A Margin of Lust

by Greta Boris

  "Sondra's murderer is long gone. Have you forgotten the killing in Newport and the one in Huntington?" Gwen stopped pacing and faced him. "I know I've been the one terrified he'd show up again, but I was wrong. You were right. A cockroach infestation doesn't sound like the work of a homicidal maniac. These crimes, or pranks, whatever you want to call them, are motivated by greed. I'm telling you, it's John. The last thing this place needs is more bad press. If we call the police we're playing right into his hands."

  Lance didn't say anything but the set of his jaw hardened, and he crossed his arms over his chest. Gwen lowered her voice. "You have to admit; I was right about one thing. When you thought all this was just a series of unfortunate events, I said someone was behind it."

  Lance gave her an almost imperceptible nod. "You were right about that."

  "Then think this through with me." She held up a hand and ticked off her arguments on her fingers. "John has information the general public isn't privy too. He has motive and opportunity. He was here this morning, wandering around the house by himself."

  "How did he get the cat into the house without our seeing him?"

  "You put a lockbox on Friday night. He even asked me about it at the office that day. He could have planted the cat in the closet, then pulled it out this morning when no one was around."

  "We can check with the security company. See if he's used his key since the box has been on."

  "I'll do it on Monday, but meanwhile, let's not call the police. At least, not yet. If John didn't enter the house last night, I'll call Investigator Sylla. Okay?"

  Lance inhaled and exhaled slowly. "All right. I guess we can wait a day or two. But, as far as motive goes, I still say it's a crapshoot whether John would get the listing or not. I mean, Fiona could decide to pull the house off the market, or give the listing to a friend or relative who just got a license. Anything could happen."

  "True. But John can't stand you. I think he'd be happy just to take the listing away from you even if he didn't get it. It's a no-lose situation for him."

  Lance picked up the bucket. "Supposing you're right. It's John. What's the plan? We can't confront him. We have no proof."

  Gwen followed him into the hallway and down the stairs. "Well, for one thing, we don't cancel the open house."

  "The only sign I took down was the one out front. I could put it up again."

  "We don't tell anyone. We act like nothing happened."

  "That would piss him off." She could hear the smile in Lance's voice. "What do we do about Bob and Betty?"

  "Let me handle them," Gwen said.

  Lance headed outside to clean the bucket, and Gwen went in search of the neighbors. She found them in the dining room. Bob sat in a chair and Betty stood, a wine glass in each of her hands. "You must be feeling better," she said when she saw Gwen.

  "I am, thanks." Gwen took one of the glasses from her. "Can we talk?"

  Betty sat across from her husband and folded her hands on the table like a schoolgirl waiting for instruction.

  "I'm so sorry you were exposed to this. I feel responsible." Gwen held up a hand when they began to protest.

  "How could you be responsible?" Bob said. "This was obviously the work of a reprehensible deviant. The price of the homes may make this neighborhood exclusive to live in, but you don't have to present a credit statement to visit. There is constant coming and going of all sorts, scuba divers in the mornings, beach bums and tourists all afternoon. I have to tell you; I've been thinking about selling. Moving to a gated community."

  A small smile tickled at the corner of Gwen's mouth. It would be a wonderful irony if all of John's efforts to steal this listing from her and Lance resulted in their acquiring another one. "If you're thinking about selling, you'll understand when I ask you to please keep what happened here today quiet. For Fiona's sake."

  "Fiona?" Bob repeated the name.

  "Ed's daughter," Betty said. "I assume she owns the property now."

  "Yes," Gwen said. "She was very shaken by the death that occurred in the house. She might be afraid this incident was directed at her in some way. I don't think it was. I think your assessment of the situation is the correct one. It was a random act by a transient, or some kid taking a dare. But it might be hard to convince her of that."

  "I'd hate to upset her, but..." Betty let her words trail off.

  "Plus, you know how people are," Gwen said. "If word got around about this, it could affect the sale of the house. Actually, it could affect values in the whole neighborhood, your house even. Nobody wants to spend several million on a home and then have to worry about vandals."

  Bob and Betty looked across the table at each other, communicating without words the way people who've been married for many years do sometimes. The way Gwen and Art had done until recently. Seeming to come to an agreement, they rose as one.

  "I believe you're right," Bob said. "It's not like there's a crime wave on Cliff Drive. No need to involve the police, or the gossips."

  "Exactly," Gwen said. "Now, you have my card, right? I'd love to help you if you decide to relocate."

  By the time Bob and Betty from-three-doors-down left the premises, Gwen had them securely in her camp.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Art stopped by the hospital on his way to work Monday morning. Brian had woken up, but was still groggy and slept a lot. He was sleeping now, and no one else was in his room. Art offered up a small prayer, and crept out.

  On the way out of the hospital, he ran into Mike McKibben.

  "He awake?" Mike asked.

  "Not yet," Art said.

  Mike looked relieved. "I'd better get up there. I'm late. Olivia had to go back to work. The family has been taking turns sitting with him." He headed toward the elevators.

  "Wait, Mike. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

  They walked out of the main lobby into the smaller waiting room they'd been in the other day.

