The Coleridge Project: Chapter 3
Bill Conway spent part of the morning trying unsuccessfully to track down Kent Forster’s widow and the rest of it back at the company where Gail Hawes’s was employed to talk with more of her coworkers. As with the other day, none of them ever heard her mention having a child, nor about Kent Forster or had any inkling of what she was planning. Like everyone else he had talked to about her, they seemed genuinely shocked that she was capable of shooting a man down in cold blood, even someone who might’ve murdered her daughter. While the trip gave him additional quotes for his next day’s story, he didn’t learn anything new.
He had arranged to meet Emily in Kenmore Square for lunch, and all morning he couldn’t shake an uneasiness that when they saw each other again the magic from the night before would be gone and that they’d be like strangers, awkward and uncomfortable with each other. Later, when he saw her waiting inside of Eastern Standard Kitchen and her face lit up with the most radiant smile he’d ever seen, he knew his fears had been unfounded.
She was dressed in a pink blouse, jeans and tennis sneakers, wore a faded brown suede jacket, and instead of her hair pulled into a pony tail, she’d let it down so it fell past her shoulders. Like the other night she didn’t bother with any makeup, and also like the other night, she was absolutely stunning. He kissed her lightly on the lips, and instantly felt just as much at ease with her as he had the other night. Nothing had changed. They both ended up ordering cheeseburgers. As slender and petite as she was, she matched him in cleaning off her plate, and he was happy to see that she had a healthy appetite and didn’t eat like a bird like Karen always did. The few times that a silence fell between them, it was a comfortable silence, one which neither of them felt the need to fill.
When they separated with him having to go back to work and her to teach an undergraduate class, their kiss was every bit as electric as the second one that Emily had pulled him into the other night. He was near floating when he walked back to his car, his mind too preoccupied to notice the man with the very pink face and small dime-sized eyes who stood across the street keeping himself hidden in the shadows.