by Kyra Davis
“She could be,” I agree. “But there are a lot of unhappy women married to wealthy men.”
Jessica looks down at her hand and studies her wedding ring. It’s a standard-issue solitaire on top of a plain white-gold band. It’s pretty and expensive, but it has little individuality.
“Do you think Travis is over it?” I ask.
Jessica blanches, her eyes still glued to her ring. I realize immediately that she thinks I’m asking her if Travis is over his marriage to her.
“I mean,” I say quickly, trying to clarify myself without letting on that I know she’s misunderstood, “you two have been married for just under ten years. That’s enough time to get over an old flame, isn’t it?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you,” Jessica says dryly. “If you ask Travis, he was over her before we even started dating. He told me that their relationship was just a fling and that she was nothing to him. But then, as I’m sure you’ve come to realize by now, Travis is a liar.”
I lean back in my chair, making it creak. “I only know of one honest man and they crucified him over two thousand years ago. Men might have taken the wrong lesson from that because they’ve been lying ever since.”
Again Jessica giggles and this time her laugh sounds almost genuine, almost. But the sound dies quickly as she presses her point. “The truth is,” she says quietly, “Travis will never be over Cathy. Not really. And he will always hate every woman who has the audacity not to be her. You see,” she says, her eyes moving back to me, “Travis knows love. I believe he may even know how to be kind, which makes his decision to embrace hate and cruelty that much more devastating.”
For a moment neither of us say anything as her point sinks in. Then she breaks out in a hysterical little laugh. “Come to think of it,” she says, “Travis and I might be a good match after all.”
You’re a perfect match. You’re the kind of woman who would bear false witness against an innocent mother in exchange for marrying into the “right” family, and he’s the kind of man who would ask you to do it.
“By the way, I’m better now,” Jessica says, pulling me out of my thoughts. I shake my head, not understanding.
“I’ve thrown out the Vicodin and the codeine; they’re all gone. As are the vodka and the bourbon. You won’t find a single liquor bottle in the house. Since that night you took me to the hospital, the only thing I’ve taken is Xanax during the day and a Valium or two at night to help me sleep, and I don’t drink anything stronger than wine, and I’ve even cut back on that. I’ve turned a corner, as they say.”
For a second I think she’s joking, but her expression says otherwise. Only wine, Xanax, and Valium . . . in the last four days.
“When you didn’t show up for a few days I was afraid Travis had fired you. He wouldn’t tell me. He’s barely talking to me.”
“He hasn’t fired me,” I say truthfully.
She nods thoughtfully. “Last time I saw you I accused you of trying to sleep with him.”
“Mrs. Gable, I swear I have no interest in sleeping with your husband.”
“Yes, I know that now. I shouldn’t have said it . . . or at least I should have said it differently.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “I should have said you’re going to sleep with my husband.”
“I really want you to try to hear me when I tell you, I’m absolutely not—”
Jessica holds up her hand to stop me. “You say that because you think your disinterest will be determinative,” she says with a sigh. “But Travis always gets what he wants. Always. And if he wants you?” She shrugs, suggesting my fate is both inevitable and inconsequential.
“Mrs. Gable, that isn’t going to happen.”
Jessica rolls her eyes as if she finds my protests more exasperating than meaningful. “Listen, I’m just trying to tell you that when you sleep with him, I won’t hold it against you. I’m . . . I’m letting go. This is my personal growth.”
“Your personal growth,” I repeat.
“Yes. I’ve been a bit tightly wound. That’s why I was drinking too much. I was wasting my energy worrying about things I have no control over.” She pauses a moment and looks me over, taking in my shoes and the cinched-waist blazer and camisole, all bought at my favorite consignment store. “Where are you from?” she asks. “Brooklyn? Florida? Or are you an illegal?”
Are you an illegal?
Those had been the words the police detective, Sean White, had asked my mother before he arrested her.
Are you an illegal?
My mother on her knees, sobbing, sick, covered in the blood of the man she had pinned all her hopes on.
Are you an illegal?
She hadn’t even been a person to Detective White. Just a thing to use. She was used to bring a case to a close, used to help the Gables get away with murder, used to get Sean White a cushy, high-paying job at HGVB Bank.
Are you an illegal?
My nails dig into my palm as my hand clenches into a fist that I have concealed under the desk. “I was born here,” I say, working hard to keep my voice level, calm, pacifying. “I’m an American.”
“Ah, but not exactly from an important family, right?” Jessica sighs and stretches out her legs. “My point is that it’s highly unlikely that you’ll marry well and you’re certainly not going to be a captain of industry. At best you’re going to be, well, a decently paid servant like you are now. So really, what does it matter if you have sex with my husband? If you can’t marry rich you might as well have sex with the rich, maybe get a Fendi bag out of it . . . perhaps even a generous Christmas bonus. And besides, he’s not a bad lover. He’s very . . . technical. He knows how to touch a woman; he might even be able to make you like it.” She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, only to let the breath leak out through clenched teeth so that it comes out as a hiss. “That’s the ultimate humiliation, you know,” she whispers. “Enjoying the touch of a man who doesn’t care about you; a man who will never see you as anything more than a whore. But”—and with this her eyes pop back open and her smile returns—“in your case that’s basically what you’ll be, so, really, you’ll have nothing to lose.”
