleven p.m., Austin turned the car off and got out of the driver’s seat as soon as humanly possible, leaving Angie fumbling drunkenly with her seatbelt in the car.

  I’m done, he said over and over again in his head, though he somehow refrained from saying it out loud.

  When he walked into the kitchen, he found Regina sitting there, alert and waiting for them. While she had internet access and had her laptop sitting open on the table, she didn’t appear to be typing anything. She smiled as he walked into the room.

  “So, are the lovebirds rekindled?” she asked quietly.

  Austin shook his head.

  She frowned. “That’s a shame,” she said. “I know Angie was really looking forward to a night on the town with you.”

  “Yeah, apparently so she could rip me a new one,” he said as the door behind them creaked open.

  “Tell me more later,” Regina whispered, and then looked over his shoulder.

  “Angie, how was your night?”

  His wife sighed as she walked up behind him.

  “It was so good to be out of this house,” she said. “I love her, but this place has felt like a prison for the past few weeks. Thanks for watching her. Did you have any problems? Did she take the bottle okay?”

  Regina stood up and flipped her laptop lid closed. “No problem,” she said. “Ceili was an angel. Took the bottle fine and went to sleep about an hour ago. Feel free to ask me to watch her anytime. I’m happy to do it.”

  As she moved around the table and passed him, Austin was sure he felt her fingers trail across his thigh. But she and Angie talked and walked to the door together, leaving him behind, and he shook off the odd thought. There was no way she’d felt him up on the way out. It was his imagination.

  Angie returned to the kitchen a few minutes later. She weaved slightly as she went to the refrigerator for a bottled water.

  “Did you
have a good time?” he asked.

  She looked at him and shrugged before taking a deep gulp of water.

  “Good as can be,” she said, and abruptly walked past him to ascend the stairway to the bedroom.

  Austin decided he’d be better off not following swiftly. Instead, he pulled a beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch to nurse it. He thought of life before Ceili, when Angie had actually wanted to be with him. Time had moved so fast back then, and the time they were alone together was never enough. He watched the second hand moving in slow, deliberate circles around the clock above the mantel.

  Time had never seemed to move so slow.

  Chapter Four

  “You didn’t turn up last night at the Secret Room. How does it feel the morning after?”

  The voice came from the other side of the bush that separated Austin’s driveway from the previously abandoned house, that was now Regina’s.

  Her face appeared a second later, wearing a knowing smile. She also wore another paisley purple and blue dress. Or wrap. He wasn’t really sure what it was, the way it creased and fluttered around her. It was a lot like the one she’d worn the night before, but somehow, more lived-in. There was a swirl of pattern around her, but her ankles and feet were bare as she stepped across the dew-laden lawn to reach the sidewalk. She almost floated.

  Austin picked up the newspaper. He was only wearing shorts and a stained gray T-shirt. He suddenly felt exposed. These weren’t the clothes he wanted to talk to the neighbors in. But nobody was ever outside at six in the morning. It was one of his favorite parts of the day. The air was crisp, the birds were quietly chirping and there were no cars on the street.

  “Just like any other day,” he answered.

  Regina clucked and shook her head.

  “That’s no way to greet a Sunday morning,” she said.

  “I should be on my knees?” he asked.

  “Depends who is standing in front of you, I guess,” she said with a smirk.

  “That’s not what I meant….”

  She put her hands up. “Who you get on your knees for is your business.”

  “Very funny,” he said. “So, you went to the Secret Room last night?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t stay long though. I was hoping I might see you there once Angie went to sleep. I’m afraid the clientele there after midnight aren’t exactly…models of intellect and grace.”

  He snorted. “I don’t think the clientele there is ever that, at any time.” He looked back toward the house. “I would have loved to have come up, but Angie was out cold in about fifteen minutes flat, and someone had to be sober if Ceili woke up.”

  She stroked the side of his face with her hand. “You’re a saint,” she said.

  He rolled his eyes. “No, just responsible.”

  Regina smiled and lifted her leg. The hem of the dress slipped up her thigh to expose her knee and part of her thigh.

  “I prefer barefoot and fancy-free,” she said with a grin. “You should try it sometime.”

  “I have,” he said. “That’s why I’m married with a kid now.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “There are phases in life for everything. But you should never give up on your dreams. Sometimes wishes do come true.”

  “I better get back inside,” he said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

  “As you wish,” she said. He could hear laughter in the undertone of her words. “Stop by the Secret Room when you’ve got some time to talk.”

  “I don’t know when you’ll be there,” he said.

  “That’s the beauty of fancy-free,” she said. “You just don’t know.”

  Austin frowned. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

  He could feel her eyes on his back as he turned to walk up the driveway. When he opened the front door to step inside, he glanced behind him. She was still standing at the hedge.

  Her lips were smiling.

