The Witness

unstrapped the holster. He’d ask more questions if he saw her wearing it inside on a Saturday evening.
    She stowed it in a drawer, waited until he parked. At least he’d parked beside her car, not behind it, this time.
    She walked to the door, unlocked it, lifted the bar. She rested her hand on the pistol under the table as she opened the door a few inches.
    And her frown deepened when she saw the tulips.
    “Why are you sorry this time?”
    “I’m not sorry. Oh, the flowers. Funny thing. I was going to use them to bribe my sister into feeding me, then I ended up driving here.”
    His eyes seemed more amber in the quieting light, and the casual smile he offered didn’t quite ring true.
    “To use them to bribe me?”
    “I hadn’t thought that far. Will they get me in the door?”
    She opened the door a few more inches. “They’re very pretty. You should go give them to your sister.”
    “Probably, but I’m giving them to you. I had a crappy day. It didn’t start out that way, but it ended up in the crapper. I was going over to Mya’s to use her family to get me out of the mood. Then I figured it wouldn’t work.”
    “It’s not likely that being here will change your mood.”
    “It already has.” He gave her an easy smile that almost—almost—reached his eyes. “Something smells really good, besides you.”
    “I don’t know why you’d come here.”
    “I’m not sure, either. You can close the door on me. You still get the flowers.”
    No one had given her flowers before, and she nearly said so before she caught herself. “I was going to have a glass of the wine you brought, and now you’ve brought flowers. You make me feel obligated.”
    “I’ll take it, which shows how crappy my day ended up.”
    She stepped back, closed and locked the door behind him. And when she turned, he held the flowers out to her.
    “Thank you, even though you bought them for your sister.”
    “You’re welcome, even though.”
    “They’ll need water.”
    He followed her, and the cooking smells, back to the kitchen.
    “It’s a good night for soup and a fire,” he commented, hoping he’d get a share of both. “We may get a little frost tonight. Then tomorrow, it’s shooting up toward seventy. Have you ever been through a tornado?”
    “I’m prepared.” She took a pottery pitcher in hues of green and brown from a cabinet.
    “Is that from one of our shops?”
    “Yes. The local artists are very good.”
    She got a container of flower food from beneath the sink, added asmall scoop before filling the pitcher with water. He sat, said nothing while she arranged the tulips.
    She set them on the counter, then studied him the way he might study a suspect. “You can have a glass of wine.”
    “I’d appreciate it.”
    She retrieved the bottle, glasses, poured some out. “You seem to want to tell me about this problem with your day. I don’t know why you would, as I’m not part of your circle.”
    “Could be that’s why. Another why is I realized you were a part of it, indirectly.”
    “How could I be?”
    “I’ll tell you.” He sampled the wine, but she neither sipped nor sat. So he shrugged. “Okay. I had an unusual and uncomfortable incident with a woman today. Back in high school, she was the love of my life. Know what I mean?”
    Abigail had an image, clear as glass, of Ilya Volkov’s face. He was as close as she came, she supposed, and that wasn’t close at all. “Not really.”
    “No heartbreaking crushes for you?”
    “I took accelerated courses, so I was ahead of my age group in school.”
    “Still. Anyway, about me.” He lifted his glass, toasted her, drank. “She was my first. The first always has a little hold on you, right?”
    “You mean first sexual consummation. I don’t have any emotional attachment to my first sexual partner.”
    “You’re a tough audience, Abigail. When she dumped me—for a college freshman, football captain—she dumped me hard. I’m talking kick-in-the-balls, fist-in-the-teeth hard.”
    “I don’t understand why someone chooses to hurt a previous partner before moving on to another. I’m sorry she chose to.”
    “I got over it, or figured I had. Then I moved to Little Rock, did ten years. When I came back, the woman in question was in the process of shedding husband number two.”
    “I see.”
    He realized how it all sounded, how he made Sylbie sound—all from his perspective. “She’s not as hard-hearted as I’m making her, but I’m still