  "I want to do something for Brian, for Olivia. Something practical. What does she need? I can't get anything out of her."

  Art couldn't explain why it was so important for him to have a task. Maybe he was reaching for control. Maybe he needed a string of Hail Marys to assuage his guilt.

  "Moral support. That's probably what she needs most," Mike said.

  "I have to do more. Please."

  Mike must have heard the desperation in Art's voice. "Well, she'd kill me if she knew I told you, but she might be getting kicked out of her apartment."

  "Why?"

  "She was already behind on her rent, and the doctor bills are starting to come in. I have some money. I was going to put the rest on my credit card this month, but I can't keep that up."

  "Done." Relief rolled over Art. "How much?"

  "Eight hundred would really help."

  A small penance. Art checked his watch. He could make it to the bank, pull the money out of savings, drop it by and still get to the Monday morning board meeting on time.

  Twelve minutes later, he emerged from the elevator on the fifth floor of Mission Hospital. He almost jogged down the corridor to Brian's room. Mike sat in the only chair.

  "This is great," Mike said. "I appreciate it."

  Art handed him an envelope. "If she needs anything else, more money, anything, let me know."

  Mike waved him away. "This is a loan. One of us will repay it."

  "Not necessary," Art said.

  "It is. Now get out of here. Get to work."

  Art left the hospital feeling better than he had since the accident.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The familiar scent of cinnamon and allspice overwhelmed the smell of toner. Gwen knew Lance was behind her before she heard his voice or felt his hand on her back. She hadn't seen him since Sunday. He'd taken off yesterday, and she didn't blame him. With all the repairs he'd had to do, he'd worked the better part of five days and nights in a row. The rhythmic drone of the copy machine stopped.

  "Hey there," he said. "I didn't
want to startle you."

  "Hey there yourself." She lifted her four-color fliers from the tray and examined them.

  "What're you doing?"

  "Baking brownies."

  "I have good news." Lance's breath grazed the back of her neck.

  She scooted away and turned to face him. "You do?"

  "We have an offer."

  "What? Already?"

  "Remember that couple from L.A.? The ones you thought looked like aging drug dealers."

  "The guy in leather and the woman in black?"

  "The same. The offer came in this morning. It's low. We're going to have to negotiate and it might not fly but, hey, not bad for only having the place available for a couple of days. Especially under the circumstances."

  "The lockbox company sent me an email. A bunch of agents have been through the house."

  "Lots of action since Sunday?" Lance grinned. The look on his face reminded her of Jason when he beat a level of Dragon Quest.

  Gwen set her fliers on a table and leaned toward him. "John Gordon was one of them."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Yeah. He was in Saturday night." Gwen lowered her voice. "He could've planted the cat."

  "I'm still struggling with that whole idea. It's hard to believe he'd stoop that low."

  "Why was he in the house the night before the open house then?"

  Lance shrugged. "He wanted to see it before everyone else did?"

  "He's been acting funny for the past two days."

  "Funny how?"

  "Funny, guilty funny. He asked me how the open house went."

  Lance hunched his shoulders and brought his face closer to hers. "Caroline and Eric asked me how the open house went too. I think they're in cahoots. A conspiracy. Or, would it be a coup? Is it a coup when you're being deposed?"

  Gwen slapped his shoulder. "Oh shut up. You're making fun of me."

  "Listen, I think Bob and Betty had the most logical explanation. Everybody knows there was a murder in the house. Some whacko from the neighborhood either made a lucky guess about where the body was found or has a friend on the police force. It was a prank. A very mean prank."

  "Really?" Gwen folded her arms across her chest. "When did they plant the cat then? I was there all morning, and you said yourself it wasn't there when you went upstairs with the flowers."

  "The door was wide open. Someone must have walked in while you were in the kitchen."

  Gwen didn't answer. That explanation didn't cover the cockroaches or the rat, neither of which she was willing to chalk up to coincidence. "If you're right we should take some security measures."

  "Like what?" Lance pushed her fliers aside and sat on the copy room table.

  "Motion sensitive lights. An alarm system."

  "We can't put in an alarm system. We have a lockbox on the front door."

  "We can. We just set the alarm to go off between the hours of midnight and five. We can do it remotely." Gwen sat up late the night before comparing the perks and prices of home security companies.

  "Is there anything left in the budget for all this?"

  "Not much."

  "If we ask Fiona for more we'll have to tell her what happened."

  "Right, but if we clean out what's left in the account and each throw in five hundred dollars, we can do it."

  "You think it's going to do any good? If there's a lockbox on the property, agents can get in whenever they want."

  "Not without our knowing about it, and not in the middle of the night. Besides, I thought you didn't think an agent was our problem."

  He tipped his head in concession. "I guess it couldn't hurt. We don't want a repeat of last weekend."

  After Lance left, Gwen went to her desk and pulled her laptop out of her briefcase. She and Art had an agreement. They would discuss any purchases over two hundred dollars before making them. But right now she rebelled at the thought of asking him for money. She would make more on this one deal than Art made in a year. She wasn't a child.

