Daniel dragged his hand down his cheek, wondering why she wouldn’t. Was it because she was still angry with him? Or was it because she wasn’t sure it was Daniel who had sent them? After all, he again hadn’t included a card. She should know they were from him, right? Who else would be sending her flowers?
He was thinking about how quickly his perfect life had become complicated when Billy finally walked up.
“Hey, bro!” Billy stretched his arms out, and Daniel stood to hug him. Billy smelled like spicy aftershave, an improvement over his usual signature scent of sweat and motor oil. “Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay.” Daniel grinned. “I’m used to it.”
Daniel sat back down and watched Billy survey the place. He whistled through his teeth and nodded approvingly. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
At six foot four, Billy stood two inches taller than Daniel. He was also leaner. His short, blond hair was slicked back, and he had what appeared to be a fresh cut across his nose. “Damn, it’s good to see you.” Billy smiled. “It’s been, what? Three months now? What’s a brother got to do to see his best friend every once in a while, huh?”
They usually met like clockwork every month. But since Mia, a lot of things had been relegated to the back burner. A waitress stopped by the table. Billy ordered a Heineken, and Daniel ordered his second whiskey.
As the waitress walked away, Billy leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Shit, man. I still can’t believe you went and got married. Married! You’ve been swearing since high school you’d never get hitched.”
“I never thought I would. But Mia changed everything for me.”
Billy stared at Daniel. “I don’t know, man. Better you than me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Women, dude,” Billy said. “You had it right the first time. You can’t trust them. All that estrogen and shit. Makes them unstable. And sneaky as hell.”
Daniel’s thoughts trailed back to his problem with Mia.
“I’ve been doing some freelance work lately that only confirms it,” Billy said.
“Freelance work? Wait. You left Tiremart?”
“Yeah, man. Months ago. Those dudes were crooks.”
Billy’s beer arrived. “Thanks, hon,” he said to the waitress with an East Texas drawl that a lot of women seemed to find charming. “Why don’t you go ahead and bring me a second? This one ain’t gonna last very long.”
As she walked off, Billy chugged back some of his beer and gazed out the window at the blue waters of the Pacific. “Damn, I could get used to this,” he said and set the bottle down. He sat up straighter in his chair. “Anyway, I’m doing something that pays ten times better now.”
“Yeah? What are you doing?”
“I get paid to tail wives.”
Daniel frowned. “I’m sorry. Tail wives?”
“I know, right? Just did a job in the Hollywood Hills. Followed around this rich-ass stay-at-home mom to see where she was going when the kids were at school. Followed her for a week. Turns out she was meeting with some married studio exec. Sometimes at this fancy hotel off La Cienega. Sometimes right in their own house. This morning I gave Mikey—that’s the guy I work for—a flash drive of pictures confirming what the husband had pretty much already known. Mikey said the dude cried like a baby when he saw the proof. And the sad thing is that this chick? She’s pretty typical. At least in this town.”
A sick sensation bloomed in the pit of Daniel’s stomach. He finished drink number two in three long swallows. He felt the voice opening its big mouth again, but he mentally cast it to the back of his skull.
“You okay, dude?” Billy asked.
“I’m fine.”
“That nervous tic of yours,” Billy said, motioning to his own face. “Seems to have gotten way worse.” Billy watched him for a moment, then went on. “Anyway, Mikey’s getting more business than he can handle because this town is just swarming with wives looking to cash in on their clueless husbands. They come here looking for fame and fortune, and when that doesn’t work out, they forget the fame and go for the fortune. And they’ll do just about anything to get it.
“They look for actors, producers, doctors, lawyers, any dude with money. Fat dude, thin dude, thick hair, no hair, white skin, black skin. As long as they have money, they don’t care.” Billy continued, “You wouldn’t believe the elaborate schemes they go through to meet these guys. How they manufacture chance meetings and shit. Pretend to run into them. Then they either take them for half of what they got, or string them along for the lifestyle and the title of being a so-and-so’s wife—all the while keeping a little someone extra on the side.”
