The Empty Bed

by Nina Sadowsky

  Eva shivers. She doesn’t know why, but he’s giving her the creeps. She shakes it off. Stupid twat.

  Her cell trills and Eva gets up to fish it out of her bag, grateful for the interruption. It’s Peter.

  “Hello there,” Eva answers. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” She intends to sound light and jokey, but is painfully aware that her voice sounds strained.

  “Put on a dress. I’m taking you out to dinner.”

  “With?”

  “With nobody. Just the two of us. Sound good?”

  Eva’s heart gives a small involuntary leap. Could he have read her mind? She’s excited but also afraid to open herself to disappointment.

  “What’s the agenda?” she asks, once again aware that she sounds querulous and tense.

  To her relief, Pete laughs. “No agenda, honey. Just dinner. Be ready at six forty-five; I’ll send a car for you.”

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  But her husband has already hung up.

  Eva glances back out the window. The gray-suited man is gone.

  RESERVATIONS

  Peter Lombard,

  London, England

  As the maître d’ leads him to their table, Peter observes his surroundings with appreciation. The dark wood paneling, pressed white tablecloths, and graciously curved chairs upholstered with plush cranberry-colored velvet all combine to create a warm and intimate feel. The lighting is subdued, a few recessed ceiling lights and an orderly progression of glowing sconces affixed to the moss green walls.

  He settles into the tufted velvet banquette the same moss green as the walls, delighted to discover Forrest had come through on his promise to get “the very best table in the very best restaurant in town,” for Peter to spring his surprise. He glances at his watch. He’s seven minutes early. He knows he’s been gone a hell of a lot lately, not only MIA, but frequently late as well when he and Eva had made plans. Tonight, he wanted to be on time.

  Peter idly examines the brass peacock that sits in the center of their intimate little table for two, its tail feathers spread in an arching fan. The waiter comes by and takes his drink order. Peter glances at his watch again. When he looks up, Eva is being led to his table. She hasn’t spotted him yet and so he’s free to observe her unnoticed.

  She’s wearing that snug, dark blue dress he likes. Her brown chin-length bob is swept away from her face with a couple of glittery clips.

  Their eyes meet and Peter rises, walking around to pull out her chair for her before the maître d’ has a chance.

  “You look beautiful, darling,” Peter murmurs in Eva’s ear. He inhales the scent of her: citrus and musk, a hint of something spicy. He loves the way she smells.

  “How did you ever get us a table here?” Eva inquires. “I thought this place was booked months out.”

  Peter grins. “Forrest, of course. Who else?”

  Eva nods, as if that explains everything. And of course, it does. Forrest Holcomb, the CEO of Peter’s investment firm, is a legend in London, not only for his hard-driving business tactics but also because of his wild partying and multiple marriages. A self-made man who rose to great heights after a rough start as a street rat from Hackney, he’s now on his fourth wife, Miranda, a beautiful former actress who seems hell-bent on blowing through Forrest’s vast fortune.

  “Miranda gave up the reservation so they could attend some benefit where she’s going to make Forrest fork over a million pounds for, hmm, let me guess, cuddle therapy for war-ravaged porcupines?”

  Peter sniggers. It’s close enough to the truth of Miranda, and for a moment their eyes meet in collusion, united as they are in genuine fondness for Miranda, while also thinking her a bit of a joke. But part of his reaction is designed to cover his dismay: It’s clear Eva was drinking before she joined him; she has that telltale soft slur to her voice. And Peter knows she’s been hitting it hard lately, no matter how careful she is to toss the empty wine bottles directly into the outside bin.

  Peter’s relieved when the waiter deposits his finger of Macallan and asks Eva for her drink order. (It’s only much later that he recognizes the inherent irony in the ritual of cocktails forestalling his concerns about her drinking.) Peter takes a healthy swig of scotch. The amber liquid burns pleasantly in his mouth.

  “Actually, Forrest knows the chef. Backed him in his first place in Brighton, so he always has a table here if he wants one. And tonight he wanted to give one to us.”

