The Map of Moments Read Free Page A

would you call me?”
    Her nerves had to be frayed. She'd laughed, and the sound was full of hurt and anger. “Jesus, Max. I called you because I thought you'd want to know. Maybe she fucked with your head, but I figured you were the only one…”
    Her words trailed off.
    “The only one what?” Max had to ask.
    “The only person in the world besides me who would cry for her.”
    Max had wanted to tell Corinne that he'd done his share of crying for Gabrielle when she was alive. That it hadn't helped then, and it wouldn't help now that she was dead. But he couldn't get the words out.
    Nearly three more weeks had passed, and now he found himself on this airplane, about to touch down in Baton Rouge. During the layover in Memphis, he'd almost turned around and caught the next plane back north. At least, he'd pretended to himself that he could do that. What a joke. He could no more turn around than he could snap his fingers and make the grief go away. Leaving the way he had, this chapter of his life had
never
felt closed.
    Gabrielle's funeral might finally put an end to it.
    He'd grieve, but he would not cry. Perhaps it was a good sign that he couldn't shed any more tears for her. Or maybe it meant he was dead inside.
    “I hate landings the most,” said the woman beside him.
    Max blinked and looked at her. She'd said nothing the entire flight, and now she wanted to strike up a conversation? The cynicism that had been building in him all year began to form a reply, but then he looked at her, and he
saw
her. The woman had kind, intelligent eyes, and wore an expression of nervous self-deprecation. He wondered what brought her to Baton Rouge. There must, he knew, be other people on board who were coming to Louisiana for funerals or to rebuild. And some who were returning to search for still-missing loved ones, lying undiscovered in mud or in some other attic.
    “Don't worry,” Max told her, smiling. “This close to the ground, even if we fall the rest of the way, the worst we're gonna get is bruises.”
    She gripped the armrests and stared at him, wide-eyed. “Don't even say that!”
    Then, with a squeak of tires, the plane found the runway. The woman let out a breath and chuckled. “Was that your attempt to set me at ease?”
    “I'm afraid so.”
    “You're not very good at it.”
    “Never have been,” he confessed. “But still I try.”
    They shared a smile as the plane taxied toward the terminal.
    “What brings you to Louisiana?” she asked.
    Max glanced out the window. “A woman.”

    Corinne drove south on Interstate 10 with the windows down, making a wind tunnel out of her beat-up old Chevy Corsica. Max didn't complain. The car had no air-conditioning, and the afternoon was warm and humid. Back home in Boston, November meant chilly days and chillier nights. But that Louisiana day, winter felt a whole world away.
    “Thanks for coming to get me,” he said, fifteen minutes south of the airport.
    “Not a problem. Guy like you, if you'd gotten a rental, you'd probably have been carjacked before you got anywhere near your hotel.”
    Max stared at her, waiting for the smile.
    It didn't come.
    “You're serious.”
    Corinne kept both hands on the wheel and her eyes straight ahead. There'd been precious little small talk at the airport, and even less since.
    “We're a little short on jokes down here, lately,” she said. “So yeah, I'm serious. It's rough. The city's still reeling.” She trailed off, but Max sensed that she had more to say, so he gave her the silence in which to speak. After a pause, she did. “They've got hundreds of dead folk in a warehouse over by the Superdome. Doing DNA tests, supposedly, trying to figure out who they all are. If I hadn't laidclaim to Gaby, she'd probably still be over there. Maybe forever. French Quarter's back up and running, other parts of the city, too. High ground. You'll be fine in your hotel. But some areas, it's still a war zone. Might as well be in Baghdad. A lot of