Daniel thought about the night he’d met Mia at the hotel bar. How she had asked to sit next to him. Had known he was a doctor.
“Seriously, bro. You ever have any suspicions about your old lady, I could look into her for you. For real, though, you should’ve let me do it before you tied the knot.”
Daniel shook his head. “That’s not Mia.”
“Huh?”
“The type of woman you’re talking about. I’m saying that my wife is nothing like that. She’d never cheat on me.”
Billy snickered and shook his head. “Never say never, man. Seriously, after all the shit I’ve seen, nothing people do surprises me anymore.” He took a long pull of his beer and sat back in his chair. “So, how did you guys meet, anyway? Online or something? Company party? You saw her from across the room, and it was love at first sight or some shit like that?”
“A hotel bar.”
“No shit.” Billy studied him. “You approach her, or she come up to you?”
Daniel said softly, “She came up to me.”
Billy stared at him. Daniel didn’t like the look in his eyes.
Daniel’s phone rang. He looked at the screen, hoping it was Mia. But it was a number he didn’t recognize. One with an 818 area code.
The valley.
“This is Dr. Winters,” he answered.
The female voice on the other end sounded frantic, out of breath. “It’s Rachel Jacobs. Suzie’s mother.”
“Rachel? Is everything okay?”
“No, everything is not okay!”
CHAPTER 15
RACHEL
IT WAS ALMOST 1:00 a.m. Rachel sat next to Suzie’s gurney in the emergency room and watched her daughter sleep. Her nerves were raw and ragged—and she was running on pure adrenaline. She was also on her third cup of stale coffee and was fighting the stomach acid that kept inching its way up her throat.
The room was separated from several other similar spaces by a thick green curtain. Even though it smelled of antiseptic, the area looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. At least not properly. There was a cobweb in a corner with what looked like a Doritos chip caught up in it.
Above the rhythmic beeps of Suzie’s cardiac monitor, Rachel could hear the muffled sounds of the ER: doctors barking commands, the moans and complaints from sick or injured patients, a man yelling for more pain medicine, nurses laughing about something at the nurse’s station. The small space was bare except for the gurney, a locked medicine cabinet, and a poster on the wall that showed the smiling face of a young boy with his mother as they played in a park. The words underneath the image read:
BECAUSE YOU WANT THE BEST FOR YOUR KIDS. ASK YOUR PEDIATRICIAN ABOUT RESPIRA TODAY.
A ball of fire rose in Rachel’s belly, and she felt an almost uncontrollable urge to rip the poster from the wall and tear it into tiny pieces. She peered down at her sleeping daughter with the IV in her arm. Reaching for her purse, she dug inside and found the postcard for Respira. She stared at it, then began ripping it up. When the pieces were so small she couldn’t rip them anymore, she stood up and went to the wastebasket. She let the tiny scraps flutter into the dark abyss, wishing she’d never even heard of the damn drug.
Suzie had been inconsolable again on the way home from Dr. Winters’s office. She’d arched her back, screamed, and
cried for an hour straight. Then that evening, Rachel had been simultaneously cooking spaghetti and studying for an exam for her computer science class when she heard strange noises on the baby monitor. She’d dropped everything and rushed to the bedroom and saw that Suzie was having another seizure. She had called 911, then called Dr. Winters from the back of the ambulance.
She leaned forward, took her little girl’s warm hand in hers, and visualized Suzie getting better. As she sat with her chin resting on the cool metal railing of the gurney, the visualization quickly morphed into a daydream of her having the life her sister, Laura, had. No more rushing around every day. Getting to stay home with her daughter and be the mom she really wanted to be. Not always worrying about losing the roof over their heads, knowing that she’d always be able to put food on the table.
Suzie stirred in the bed and opened her eyes. Rachel’s heart sped up. She leaned in closer. “Why, hello, sweet girl,” she cooed.