She watches me and waits for me to respond, but I don’t say a word. I’m afraid that if I so much as breathe I’ll lose the sliver of control that I’m holding on to and I’ll strangle this bitch.
But Jessica takes my silence as acquiescence. She relaxes back into the cushions and stares up at the ceiling. “You see? We’ve both grown. We’ve both learned to accept the inevitable and embrace the silver lining rather than get lost in the storm clouds. It’s good, don’t you think? Now,” she says, not waiting for me to answer as she gracefully crosses one leg over the other, “shall we get to work?”
For the next few hours we go over the Evites she’s been sent and the donation requests from various charities she has supported that would like her support again (yes to the symphony, no to the veterans, and so on).
But mostly we work on the fund-raising dinner for senatorial hopeful Sam Highkin that’s to take place on Tuesday, only four days away now. We need to put together a final head count, make sure the seating charts are perfect, touch base with the quartet she hired for the event as well as the florist. I’m to go down to the venue tomorrow to make sure they know exactly what to do and have everything they need. It’s clear by the bored tone in Jessica’s voice that she’s done all this a million times before. She obviously has no passion for it, although to be fair, Jessica is rarely animated when she’s not dangerously drunk.
At two thirty Jessica checks her watch. “I actually need to get going soon. I could ask you to stay and work, but . . . maybe we should just make it a short day.”
Jessica has left me in the penthouse alone many times before. The fact that she seems reticent to do so now means that she’s picked up on something. Maybe from me, more likely from Travis. But no matter, I’m prepared for this.
“Sure,” I say with a chipper smile. I stand up from the com
puter and slip my purse over my shoulder. “If it’s all right, I’ll just use the restroom and then be on my way. Maybe we can then just quickly go over the things you need me to work on before you leave?”
Again Jessica checks her watch. “I have to be in the limo in about ten minutes.”
“Plenty of time,” I assure her and leave the room to go to the bathroom down the hall. As soon as I close the door behind me I pull out the wrench from my purse. “Time to get to work,” I whisper to myself.
Minutes later I walk out into the hall and rush into the office. “There’s some kind of leak under the bathroom sink,” I tell her urgently. “I just turned it on and it went kind of crazy.”
“What?” Jessica quickly follows me into the bathroom. I turn on the faucet and immediately water gushes from the pipes under the sink.
“But I don’t have time for this! I have to make this appointment! It’s . . . it’s . . .”
I place a calming hand on her shoulder. “I’ll call down to maintenance and make sure it’s taken care of. You go, do what you need to do.”
She looks at me and then down at the water. “Travis should be home a little after five. It has to be completely fixed by then. If he finds out I left without making sure this was handled . . .”
“Mrs. Gable,” I say, keeping my voice at its most reassuring tone, “Mr. Gable will never even know there was a problem.”
Frustrated, Jessica looks at her watch again. “Fine. The number for maintenance is in my office in the top drawer of the desk. If they can’t fix it quickly, call me.”
“Of course, Mrs. Gable.”
She nods and turns to leave, but then hesitates and turns back. “Will you still be attending the Highkin dinner with Lander?”
“I believe so, yes. Assuming he still wants to take me.”
“Yes, I’m sure he does,” Jessica says, somewhat ruefully. She pauses a moment to study me before adding, almost casually, “When you two took me to the hospital I was in a bad way. The doctor says that if I had indulged in another drink I might have slipped into some kind of alcoholic coma, maybe even died.”
“Oh.” I lean on the bathroom counter as I consider the implications of that.
“You may have saved my life,” she adds quietly as her gaze drops to the water pooled on the bathroom floor. “Perhaps one day I’ll be able to forgive you for it.”
I remain silent as she turns and walks down the hall. As I hear the front door open and close I turn and look into the mirror. Anger and pain have defined over half of my life. I had thought that had made me hard, efficient, ruthless when need be, the perfect instrument for revenge. I had originally planned to let Jessica die and then make it look as if Travis had killed her. But when the moment of truth came, I couldn’t do it.
The woman in the mirror looks confused, frustrated, maybe even a little bit scared. She’s not as callous as I thought she was, as I need her to be. This woman in the mirror saved Jessica’s life. I stare hard into my own eyes. “I think,” I say aloud, “I’ll have to find a way to forgive myself for that one as well.”
I inhale a cleansing breath and then bend down to fix the sink before pulling out my cell and making a quick call. “I need a plumber,” I say. “Can you be here in about fifteen minutes? Yes? Great.”
I hang up and use a white monogrammed towel to soak up the mess.
chapter four
* * *
As I wait, I search Jessica’s office for the safe. It seems doubtful to me that it would be in Jessica’s office but one never knows. I look behind the wall art, I get on my knees and look under the furniture just in case it’s a floor safe, but nothing. I get up and brush myself off and am about to try another room when I notice Jessica’s iPad on the chaise longue. Carefully I pick it up and type in the four-digit password that I figured out weeks ago. I check her history, but to my relief there’s no evidence that she’s found the new email account I set up for her, or the message board that I have been posting on using that email as her identity.
