Ten minutes later I crawled into bed and sprawled on my side, facing my wife. Silently, Lauren backed toward me until I could feel the warmth from her nighttime flesh on the front of my naked thighs. I’d almost drifted off to sleep when a fresh thought forced me to snap open my eyes in the dark.

Maybe the secret has to do with Rachel Miller, not with Mallory.

Maybe this is all about Rachel.

That’s why Diane disappeared.

She knew something about Rachel. Or she was about to learn something about Rachel.

I climbed back out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweats, and used the kitchen phone to warn Raoul that when he’d walked into the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel and met Reverend Howie he may have inadvertently walked into something that was extremely dangerous.

But Raoul didn’t answer his hotel room phone at the Venetian.

He didn’t answer his cell, either.

My next thought? Sam was going to kill me when I tried to explain Canada to him.

All I told Bill Miller on the phone was that I had some further questions that I needed to address before I could make a commitment to see him for ongoing psychotherapy. He readily agreed to come in on Friday morning. I never quite decided how surprised I was that Bill was so accommodating about meeting with me again on such short notice. My indecision, I was sure, was a product of the fact that more than twelve hours had passed and I still hadn’t been able to track down Raoul in Las Vegas.

Lauren shared my dismay about Raoul’s silence. The look she’d given me that morning when I slowed her down on the way to the bathroom to let her know Raoul wasn’t answering his phone was like the look I might expect after I’d told her I’d not only lost my car keys but also managed to misplace the spare set, too. “Diane and Raoul?” she’d said, finally. Before shutting the bathroom door behind her, she’d added, “Find him, honey. Today would be good.”

Bill settled into the chair across from me and without any visible indications of concern, said, “Shoot. I’m ready. Ask your questions. I’d love to get this whole thing settled.”

In typical shrink form, my question wasn’t really just a question. “Thanks for being so flexible,” I said. “I’d like to know more about your current relationship with your-is it ex-wife?-Rachel.”

“Well,” he said, sitting back on the chair. “I didn’t expect that one.” He wasted a moment picking at the crease on his perfectly pressed trousers.

I, of course, grew curious about what question he had expected. But I didn’t ask him that. I waited.

“Rachel and I are separated, not… divorced. For some reason, I thought you knew that. I feel like I don’t have any secrets anymore. We never went through the whole legal process. It just never felt… necessary to me. Or even appropriate. Given her difficulties, I couldn’t just… You know the circumstances back then as well as anyone.”

Actually, not as well as Mary Black, I thought. “Are you legally separated?”

Bill struggled to find the right word before he settled on “Rachel is my wife.”

“And the nature of your current relationship?”

He shifted on his chair, crossing his legs, left ankle over right knee. He took a moment to make certain that his cuff was adequately shading the top of his sock. I wasn’t sure he was going to answer my question at all, but he finally said, “Rachel’s in Las Vegas, still attending weddings, still delusional, still… psychotic. Sadly, that hasn’t changed.” He paused. “She moved there for the weddings. I’m sure you could have guessed that even if you hadn’t heard about it. She still feels compelled to… There’s no shortage of weddings in Las Vegas, that’s for sure.”

Yes, I know. I know a lot about Reverend Howie and the Love In Las Vegas Wedding Chapel.

“And she’s still suffering, that hasn’t changed. She’s still struggling with her illness, and… and with the medicines. She hates the medicines. She hates the new ones as much as she hated the old ones. Sometimes she takes them, more often she doesn’t. They help when she takes them, but they don’t solve anything. They’re not a cure, not for her.” He exhaled through pursed lips. “I hope you don’t mind if I ask, but why is this important?”

I went into a matter-of-fact spiel about a psychologist’s ethical burden to avoid dual relationships, and explained that it would be difficult for me, as a psychotherapist, to avoid them if I didn’t even know they existed. My explanation was intentionally convoluted, but Bill seemed to buy it. I’d figured he would.

I’d counted on the fact that he would. My voice as level as a freshly plumbed door, I said, “Bill, you still haven’t told me about your current relationship with Rachel. That’s the part that most concerns me.”

I thought his eyes narrowed at my use of the word “concerns.” Maybe not. I wished I’d said “interests.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s not exactly true, I said that…”

Bill’s apparent predilection was to argue the point with me, but he changed his mind and seemed to decide that my statement was, in fact, accurate enough that he’d leave it alone.

“We’re in touch,” he said. “If you can call it that.”

No problem, I’ll call it that. “Go on,” I said.

“We talk about once a week. That’s not true. I call Rachel once a week, but we probably only talk about twice a month.” He exhaled hard and grimaced. “She doesn’t call me… often. Sometimes I leave messages. And the truth is that even when I do reach her, I do most of the talking. I fill her in on what’s going on here, with the family.

“She’s, um… I still think that… You know, hope’s not really the right word. But I have… I pray for…”

I watched fascinated as Bill’s usual unshakable composure disintegrated before my eyes.

“Yes,” I said, nudging him on.

“Rachel always asks about the kids. Almost always, anyway. So often she’s off in a different… you know. Her mind is in other places. The weddings. The brides, the grooms. Their families. It’s always like she knows them, and that I know them, too. But usually she gets around to asking how the kids are doing, seems interested in what’s going on with them. They don’t get any older for her. They don’t age. I don’t know what else… to say.”

Although I would have preferred that Bill keep talking on his own without any prompting from me, I decided to go ahead and ask the money question-literally and figuratively. “Do you still support her, Bill? I mean financially? How does she make ends meet? Given what you’re describing right now, I can’t see how she would be able to make a living, or even survive on public assistance.”

“Well…” he said, flustered by my latest query. “I didn’t think we were going to talk about this today. I don’t see how it has much to do with your… ethical concerns.”

I waited. Why? I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“I pay the bills,” he said, sounding defiant. “I pay the bills. It’s something I want to do, I choose to do. I feel a… responsibility to her. On our wedding day, I said ‘till death do us part’ and I meant it. My love for Rachel didn’t end when she got sick. It didn’t end when she decided she needed to live someplace where she could be closer to more weddings. I take my vows seriously. So, yes, I support her.”

Was there a little self-righteousness in his tone? Yes, there was. But the reality was that what Bill had been doing for his wife for almost a decade was extraordinary. Not too many men in the same circumstances would have done it. I was touched by his compassion and commitment.

“That must be a difficult burden for you,” I said.

“I don’t look at it that way. Not financially, anyway. Emotionally, yes-it’s hard. I miss… having my wife. There’s been a hole in my heart since she left me. But financially? I look at it that… it’s our money, Rachel’s and mine, and that she needs some of it to live. That’s all. Truth be told, I spend more of it than she does. I don’t love her any less because she’s ill. I tell myself that it could be worse.”