The green curtain screeched back, and a doctor and nurse stepped into the exam cubicle. The doctor squinted tiredly at the chart in his hand. “She see her pediatrician today?”
“Yes. This morning.”
“Any vaccines?”
“No.”
“What about Respira?”
Rachel was surprised by the question. She nodded. “Yes. She got her second dose.”
The doctor traded a quick look with the nurse.
“What?” Rachel asked.
He moved to Suzie’s bed. “We’ve just seen similar reactions in other kids,” he said, pulling a penlight from his lab coat.
“From Respira?” Rachel asked.
“Mm-hmm,” the doctor said, leaning over the gurney and checking Suzie’s eyes.
Rachel’s gaze flitted to the nurse. The small, petite woman offered her a thin smile, then looked away.
“She had a seizure after her first dose, too,” Rachel told the doctor. “But her pediatrician said he didn’t think Respira caused it.”
The doctor was silent as he continued to examine Suzie. Rachel figured he hadn’t heard her and was about to tell him again when he turned toward her.
He snapped off his gloves and chuckled darkly. “Your pediatrician should spend a little time in the emergency room.”
CHAPTER 16
MIA
A LITTLE BEFORE 2:00 a.m., Mia hurried out of a small ranch house into the chilly early morning air, jumped in her cherry-red Volkswagen Jetta, and slammed the door. She slipped her key into the ignition but paused before turning it.
Images of her car exploding had plagued her for years. Monte, the only other man in her life whom she’d been seriously romantic with, had continuously teased her, saying that if she ever left him, that’s the way she would go out.
She’d be blown to pieces.
Nothing left of her but a mixture of bloody body parts and metal.
She knew her fear was illogical. After all, Monte was safely behind bars right now on drug charges and would continue to be for years. But the knowledge didn’t make her any less afraid. Monte had always been resourceful. And she knew firsthand that plans—even elaborate ones—could be arranged from the inside. Her insides jittery, she held her breath, turned the key, and the engine roared to life. She sighed, feeling like she always did, as though she’d dodged a bullet.
She shifted into drive and pressed hard on the accelerator, the car’s tires crunching on loose gravel. She’d left the heater on, and now freezing air poured from the vents. Shivering, she turned the heat off until the car had a chance to warm up.
Several minutes later, her twin beams were slicing through the darkness as she navigated the tight twists and turns of the Pacific Coast Highway. Every once in a while, she was taken by surprise by oncoming headlights appearing from around a corner. Many of the cars had their brights on; their headlights illuminated her car’s interior, momentarily blinding her. For long stretches afterward, the night would become still again. Just hers.
Despite the late hour, she was far from tired. Thoughts were swarming like angry bees in her head. Daniel had been watching her like a hawk lately. She knew this because she’d been watching him, too.
Did he suspect something?
Or was his behavior the result of her slip with Claire at dinner?
When she thought back to the way she’d behaved that night, she still got angry with herself. She could only imagine what the episode had looked like to Daniel and the others. It was just one of the many parts of her that she couldn’t allow others to see. Not anymore.
She was going to have to do better.
As she navigated the winding turns of the highway, she carefully revisited the lies she’d told Daniel, looking for anything contradictory. But she couldn’t think of anything. She wished she hadn’t needed to lie so much already, but they’d been necessary. There was a good reason humans were capable of deceit. Some things needed to be tucked in the darkest corners and kept there. But lies didn’t come without risk. She knew from experience that untruths built a delicate web that could easily unravel at any moment. So the fewer she had to tell, the better.
A truck rounded a bend, its lights beaming into the Jetta’s interior and momentarily blinding her. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and navigated the vehicle carefully. When her eyes again adjusted to the darkness, she flipped the heat back on. Now that the engine had heated up, warm air blasted her neck and her feet. Comforted by the heat, she let herself think back on tonight.
