by Shari Lapena
Instead of answering, she says, “Tell me, who insures a young wife for that amount of money?”
He protests, furiously. “We were expecting a baby. My dad was in insurance. He always said a young family should have life insurance.”
“Right.”
He tries to calm himself, regain control. “Look, if you’re telling the truth about this kid, I’ll figure something out.” He gives her a hard look and says, “But stay away from my wife.”
She doesn’t answer. She gets up off the bench, turns her back on him, and walks away.
He watches her go, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He realizes that he’s between a rock and a hard place, and Erica has put him there.
15
The twins are still down for their nap, and Stephanie lies in bed in the darkened room. Even though she’s bone tired, she doesn’t fall asleep. Her mind is racing. She sees the photographs in her mind’s eye—the car almost buried in snow; the smiling, dark-haired young woman; her husband’s younger, anguished self. All of this happened a long time ago, but it’s all new to her. It’s been there, on the internet, all this time. It’s been in her husband’s mind—I still think about it, about what happened, every day—and she hadn’t known. It makes her wonder what else she hasn’t known about him.
She’d never pressed him on the subject of the death of his first wife. She knew there had been an accident—he’d told her that she’d died in a car accident—but nothing more. She sensed that he didn’t want to talk about it and she let it be. He would tell her when he was ready.
He’d never told her he’d cheated on his first wife. Why would he? She knows so little about his life before. What had that marriage been like? Should she ask him? She has become very curious now about this earlier marriage. Does it presage anything? Will he be unfaithful to her?
She thinks about Erica in the park that morning—how attractive she was, how lovely she must have been when Patrick slept with her. Suddenly she wishes she’d known that the woman talking to her near the sandbox was Erica, her husband’s one-time lover. She might have asked her questions. This woman knows things about her husband that she doesn’t know.
She’s angry at Patrick for bringing this on them. He never should have cheated on his first wife. Then they wouldn’t be in this awful position. Who knows what lies Erica will tell? In today’s climate, people seem willing to believe just about anything—the more outrageous the lie the more gullible people seem to be.
She turns over in bed, feeling ill. The media would love a story like this. An extramarital affair, a possible murder disguised as an accident, blackmail . . . they’d never be left alone. Even after it was proven, again, to be an accident, the taint would remain. Everyone would know that her husband had cheated on his first wife, and how his first wife had died. Their daughters would grow up being the daughters of that man, the one made infamous in the news.
She’s going to have a hard time forgiving her husband for sleeping with another woman while he was married to his first wife. She has never felt resentment toward her husband before—she’s never had reason. She knows that resentment can poison, even destroy, a marriage. She doesn’t want that to happen to her. She tells herself that it was a long time ago. He’s not going to cheat on her; he wouldn’t dare. After all, she’s the one with the money.
* * *
• • •
NIALL CLOSES THE DOOR to his office and pulls out his cell phone to call Erica. It’s been two days since their tryst at the hotel together, and he can’t get her out of his mind. He’s eager to see her again.
“Hello, Niall,” Erica says.
Just hearing her sexy voice gives him a jolt of pleasure. He smiles into the phone. “I need to see you,” he says, his voice low. “But—somewhere more private.”
“You could come to my place, if you don’t mind the drive,” she suggests.
“I don’t mind at all,” he says, and takes down her address. They arrange a time for after work that day and then he disconnects, takes a deep breath, and calls his wife. “Hi, honey,” he says.
“Hi, what’s up?”
“I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to visit a job site after work—problems to deal with.”
“Oh.” He can hear the disappointment in her voice. It’s Friday, the one night she can usually count on him coming home from work at a reasonable hour. “How late will you be?” Nancy asks.
“I’m not sure—a couple of hours probably. Depends on how it goes.”
* * *
• • •
WHEN PATRICK ARRIVES HOME from work that evening, distressed and exhausted, his wife meets him with anxious eyes, one baby in the playpen, one in her arms.
“Hey,” she says, worry etched on her tired face, Jackie grabbing at her hair.
Should he tell Stephanie about this possible child of Erica’s? She might be bluffing; it might not be true at all. He takes the baby from Stephanie, gives them each a kiss. He knows Stephanie wants to go to the police, especially after what happened this morning in the park. But if Erica has a child by him, it will look bad, no matter what he says. He won’t be able to deny he slept with her. He doesn’t want to go to the police, not now.
He needs time to look into things himself—maybe it isn’t even possible for her to have the accident investigation reopened. Maybe they’re all empty threats, and this frantic worry is for nothing. Maybe there is no child. But how is he to find out? He would be an utter fool to submit to a paternity test if Erica asks for one—because what if she’s right?