  Eva looks at him inquiringly. “Okay, Pete, what’s up? It’s the first time we’ve had dinner out alone together in months. You snagged a prime table at one of the most exclusive places in town. What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

  Looking at the furrow between her drawn brows and her nervously twining fingers, Peter realizes Eva is genuinely alarmed. This is not going the way it’s supposed to at all.

  Peter reaches across the table and captures Eva’s small hands in his larger ones. “Nothing’s wrong, babe. I just have a surprise for you. For our anniversary next week.”

  The waiter deposits Eva’s glass of Sancerre. Observes the intensity between them and melts away with the prudent grace of the well-trained service employee.

  “We’re going to Paris! We leave tomorrow! Just the two of us.” Peter beams at his wife.

  “How did you get the time off?”

  “That’s your response? How about, ‘Darling, thank you, what a great surprise!’ ”

  “Well, of course, I mean…” Eva takes a nervous swallow of wine and shoots him a weak smile. “Darling, thank you, what a great surprise!”

  “Now, that’s more like it.”

  “What about Baxter?”

  “No worries there. I booked him into that kennel you like.”

  “You’re sure you got the right one? Remember what happened last time!”

  Her voice is shrill. Peter wonders, and not for the first time, if the devotion Eva shows toward Baxter is deeper than the love she carries for him. He reassures her about the kennel, naming it—“Prince and Princess of Paws”—and reciting the address before she finally relaxes.

  They go on to their familiar pre-dinner ritual, debating the menu, eliciting suggestions from the waiter, and waving off the bread. It seems normal, but still Peter can’t help but feel a growing apprehension. Eva drinks glass after glass of wine, her soft slur morphing into stumbled words and drifting sentences. She can’t quite meet his eyes, at least not for very long. As she orders an after-dinner brandy, Peter considers cautioning her: Remember, we still need to pack, but even the unspoken words make him feel more like an admonitory parent than a husband and lover.

  Peter is signing the check when Forrest and Miranda Holcomb breeze into the restaurant accompanied by another couple. Forrest, silver-haired and leonine, exuberantly greets the maître d’ and asks if they can rustle up an impromptu table. Peter knows despite the self-deprecatory charm with which the request is made that it will not be denied. He’s not a bit surprised when Forrest’s party is in turn offered the chef’s table in the kitchen. The maître d’ asks the quartet to wait just a moment. The group is boisterous, dressed in formal wear. Peter guesses they’ve been to one of the innumerable benefits that clog the Holcombs’ calendar. Miranda drips with diamonds, ropes around her neck, chandelier earrings, rings, and bracelets. She throws back her head to laugh and positively shivers with refracted light.

  It’s awful, but Peter hopes that they pass into the kitchen without spotting them. Eva is drunk; he suspects he will have to hold her upright to get her out to the car without falling on her face.

  Still giggling, Miranda spots them and points them out to Forrest. Peter freezes. He casts a look at Eva, who’s cradling her brandy. “Look, Forrest and Miranda,” he tells her.

  Miranda bounds over to their table, tossing her long red hair over her should
er. “Our little lovebirds,” she coos. “Happy anniversary! He tell you all about your surprise?”

  Forrest appears behind her. “Miranda, darling,” he implores. “What if Lombard hasn’t told her yet? You’re an impossible gossip.”

  Miranda’s hand flies to her mouth in a gesture of mock horror. “Did I ruin it?”

  “Not at all,” Peter reassures her. “Eva knows all about Paris.”

  “See?” Miranda crows to Forrest before giving him a kiss on the cheek and tucking her arm in his. “Now let’s go, poppet. I’m starving.” She gives Peter a conspiratorial wink.

  Forrest gestures to the waiter, who scurries over. “Put their dinner on my tab,” he commands, gesturing to Peter and Eva.

  “That’s not necessary, sir,” Peter asserts. “I’ve already paid—”

  “Nonsense. They’ll reverse the charge.”