The message board is for abused women. I wanted the police to be able to find a digital trail that made Travis look extra guilty once Jessica’s body was found.
I always used Jessica’s computer and I was careful to use it while she was napping so none of the posts happened at times when witnesses could testify that she was away from the IP address the posts came from. Every detail of my plan had been thought-out.
Lander still doesn’t know that I ever even wanted her dead. Maybe he wouldn’t care . . . or maybe he would. Maybe if I told him about my original plans he would look at me differently.
I’d rather lie to him forever than let that happen.
There’s a knock at the door and I quickly go to answer it.
And there stands my man, in a baseball cap that hides his face from the overhead cameras, and a nylon navy windbreaker.
“Thank God,” I say with a smile. “The plumber is here.”
He quickly walks in and I close the door.
“How’d you get past security?” I asked.
“I got in through the service entrance.”
“And no one stopped you?”
“No, they stopped me, a few even recognized me, and then I made up a story and paid them enough to pretend to believe me.”
“Well,” I say, eyeing the cheap windbreaker. “You’re certainly not dressed to be noticed.”
Lander takes off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. “It looks better on you.”
“You’re too sweet.”
“Mmm. Have you started looking for the safe?”
“It’s not in Jessica’s office.”
“Well, that’s a shocker,” Lander says dryly. “I don’t think he’d keep it in his room either. I’m going to start in the guest room, you go search the maid’s room.”
“Ooh, you’re so sexy when you’re handing out orders.”
Lander laughs, and using the collar of the jacket pulls me forward. “You’d better be careful,” he says, his voice a low, teasing growl, “or the next order might be a bit more salacious in nature.”
“Promises, promises.” I lean forward and kiss him slowly, biting his bottom lip gently before pulling away. “Aaand, I’m off,” I say, suddenly pushing him away playfully and hurrying off to my destination. Jessica and Travis don’t have a live-in maid. Neither one of them wants a stranger living with them. Jessica sometimes refers to the maid’s room as Travis’s library, or when she’s feeling sarcastic, Travis’s meditation room. It’s small and the only furniture is a desk with no drawers, a chair, and two large bookcases, big enough to almost completely cover two walls. From the first, I pull out hardcovers and paperbacks three at a time before replacing them, looking for a hidden safe. Books about presidents, wars, dictators, economics, religion, history . . . being a serious book addict myself I’m actually a little impressed.
But I’m not finding a safe. So I start pulling books from the second bookcase. Here there are a few true crime books, a few thrillers . . . George Orwell is here, as is Aldous Huxley. I find Fight Club and The Silence of the Lambs. The only thing all these books have in common, aside from their dark outlook on human nature, is that they’re all written by men. Except . . . I pause as I pull out a book by Alison Weir, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn. That surprises me. Obviously Boleyn’s story is dark and it centers around the themes Travis seems to love—power, money, ruin—but Weir has a distinctly feminine sensibility that seems in contrast to the other books on these shelves. I start to open the book and two photos fall out, along with a folded-up piece of stationery.
I bend down and examine this unexpected treasure. The first photo is of a woman. Her thick brown hair is cut into a short, flapperlike bob. She’s slender but curvy, with what I would consider an athletic hourglass figure. It looks like the picture was taken on a boat and she’s holding on to a rail, the blue of the ocean behind her. Her smile looks almost devilish.
The next photo is of Travis a
nd this woman together. I can’t tell where they are . . . inside somewhere, perhaps at a convention center or a hotel. Behind them there are people mulling about, but Travis and this woman clearly aren’t concerned with them. She is completely focused on the camera, her head tilted coquettishly to the side and her smile small and seductive. Travis, on the other hand, doesn’t even seem to be aware of the camera. He’s just completely absorbed with her. And the smile on his face . . . It’s so odd. I’ve never seen Travis smile like that. It’s . . . genuine. In this picture Travis actually looks happy. Maybe even . . . joyous? Is that possible? Could Travis be joyous?
I tuck the pictures back into the book and unfold the stationery. It’s a letter:
Dear Travis,
I can’t wait to meet your father. I just know he’s going to love me (doesn’t everyone?). Seriously though, I’ll be on my best behavior. And I love the necklace you gave me! I can’t stop looking at it! Julie says it makes my eyes sparkle. But if your eyes can’t sparkle when you’re wearing hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds then you might as well just give up, right?
But even without the diamonds our last weekend together would have been perfect. You’re the first man who has ever really understood me. And believe me when I tell you, I understand you.
I know how you feel about sentimentality . . . the same way I do. So I’ll skip the really gooey stuff and just say this: You’re going to be bigger than your father. You’re going to take on the world and I’m going to be right by your side taking it on with you. We’ll have the best of everything, but most importantly, we’ll never be alone. You’ll always have a partner in me and I swear on my life, on my father’s grave, I will never hurt you.
I will never leave you.
I love you,
Cathy
I check to see if the letter’s dated. It is . . . it was written about twelve years ago.