Visiting him had been a mistake. She hadn’t expected to feel something for him, and the last thing she needed was more complications. She would consign him to the background, at least for the present. She couldn’t let herself get sidetracked. Her most important job right now was to make Daniel happy and to keep his trust.
That was her priority.
Besides, she didn’t know yet if she could trust the guy.
As of now, her plan was in a holding pattern. She was forced to wait on news that would determine her next move. She hated waiting. Hated feeling as though things, especially such important ones, were beyond her control.
When she pulled into the driveway, she glanced at the digital display on her dashboard: 2:40 a.m.
Perfect timing.
Once inside the house, she slipped off her shoes and tiptoed across the hardwood floor and up the stairs, Bruce hobbling at her feet. She pushed open the bedroom door and saw that the room was dark except for the icy blue light of the television and a slender beam of moonlight creeping in through the curtains.
As soon as she stepped into the room, she smelled liquor. Daniel was lying in bed on top of the covers, fully dressed in a white button-down shirt, tan pants, and black socks. He was snoring loudly.
Had he gotten drunk tonight?
She recalled the look Claire had given him when he’d ordered a drink at the restaurant Wednesday night. As though she’d disapproved. She also recalled how he’d overdone it with drinking one night while they’d been honeymooning in the Caymans, and she wondered if maybe she wasn’t the only one with secrets.
She hurried into the shower, then when she was done, walked quietly back into the room. Daniel was still snoring. Even louder now. She went to his nightstand and curled her fingers around his phone, then turned so her back was facing the bed. There were several unread texts from Claire.
Claire worrying about Mia’s strange behavior at dinner . . .
Claire claiming she was concerned about him . . .
Claire pleading for him to reply to her texts.
“Mia?” Daniel said, his voice hoarse.
Startled, Mia jumped a little. In one fluid motion, she tucked the phone into the waistband of her cotton pajama pants and turned toward him.
“Yeah, handsome,” she said softly. “I just got home from work. I was trying not to wake you.”
He was silent for a moment; then he grunted and turned over. He mumbled something mostly unintelligible—the only word she could make out was Teddy—then he beg
an snoring again.
She carefully set his phone back on his nightstand exactly how he’d left it, then went to the closet to grab a heavy blanket. She draped it over him, then powered off the television.
She slid into bed and let herself remember. She thought of her mother. The nicotine-yellow ceilings of her childhood. The perpetually empty cupboards, Diet Coke cans filled with stained cigarette butts. Her mother was an ex-beauty queen turned shut-in who had survived on disability, pain pills, and meeting random men on Craigslist. Men who didn’t give a shit about her. But she hadn’t cared, either, because she hadn’t given a shit about herself.
For years, her mother had rarely left her armchair. She’d hated the world. Hated her own daughter. Probably also hated herself since her beauty had faded. Unfortunately, it had seemed to be the only thing she had going for her. It was certainly the only thing Mia had ever seen her nurture.
Moonlight streamed in through her bedroom window, bathing the side of Daniel’s face in a bluish hue. She studied him for a long moment, then turned her attention to the sound of the waves gently lapping the shore outside and the shadows dancing across the walls.
CHAPTER 17
DANIEL
IT WAS STILL dark outside when Daniel awoke. He turned toward the nightstand, his head feeling as though it was filled with cement. He fumbled for his phone and silenced the alarm. He felt awful. What the hell had happened to him?
What do you think happened?
The call from Rachel flashed into his head. Suzie having seizures again.
Jesus . . . no . . .
Was Mia still in bed? He turned his head, and the room slanted a little.
Yes. She was in bed. For once.
He tried to remember her coming home last night, but he couldn’t remember anything. He must have already fallen asleep. He rubbed his eyes, and last night slowly started trickling back to him. He’d pulled a bottle of Jameson whiskey out of the liquor cabinet once he got home after talking with Rachel.
Shit.
He must have drunk enough to black out.
I thought for sure you would turn out different, Daniel.
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