The Chill of Night Read Online Free PDF

night for the next fifteen or twenty years, while you’re out chasing some nutcase, worrying that you may not come home, that I may never see you again. Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe it’s cowardly. I don’t know. I do know that right now, I just don’t want to put myself through that.’
    ‘Kyra, you want us to break up because you’re worrying about something that almost certainly won’t happen?’
    ‘No, I’m not saying that.’ Kyra put her arms on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. ‘I love you too much to even contemplate giving you up. All I’m saying is, every time I think about us getting married and maybe having children, the image of Carol Comisky pops into my head, along with your brother Tommy’s wife and all the others who’ve been left behind.’
    McCabe’s narcotics cop brother Tommy, Tommy the Narc, had been shot dead by a drug dealer five years earlier. ‘I know it’s my problem, not yours,’ Kyra said. ‘Maybe someday I’ll get over it and we can go on with our lives. But for now I’m just not ready. I’ll let you know when I am.’
    ‘Kyra,’ he said, ‘people die. Truck drivers get killed in accidents. Cowboys get thrown from their horses. And God knows how many sedate business executives die every day from heart attacks or cancer. When Casey gets her license, and that’s less than two years away, I’m gonna lie awake at night like every other parent in the world dreading the idea that the phone might ring and somebody will tell me she’s been killed or maimed in some horrible crash. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep her from going out or getting a license. Or that I wish I never had her. We can’t stop living our lives together because something bad might happen.’
    ‘I know. You’re right,’ she said. ‘Just don’t push me for now. It’s something I have to work out for myself, and one way or another I will. It won’t be the reason I don’t marry you. If that makes sense.’
    ‘It doesn’t. Not much.’ He let it go, but he wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Something between anger at being rejected and fear that he might actually lose her.
    Kyra nodded, then went to the hall closet, retrieved a fleece vest, and slipped it on over her sweater. Her bright red L.L. Bean down parka went over that. She headed for the door. Before going out, she paused. ‘Remember, tonight’s First Friday, and I’ve got those four new pieces hanging at North Space.’
    ‘Our cause for celebrating.’
    ‘Yes. And I’m very happy we did. I’m very happy I have you. And I’m sorry if I’m making you unhappy. But this will pass.’
    From his perch on the window seat, McCabe stared down across the bay and wondered if he could summon the emotional energy to make small talk with the art crowd. On First Fridays most of the forty or so galleries in Portland stayed open late, many with opening receptions for new work. North Space was the most successful and best established of the lot. Kyra was proud Gloria Kelwin, North Space’s owner, thought so highly of her work. She’d be dreadfully disappointed if he didn’t show.
    On the other hand, he could just sit here and say the hell with it all. With Casey gone till Sunday night, he could sit and drink all weekend if he wanted to. He didn’t even have to go out for more booze. There were three fresh bottles of the Macallan just sitting in the pantry waiting for him. All the makings for his own Lost Weekend . His mind flashed on images of the alcoholic Ray Milland throwing his life away in the 1945 Billy Wilder classic. Another bit of detritus from McCabe’s alternative life twenty years ago, as a young wannabe director at NYU film school. Would Kyra have wanted to marry him if he’d gone into the movie business instead of the police business? He supposed so. The artist and the auteur. A better fit than the artist and the cop. Except he never would have met her. Alternative lives.
    He watched the lights of a giant tanker,