Obsessed With You

by Jennifer Ransom

  “What if you did know?” Lindy said. “Would you go back to him?”

  “I think it’s too late for that now,” Cathy said. “The damage has been done.”

  “Do you have any idea who would have wanted to hurt him like that? It just seems so crazy. Like some kind of fatal attraction or something.”

  “It could have been a business associate, a male one,” Cathy said. “Trying to make it look like a fatal attraction.”

  “Would a male business associate know about his spotted dick?” Lindy asked, then burst out laughing.

  “I’m sorry, Cathy,” she said trying to get her giggles under control.

  Cathy gave her a stern look before she started laughing herself, so strongly that she surprised herself. Hee hawing, she managed to croak out, “I hope not!” Which caused them to laugh even harder. They both wiped tears from their eyes as they tried to regain control.

  “Isn’t that some sort of English dish? The spotted dick?” Cathy asked.

  “Yeah, I saw it on a cooking show one day,” Lindy said. “It’s a pudding with raisins in it. But not a gooey pudding. It’s hard.”

  They looked at each other and started laughing again.

  “But seriously, Cathy,” Lindy said, a last little laugh escaping from her. “Haven’t you thought about who might have done it?”

  “Yes, but I can’t think who,” Cathy said. “It would have to be someone who knew about the birthmark and the tie. I guess I keep thinking it’s an old girlfriend of his.”

  “I’m getting us some wine,” Lindy said standing up. “We need to be able to think creatively.”

  Cathy glanced around the crowded shop while Lindy got the wine. Shelves full of knick-knacks and dishes lined the walls. Lindy had set up little vignettes of furniture with decorative pieces in various places in the shop. People were welcome to sit down and munch on cookies and tea during their visit. It was a colorful and cozy place, and Cathy felt at home there.

  Lindy returned to the table with a bottle of chardonnay and two wine glasses, which she filled nearly to the rim. “Be careful and don’t spill it on yourself,” Lindy said as she handed her a glass. “I’ll be right back.”

  Cathy had taken a couple of sips of the chilled dry wine when Lindy came back with her laptop.

  “We’re going to do some investigating,” she said, setting the laptop up on the table. “I just love a mystery.” She practically squealed with delight. Cathy wished she could be so happy about it.

  “Now, what about that client of his, Mrs. Whatshername?” Lindy said.

  “Mrs. Davis. Aaron took her to lunch at least once a week. Sometimes, he escorted her to evening events, like an opening at the museum. Things like that.”

  “And you didn’t go?” Lindy asked, arching her eyebrow at Cathy.

  “Sometimes, I did. Mrs. Davis always asked for me to attend. But I was so tired after work, I just wanted to watch TV. I usually didn’t go. In fact, I hadn’t been to one of those for months when everything happened.”

  “What’s her first name?” Lindy asked, fingers poised over the keyboard.

  “Adelle,” Cathy said.

  Lindy punched on the keyboard.

  “Damn, there’s a lot of stuff here,” she said. “She’s loaded. I see a bunch of links for a Frank and Adelle Davis Foundation.”

  “They were big supporters of the arts,” Cathy said. “She still is, through the foundation. They were loaded, but I always got the feeling she loved him completely. He was over twenty years older than her when they married. His kids gave her a hard time after he died, but he left them plenty of money.”

  Lindy made a few more punches on the keyboard. “Shit, she’s gorgeous!” she said. She turned the laptop so Cathy could see the photos. Mrs. Davis was very attractive; she had always known that. She knew the woman! Had spent time in her company.

  “Yes,” Cathy said. “But she’s so much more than what you’re seeing in those photos. She’s elegant and classy. She never looks down on anyone ever.”

  “Hmmm,” Lindy said.

  “Actually, she reminds me a lot of Aaron now that I think about it.” Cathy said. She’d never thought about that before, but now it was glaringly obvious. They were two of a kind. “She’s graceful and kind. Charismatic. Like Aaron is.”

  Lindy scrolled down through the images.