  “Thank you, then.” Peter knows better than to argue.

  Miranda and Forrest saunter off to their friends. Eva’s eyes follow them as they go.

  “I kind of hate them,” she slurs.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter snaps.

  Eva drains her glass.

  Peter begins to worry the divide between them is bigger than he suspected. He’s no dummy; he knows Eva isn’t happy here in London. But for the first time he seriously wonders if their marriage is in real trouble.

  AGITATION

  Eva Lombard,

  London, England

  Peter snores next to her. Baxter’s curled underneath the window, his wheezes mingling with Peter’s in an all-too-familiar nighttime symphony. Eva slips out of bed.

  Peter had pulled out their suitcases the night before and they had both thrown in a few basic necessities before they had tumbled and fumbled into drunken sex. Eva skirts the lumpy mess of packing they’d left behind as she shrugs into a robe and plucks her laptop from the dresser.

  She heads downstairs to the kitchen. Pours a glass of cold water and gulps down some aspirin. Refills the glass and then settles at the counter with her laptop, the blue reflection of her screen the only light in the shadowy room. She logs on to the Internet and begins a search: “cooking classes Paris.”

  Eva hadn’t even thought about a present for Peter, so enmeshed was she in her personal spiral of recrimination and misery. And then he springs this extravagant trip! Now she feels embarrassed, petty, self-centered, and guilty. Terrific.

  Determined to right the scales, she books a French cooking class for them to do together in two days’ time, a one-day introduction to classic techniques, something she knows he’ll like. She recognizes he’ll realize the present was a last-minute inspiration spurred only by his planning the trip to Paris in the first place, but it still feels like a score.

  She shuts the laptop, sips some more water, and puts the glass in the sink, ready to go back to bed.

  Wait, what’s that? Through the glass kitchen door, Eva’s eyes catch a flash of movement out in the garden. She strains to see in the darkness. Is someone out there?

  She takes a couple of steps toward the door, fear prickling her skin. Stops and listens, her breath held, her body taut, her eyes searching.

  All seems quiet. Stupid twat.

  The phrase leaps unbidden into Eva’s thoughts once again, dragging her spirits down. She climbs back upstairs with bowed shoulders, praying the aspirin kicks in soon and her head stops pounding.

  Peter huddles under the covers with his back to her, his snores dulled to a low roar. But Baxter is on his feet, his head cocked. A low whine emanates from deep in his throat.

  “What’s up, Bax?” Eva whispers.

  Baxter charges past her, nearly knocking her to the ground in his haste. Eva’s hip collides with a sharp corner of the dresser.

  “Ow! Shit!” Eva yelps.

  Peter snaps to a sitting position, blinking, half awake. “What? What’s happening?”

  From the floor below, Eva hears Baxter’s full-throated barking. “I don’t know,” she manages, her throat tight.

  Peter throws on a pair of sweatpants. “Stay here,” he admonishes, “while I go check it out.”

  Eva examines her hip. A bruise is already starting to purple. She hears Peter speaking to Baxter, the familiar squeal of the kitchen door.

  “Eva,” Pete calls. “You can come on down. Looks like someone might have been trying to break in, but Bax scared him away.”

  Eva stumbles down the stairs, her heart racing. Baxter barks furiously and she puts a steadying hand on his back. “Good boy,” she murmurs. “Good dog.”

  “Look.” Peter points to a long, thin tool lying just outside the kitchen door. “That got left behind. But the door was open when I got here.”

  “Didn’t you turn on the alarm before we went to bed?” Eva’s whole body is shaking.

  “I do every night.”

  Eva stares at him. “But did you do it tonight?”

  “I don’t remember, okay? We both had a lot to drink at dinner.” He shrugs. Turns away to rummage in the cabinet for a treat for Baxter.

  “We should call the police,” she insists, her tone cold.

  “I’ll call Derrick too.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Forrest’s Mr. Fix-it. He’ll put in a call so we get top priority.”