  Chapter Five

  The Secret Room was almost empty on Wednesday night when Austin walked in after work. Things at home had slowly returned to normal; Angie was back to talking to him again as if they’d never had a fight and gone through a week of ‘the silent treatment’. But ‘normal’ wasn’t what Austin wanted. The words that Regina had spoken to him on Sunday morning kept replaying in his head. He thought about being responsible and doing what he was supposed to. And he thought about going barefoot and doing whatever the hell he felt like.

  He thought about talking more to Regina.

  He thought a lot about stopping by the Secret Room on Sunday and Monday and he almost did on Tuesday.

  On Wednesday, he texted Angie just before he left work and just said that he’d be late, and not to wait on him for dinner. And then he drove straight from the office to the Secret Room.

  He still could take his own path once in a while. And tonight, he felt like having a beer and talking to Regina if she was there before he went home.

  He settled at the bar and looked around at the handful of patrons. There was a couple at one of the highboy tables, and another on the other end of the bar, talking animatedly about something related to baseball and apparently a bad umpire call. But Regina was not in evidence.

  That’s what you get for being ‘free’, he told himself. But he went ahead and ordered a beer. Then he asked for the menu. He might as well enjoy the peace of his refuge awhile, and maybe Regina would ultimately show up.

  But when the grease had congealed around the few crumbs left on his plate, and he pushed back his fourth empty pint, and the cuckoo had called its alarm eight times, Regina had still not appeared.

  Stupid, he thought. It’s not like she lives here. And now you get to face the wrath of a woman left home who’s going to smell beer on your breath.

  Austin called for a check, and Brandon nodded from across the bar. A minute later he slid a white receipt across the wood and grinned. “Time to face the music, huh?”

  “We all have to sooner or later,” Austin said, and scrawled his name across the bottom of the receipt. “If I survive, I’ll be back in a couple nights.”

  “You’ll survive,” Brandon assured him. “You’re a survivor.”

  “Something like that.” Austin grinned, and slid off the stool with a groan.

  * * *

  The house was dark when he pulled up to the driveway, which was unusual. There didn’t seem to be any lights on upstairs or down. It was still light outside, but dusk was moving in. Austin frowned and turned the car off. He took a deep breath, spit the peppermint gum he’d been chewing into a tissue, and got out of the car.

  “Angie?” he called when he stepped into the house. And instantly regretted it. She’d yelled at him in the past for doing that because it woke the baby – typically about ten minutes after she’d just gotten Ceili to sleep.

  There was no answer this time, however, from his wife or the baby.

  Austin walked down the hall and flipped on the light in the kitchen. The breakfast bowls were still in the sink, but there was no evidence that Angie had made dinner.

  He went into the front room and bent to turn on the light next to his favorite recliner. It was strange to come home at night and not have the TV on. The quiet made him feel strangely uneasy.

  He walked to the foyer to see if Angie was sitting with the baby upstairs, and abruptly stopped short.

  Angie wasn’t upstairs.

  She was lying at the base of them.

  Her feet were still on the third step, and her eyes stared with a look of surprise at him from where her head lay twisted oddly on the tile of the foyer. The bad part was…her eyes weren’t blinking. And she almost looked as if she were looking at him from over her shoulder. Her neck was turned in a completely wrong angle.

  “Angie?” he whispered.

  She didn’t answer. His stomach turned to ice. He knew that she would
n’t answer. Couldn’t answer. But he didn’t want to admit it. Couldn’t accept it. This was his house. This was Angie. Death was not part of this place.

  Only.

  He knew that Angie was dead. Nobody lay on the floor like that and got up to laugh about it. He bent down and put his hand on her cheek. Her skin was cold. He traced his fingers across her cheek and forehead, and she did not respond. He could feel her…but she did not feel anymore.

  Austin felt his world suddenly contract. Angie was dead. The words went through his head, and he could see all of the letters in his head. Like a marquee. But they did not make sense.

  Angie could not be dead.

  The words of Regina came back to haunt him. “If you’re living like life is over then you might as well be six feet underground, eh?”

  Well, now one of them was ready to be.

  As he touched her cheek and thought about what it meant for his wife to be gone, he suddenly had a flash. What about Ceili? If his heart had constricted before, it really did now.

  Austin tentatively stepped over Angie’s body and then vaulted up the stairs to see if his baby girl was okay. She wasn’t crying. The house had been silent since he’d walked in.

  The fear ate him alive. He could barely move his legs. While his wife was now gone, it was his daughter that really made his a life to live. And now she would be depending solely on him.

  Austin took the stairs two at a time and when he reached the landing dashed down the hallway toward Ceili’s room.

  The nursery was quiet.

  His heart pounded. She had to be okay.

  He stepped across the room to the bed to look into the crib at his baby. There was nothing in his world that he cared about more. Her face looked up toward the ceiling, still as a doll.

  Austin’s chest tightened.

  He bent over the crib rail and touched his fingers to her soft cheeks.

  Ceili was not cold like her mother. Her skin was warm, and she shifted in her sleep when he put his fingers on her forehead.

  “Sleep, little girl,” he whispered. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day, I think.”