  If Gwen had learned one thing from watching her mother's life, it was that she needed to be able to take care of herself, retain some measure of autonomy. Her mom had once been a beautiful, intelligent woman. She could have done anything she chose with her life, and she chose to be a wife and a mother. She excelled at it. No one could out bake her at church bake sales. She was the class mom, Brownie leader, and in charge of fundraising for Gwen's soccer team.

  She made all the costumes for the school plays and designed picture perfect holidays. Their home could have graced the pages of Red Book, or Better Homes and Gardens. The birthday parties she threw were the envy of the neighborhood.

  When Gwen's father left, her mother had to sell the house she loved and move into a small, sterile apartment. Gwen's father did his duty by her, as he’d promised. She received an alimony check each month that covered her basic expenses and occasionally a little extra.

  She tried to find work for a while, but no one was interested in hiring a forty-year-old woman who hadn't held a job since she was twenty-two. There were no sections on applications for killer banana bread recipes, or elaborate Juliet costumes. Gin became her comfort and then her executioner.

  One day in Gwen's senior year of high school, she came home and found her mother passed out on the couch. After that, Gwen watched as she disappeared into the bottle's black hole a piece at a time. She died ten years later of a stroke.

  Gwen opened her computer and logged into her bank page. She scrolled until she found the savings account she and Art had created for emergencies. In her mind, this qualified.

  Last time she looked, there had been about thirty-five hundred dollars in there. The balance at the top of the page now showed only two-thousand-six-hundred, and change. Strange. She was sure there had been over three thousand. She scanned the list of credits and debits. Her eyes stopped on an eight hundred dollar withdrawal. It was made that Monday.

  It took several moments for her brain to compute the implications. Art had taken eight hundred dollars out of their account. He hadn't said a word.

  She sat still in her chair, staring at the screen. She reached for her phone and began to punch in his number, but instead of hitting call, she hit cancel. She needed to think this through.

  If she asked Art about the money, he'd know she was looking at the account. He'd wonder why. She hadn't told him about the dead cat, and she wasn't planning to. Why would she? He'd just get angry with her for putting the house on the market all over again. He'd want her to give the listing to Lance and stay home.

  Her cell phone dinged. She opened her text messages. Funny timing. It was Art. "Can you take Friday off? Want to leave early for Big Bear."

  Could he have spent the money on this trip? No. Camping didn't cost eight hundred dollars.

  Maybe he was going to take her away as a surprise—the camping trip a ruse? He'd done that before. Once he'd told her they were going to his parents for the weekend then spirited her away after they dropped off the kids. Another time he told her to get ready for a picnic on the beach. The beach turned out to be the one in front of their hotel room at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego.

  But he'd put a hotel on a credit card. He wouldn't pay cash. Lorelei. The name flitted through her mind. He wouldn't use a credit card if he bought a gift for Lorelei. It would be impossible to hide the purchase of, say, an eight-hundred-dollar necklace from a jewelry store.

  Suddenly she didn't want to know where the money went. If it wasn't returned in a month or two, or if any more disappeared from the account, she'd ask him then. She prayed silently her fears were unfounded, that this mystery would have an innocent answer.

  She picked up her phone and typed, "Fine." Then she clicked open the bank's transfer form, found the correct savings account number, and transferred five hundred dollars into her personal checking account. Done. If he noticed, he couldn't very well ask her about it. Not without telling her what his withdrawal was for.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
/>   I sat in my car in front of the house on Cliff Drive with my windows rolled down and waited for dark. A strong breeze blew off the ocean, and the palm trees at the end of the block bent toward the hills. The neighborhood was solid and established. I liked the stable, old-money feel of the place. So many Orange County homes are like much of the state's fruit—over-sized and absolutely tasteless.

  There was a picture of Gwen on the house flier. She really was a lovely woman. I've always been attracted to redheads. Fiona is a redhead.

  I bumped into my sister by accident one day. I knew it was she even though I'd only seen her from a distance. Her photo was in the local society section of the paper when her engagement was announced. She, of course, didn't notice me.

  She was coming out of a department store in Fashion Island loaded down with bags—probably shopping for her upcoming nuptials. The date was drawing close. I had the reaction most people have when they see a celebrity. I stopped and stared, then doubted my eyes. It was difficult to believe we were occupying the same few feet of space. We lived in such different worlds.

  She, the beloved. I, the rejected. She, a part of my father's household. I, thrown off his property. She was the north pole of a magnet and I, the south. When I found myself in her field, the pull was irresistible.

  I followed her past a fountain, down a row of boutiques, and into a coffee shop. I slipped behind her in line and inhaled her expensive perfume. I listened to the lilt of her voice and felt the warmth of the smile she bestowed on the barista. She was so confident, so happy. A diamond—three and a half or four carats—sparkled on her left hand. It was beautiful. She was beautiful.

  I fell under her spell that day. I couldn't get her out of my mind. At first, I only followed her on social media. I attended her wedding on Instagram, then her honeymoon. When the flurry of photos subsided, I began to follow her car.

  I trailed her from the dance school where she worked to her house. Once I knew where she lived, I would show up on the street whenever I could. In this way, I learned where she shopped, worked, ate, and played. On five different occasions, I drove behind her to our father's house in Laguna Beach.