  “Woo hoo!” Lindy said. “She’s got a hottie in this one.” She turned the laptop so Cathy could see.

  A jolt went through her as she looked at the effervescent, half-smiling Aaron next to Adelle Davis. He was wearing the tie she had given him, the tie that had been their undoing. And dammit if the photo wasn’t from her own city magazine, shot at a gallery opening of new realist painters.

  “That’s Aaron,” Cathy said, her voice trembling.

  “Damn, girl! Are you kidding me?” Lindy practically screamed. “He’s hot!”

  “That’s the tie I gave him,” Cathy said. Tears gushed out of her eyes as suddenly as the laughter a few minutes before. She put her head on the table and sobbed.

  Lindy was beside her instantly with her hand around her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she said in her honey voice. “We’ll put the computer up now.”

  “No!” Cathy said sharply, pulling her head up from the table. “I want to keep going. I need to try to get some answers.”

  “Okay,” Lindy said uncertainly. She sat back down and ran her fingers across the keyboard.

  “She’s got a website and Facebook page for the foundation. It looks like all business.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Cathy said. “She loves that foundation.”

  Lindy mashed the keys again, then sat staring at the laptop.

  “You know, Aaron looks kind of familiar to me. It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Mrs. Davis said one night that he looks like that actor on Mad Men. Have you ever seen that show?”

  “That’s it!” Lindy said. “He looks like Jon Hamm. I love love love love that show. It’s pure vintage, you know. I’ve even got a Mad Men vignette set up in here.” She pointed to an area in the front corner of the shop. Cathy went over to it and sat down on the yellow sixties modern sofa. A tall glass lamp with molten colors of blue and green sat on a sleek angular table beside the couch. The coffee table was also angular and modern, almost Swedish in feel. A framed photo of Don Draper from Mad Men in his modern office sat front and center on the coffee table. Just in case the clientele didn’t get it.

  Lindy sat in a modern chair next to the sofa. She had brought the laptop with her.

  “Okay, do you think it’s possible it could be Mrs. Davis?” she asked.

  “No,” Cathy said instantly. “She is much too self-possessed to resort to something like that.”

  “You sure?” Lindy asked.

  “I feel almost one hundred percent sure,” Cathy said.

  “That leaves a little wiggle room, almost one hundred percent,” Lindy said. “What about people he works with? Any crazy women there?”

  “He works with a lot of women. Financial consultants and traders. And secretaries, of course.”

  “Of course,” Lindy said ruefully. “Would they have known about the tie?”

  “Probably,” Cathy said. “He wore it a lot. He seemed very proud of it, and I was so happy I had given him something he liked. He could buy anything he wanted, but he loved that tie.”

  “Who was closest to him in his office?” Lindy asked, breaking through Cathy’s reminiscence about when she gave Aaron the tie.

  “His secretary, Marsha.”

  “Is she the type that wears snug suits and stilettos?” Lindy asked.

  “Did you get that from Mad Men?” Cathy asked with a laugh. “No, she’s quite plump, actually. I’ve only met her one time, at the annual Fourth of July party the firm president has every year at his house. I probably exchanged three sentences with her.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I told you. It�
��s Marsha.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  Cathy thought for a moment. She could not pull Marsha’s last name up.

  “I’m not sure I ever knew it,” she finally said. “Aaron just called her Marsha.”

  “What about when you met her that time. Didn’t Aaron tell you her last name then?”

  Cathy took herself back to that Fourth of July party. She envisioned Aaron introducing her to Marsha. ‘This is my secretary, Marsha.’ He had said. ‘Marsha Gardner.’”

  “Gardner!” Cathy said sitting up straighter. “Her last name is Gardner!”

  “Okay, calm down, honey,” Lindy said with a laugh.

  She turned to the laptop and began to hit the keys.

  “Do you have any idea how many Marsha Gardners there are on Facebook?” Lindy said.

  “Put the city in,” Cathy said.

  “Aha,” Lindy said after a few seconds. “There are three Marsha Gardners in Atlanta.” She sat on the couch beside Cathy and showed her the screen.

