“You can’t know that, Ben.”

“Yeah, I can. Trust me, it’s a cop thing.”

“Maybe so,” my wife replied as she pulled away, tears starting to well in her eyes again. “But that doesn’t…”

“I’m tellin’ ya’ don’t go there…” he returned, cutting her off as he reached out and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “She may be a Feeb, but she’s still a badge. She was doin’ ‘er job. B’sides, she’s gonna be fine.” He let out a nervous chuckle that sounded as if he was trying to reassure himself as much as her, then added, “Ya’ don’t really think she’s gonna let me off the hook that easy, do ya’?”

I caught a glimpse of a forced smile pulling at the corner of her mouth as she tried to respond to his attempt at cheering her up and then watched as her lips quickly turned back into a frown. She shot a glance toward me, and I could see in her expression that she was wrestling with a different guilt entirely. I had a feeling I knew the source of the anguish all too well because I was feeling it too. And I suspected the two of us weren’t the only ones fending off the pain it brought. Ben probably was as well but when it came right down to it, none of us wanted to be the first to confess the sin.

She looked back at him and said, “Thank you,” before turning fully to face me and adding, “Don’t be long?”

Her voice was soft, yet held the benign note of insistence that was so often exchanged between husbands and wives, telling me she wanted to be on the way soon. When I looked into her eyes, however, a “demand” wasn’t what I saw.

If anything, she wore an expression that was no less than a pleading question mark.

CHAPTER 3:

Ben and I both watched after Felicity as she walked down the path and started along the edge of the access road rather than chance crossing the soft ground in heels. The hard sound of her shoe soles against the asphalt dulled with each step she took, but I continued to gaze in her direction until she disappeared behind the end of a small hedgerow.