  “You do that,” she says, sliding her eyes away from Peter’s. “I’m going upstairs to pack. There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep now anyway.”

  Eva turns her back to him and bites her tongue. She knows that if she says one more thing, she will be unable to stem the torrent.

  Everything revolves around Holcomb. It’s like you’ve joined a cult, like I don’t exist anymore. He’s your first thought in the morning and your last thought at night, but for me, to protect me, you can’t even remember to put the fucking alarm on.

  She hopes she’s making a dramatic exit, her cold fury evident in her rigid shoulders and spine of steel, but she hears Peter speaking into his phone and glances back to see he’s not even looking in her direction.

  Eva snaps her fingers and calls to Baxter, “Come on, Bax. Come with me.”

  The dog hustles to her side and she strokes his head. At least Baxter loves me.

  DRUGS AND MONEY

  Catherine,

  Dallas, Texas

  Their bags are already packed when I arrive at their room in the bland airport hotel adjacent to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Steve Harris, his wife, Lisa, and their autistic ten-year-old son, Finn. The boy circles the room, muttering a repetitive singsong phrase.

  I’m glad to see that my operative, Jake, has the Targets ready to roll; I’m shaken by Leslie Virgenes’s murder, as is the watchdog group that hired me to protect both her and the Harris family. We all thought we were further ahead of this curve.

  I stumbled into this case. The Burial Society was in the process of helping a battered wife escape her abusive husband when she provided me with an unexpected bonus. It seems her bastard of a husband thought he had her completely cowed, so much so that he spoke freely in front of her about all his business dealings. After all, she’d never have the courage to leave him, as he’d told her many times. But then she did. And brought me his deepest secrets. One of these secrets was that there was a lawsuit burgeoning against Knox Pharmaceuticals, a company in which her husband owned a significant stake, and two potential witnesses were in imminent danger.

  I researched. I always do. Confirmed her story. Knox had buried test results, knowingly releasing for sale a drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s with a high percentage of harmful side effects in study participants. Steve Harris and Leslie Virgenes were the lead researchers on the team whose data was buried, as was the subsequent internal complaint they’d filed with the company. The drug’s been in the marketplace for a few months now and as the n
umber of deaths among its users mounted, shadowy representatives of Knox reached out to Steve and Leslie, first with bribes, later with threats.

  The information I had from the wife was solid, as was my introduction to the chief strategist of the watchdog group mounting the lawsuit. As a matter of principle, I try to leave most people on good terms. You never know when you’re going to need a favor, and that philosophy paid off yet again. A story for another time.

  The memory of Leslie Virgenes’s flattened, bluish face flashes unwelcome in my mind’s eye. I feel dangerously exposed by the simple connect-the-dots I’ve left behind in trying to protect her and have to fight my urge to crawl back into the shadows. Protecting Steve Harris is even more crucial now that Leslie is dead.

  The Harrises have been under the watch of one of my operatives, Jake Burrows, currently operating under the alias John Bernake. He’s done well since I brought him on board the Burial Society three years ago (a story for another time and perhaps one you already know). He’s proven to be smart, malleable, and teachable. Jake’s moved the Harrises to three different hotels in the past three days. Good work on his part, but the strain is showing on the family.

  “What now?” Steve Harris asks me.

  “We’ve got one more stop. A safe house. Then I’ll get you on a flight out of the country.”

  “What about our daughter?” Lisa Harris’s voice is shrill with fear.

  “Don’t worry,” I reassure. “We’ve got her covered.”

  I pull Jake aside to give him his next set of instructions. As I do, Finn becomes more and more agitated, circling the room more quickly, slapping at his head with his open palms. “Kota, kota, kota,” the boy keens repeatedly.

  “Lisa,” I hiss at his mother. “You’re going to have to calm him down. We need to get out of here as unobtrusively as possible.”

  Lisa exchanges a look of helpless frustration with her husband before addressing me. “There’s not much we can do. We usually have to just wait it out.”