  “Any of these look like her?” Lindy asked.

  Cathy glanced at the choices. One had a photo of an Asian woman as a profile picture, another had a little dog, and the last one showed a bunch of flowers. Lindy clicked on the flowers. It seemed to be a woman who was married and at home with three kids, if the many photos of the family were any judge. It was not Marsha.

  Lindy clicked on the dog photo next, then the photo albums. Marsha’s plump face looked out at them. Her little terrier was in her arms as she smiled at the camera. She had other photos of what looked like family-type parties with a lot of people of all ages. She even had posted photos from office parties. There were Christmas party photos spanning four Christmases and Fourth of July photos from at least three different years.

  Cathy studied the office photos. There was nothing remarkable about them. Marsha had put captions on some of them, usually just a name and date. There was a photo of Aaron in one of them, from a Christmas party before Cathy knew Aaron. In the photo, Aaron was leaning against the bar talking to someone. He didn’t seem aware that his photo was being taken because he wasn’t even looking at the camera. It was captioned simply, “My boss, Christmas 2011.”

  “She’s got a gazillion photos of her dog,” Lindy said. “What is that, a shih tzu?” They both started laughing again.

  “I think it’s a Yorkshire terrier,” Cathy said between laughs.

  “Her name’s Delilah,” Lindy screeched. “That is hilarious!”

  After another laughing fit that lasted at least a full minute, Lindy and Cathy sobered up.

  “I don’t think we’ve learned much today,” Cathy said. “I really think it must be an old girlfriend. But that would mean he would have seen her while he was wearing the tie. He never mentioned running into anyone, but I guess that doesn’t mean anything. What sane man would mention running into an old girlfriend?”

  “What about her voice?” Lindy asked.

  “Whose voice?” Cathy asked.

  “The one on the phone call!” Lindy said, exasperated. “Did it sound at all familiar to you?”

  “No. I had no idea who it was,” Cathy said.

  “What about his sister? Didn’t you say Aaron had a sister? Could she have had it in for you?”

  “I don’t even want to go there,” Cathy said. “That would mean his sister would know about his personal body, and that makes me crazy to think about.”

  “Sorry,” Lindy said. “Just trying to think.”

  “His sister loves me,” Cathy said. “Or at least she acted like she did. I thought she did.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to protect the family fortune from interlopers,” Lindy suggested.

  “That’s funny,” Cathy said. “Aaron and his sister grew up on a farm. I don’t think there’s a fortune there.”

  “I’m just thinking outside the box,” Lindy said. “That’s where the answer is sometimes, you know.”

  “You’re right. Thank you for thinking about all of this for me. I think I’m too emotionally involved to make sense of anything, even if it’s right there in front of my face.”

  Lindy closed her laptop. “What are you going to do?” she asked Cathy.

  “The first thing I’m going to do as soon as I get home is cancel the Valentine’s date with Zachery,” she said. “I can’t go through with it.”

  “You could text him,” Lindy suggested helpfully.

  “I’d love to just text him,” Cathy said, “because I’m a coward. But I’ve got to do it more personally.”

  Both women turned their heads at the sound of the shop door opening.

  “Lindy?” Neil called.

  “We’re over here,” Lindy said.

  Neil walked into the Mad Men vignette and sat on the chair Lindy had occupied earlier.

  “What are y’all doing?” he asked.

  “We’re trying to figure out who set Cathy’s ex-fiance up,” Lindy said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh,” he said. “Find anything?”

  “Not much, except that he’s hot,” Lindy said.

  Neil grinned. “I guess that’s something,” he said.

  “Have you been at the Laughlin place?” Cathy asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Yeah. When I got there, it was locked up and his car was gone. Then I got the bright idea to check my emails. He said he had to leave for a few days and to make my own choices about paint colors.”

  “Are you serious?” Lindy said.

  “He left the key under the mat for me. Said to go on in and do what I want. Weird.”

  “He’s a tormented soul,” Lindy said.

  “That’s it!” Neil said. “I’ve been trying to find the right word to describe him. Tormented.”

  “I wonder why,” Cathy said.

  “I don’t know,” Neil said. “But if I had my guesses, I’d say it involves a woman.”

  “Like I torment you?” Lindy asked playfully, getting up to give Neil a kiss.

  “Yeah, just like that, babe,” he said with a laugh.

  “I need to get back home,” Cathy said standing up from the yellow sofa. “I haven’t seen my grandfather in a couple of days. I need to pay him a visit. Plus, I’ve got that phone call to make.”

  “What phone call,” Neil asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Lindy said to him. “Call me if you need to talk,” Lindy called after Cathy as she left the shop.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aaron knocked on Sherry’s door and heard shouts from inside. Sherry opened the door.

  “Come on in to the madhouse,” she said.

  His niece, Ragan, rushed at him and grabbed onto his legs before he could even get in the door. He picked her up and smiled into her four-year-old face.

  “Hey, Ragdoll,” he said giving her a kiss on her chubby cheek.

  “That hair on your face feels funny,” Unca Ron Ron,” Ragan said.

  She put her arms around Aaron’s neck. He felt loved by another human for the first time since Cathy had left him. Three-year-old Jimmy had his arms wrapped around Aaron’s legs, so he picked him up in his other arm. He carried both children into the great room, stepping on a toy that squeaked loudly in the process. Ragan and Jimmy screeched with laughter. He set them down.

  “I was hoping to get them down soon,” Sherry said. “They’re too wound up now with Unca Ron Ron here.”

  “Oh, come on, Sherry,” he said. “Aren’t you glad to see Unca Ron Ron?”

  She gave him a hug. “Yes, of course I am.”

  The television screen was filled with bright colors and characters talking just to children. Aaron had no idea what the show was. The kids settled down on the floor in front of the TV and Aaron sat beside them. Sherry brought the kids a snack of cookies and milk.

  “The carbs will knock them out soon,” she whispered to Aaron. “Then we’ll have our snack.”

  Ragan and Jimmy sat on either side of him, leaning into him. He wrapped his arms around each as they
watched the show. Jimmy stuck a cookie to his lips and pushed on it until Aaron opened his mouth and accepted it.

  “Good,” he said to Jimmy while he chewed the cookie. Jimmy laughed and Aaron laughed for the first time in months.

  He watched the kid’s show with his niece and nephew, and then another one. During the second one, he felt both of their little bodies slump limply against him.

  “They’re down for the count,” Sherry whispered. “We’ll just leave them here on the floor. If we try to move them, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “You’re such a good mother,” Aaron said sarcastically.

  “You bet your ass I am,” Sherry hissed. They smiled at each other.

  “Come on,” she said grabbing his arm. “I’ve got our snacks in the kitchen.

  In the country-style kitchen, a bowl of chips and a smaller bowl of cheese dip were on the round table in the breakfast nook. Aaron sat down and began to dip. Sherry brought him a beer and opened one for herself.

  “So what’s going on, Bubba?” she asked after taking a long draw of her beer.

  “The good news is that I’m fixing that house up. It’s a good investment no matter what happens.”

  “What’s the bad news?” Sherry asked.

  “The bad news is that I’ve turned into a stalker.”

  Sherry took another drink of her beer. Aaron gave his sister a long look. Her curly brown hair was pulled back into a scrunchie. She wore sweat pants and a T-shirt that had University of Georgia splayed across the front. She looked bedraggled, but still very pretty. Pretty in a tired way.

  Aaron told Sherry about spying on Cathy from the woods.

  “That’s a little creepy,” she said. “But I know you did it out of love.”

  “She won’t respond to me when I try to contact her,” Aaron said. His voice sounded as desperate as he felt. “And now she’s hooked up with her high school boyfriend.”

  “How do you know that?” Sherry asked.

  He explained that, due to his spying, he had seen a painter’s truck at Cathy’s house. That he had hired him to paint the Victorian.

  “The painter and his girlfriend are friends with Cathy. They told me about it one day when the girlfriend came by to look at the house. They had no idea that I know Cathy.”