Stephanie takes Emma out of the playpen and they slump together onto the sofa, a baby on each lap.
“Any news?” Stephanie asks anxiously.
Patrick shakes his head, avoiding her eyes by playing peekaboo with Jackie. He doesn’t want to tell her what Erica said to him in the park.
“I think we should go to the police,” Stephanie says tentatively.
“No,” Patrick says, not looking at her. “Not yet. I think she’s bluffing. I don’t want to piss her off. Maybe she’ll just go away.”
“Look at me, Patrick,” Stephanie says. He finally turns toward her. Her eyes are worried. “I don’t think she’s going to just go away. You told her we wouldn’t pay her. Do you think she’ll really go to the police in Colorado?” Her voice is anxious.
“I don’t know, Stephanie.” He’s exhausted. He lets his head fall back against the sofa and closes his eyes.
“You slept with her,” Stephanie persists. “She can exaggerate about that, tell all kinds of lies about the two of you, about your relationship with your first wife. She can make up anything she wants.”
He feels a trickle of sweat starting along his back, between his shoulder blades.
“Did anyone else know—that you slept with her?” she asks.
He lifts his head from the back of the sofa and opens his eyes. He shakes his head. “No.” He can’t bring himself to tell her about the possible child, not until he’s sure the kid exists. He tells himself that Erica is lying, and he almost believes it.
“Was—was your first marriage a good one?” she asks.
She’s questioning him, as if she might not believe him, as if she doubts.
He leans in closer to her. “Stephanie, yes, I loved her. We argued a little, but only because we were young, and trying to get by on very little money. It was tragic what happened to her.” His voice takes on even more urgency. “You must stay away from Erica, Stephanie. She’s a liar, she’s vindictive, and she’s very clever.”
“I know. That’s what I’m afraid of,” Stephanie says anxiously. “If it’s her against you, who will people believe?”
* * *
• • •
NANCY RATTLES AROUND THE HOUSE, keeping an eye on the Tesla app. At five o’clock, she sees that the car is moving. It’s a little blue dot on a map
on her phone screen. She sits anxiously on the couch in the living room and watches the blue dot as if she’s watching her life fall apart. Maybe he really is going to a job site. It occurs to her that she should find out where they all are. There can’t be that many—why hasn’t she paid attention?
She watches the dot turn onto the highway, toward Newburgh. She certainly doesn’t know of any work Niall is doing out that way. She decides to drop Henry off at her mother’s, making the excuse that Niall has asked her to join him for a last-minute dinner with clients.
She gathers up Henry and a few toys and tells him he’s going to visit Grandma. Once she’s dropped him off, she gets back in her car and looks at the app on her phone. The car has stopped now. The address is 884 Division Street.
She can follow him wherever he goes without being seen, which is rather convenient. She puts the address into her GPS, and after twenty-five minutes arrives at a low-rise apartment building. Job site, my ass, she thinks. How will she know which apartment it is?
She parks across the street and gets out of her car. As she walks toward the building, she sees her husband’s shiny Tesla in the parking lot. The bastard.
She walks up to his beloved car. The urge to deface it is overwhelming. There’s no one around. She could key it; he’d never know it was her. Maybe if she defaced his car every time he came here, he’d stop coming.
She pushes the driver’s seat handle and opens the door; the key card in her wallet unlocks the car and lets her in automatically—she doesn’t even have to take it out of her purse. She sits in the driver’s seat for a moment; she’s so upset her breathing is fast and shallow. The car has automatically turned itself on. She stares at the computer screen for a minute and then hits the Navigate button. That pulls up a screen that shows the addresses he’s recently entered into his GPS. Oh, look, he’s put in the address—and the apartment number—of his new lover. Good to know. Apartment 107. She uses her cell phone to take a photo of the address on his monitor.
She gets out of the car and slams the door. She takes a picture of his car in the parking lot, with the building in the background. Then she enters the apartment building—where her cheating husband is sleeping with another woman while she’s down here at the locked doors—and searches the directory. There it is—number 107, E. Voss.
Well, at least now she knows. She uses her phone to take some pictures of the directory too.
What now? Does she stay here and face him when he comes out? Create a scene? Does she wait in his car? Wouldn’t it be fun to see his face when he comes out to his car and finds her sitting in the passenger seat? Or should she stay out of sight and wait for him to leave, and then buzz this E. Voss? Get a look at her?
She can’t decide. Finally she gets back into her own car, fighting back tears. She’d told her mother she might be late. She decides she doesn’t want to be home when her husband gets back; she needs to calm down. Instead, she drives back to Aylesford and goes to a movie.
She’s alone in a movie theater on a Friday night. In the darkness of the theater, she discreetly wipes her tears away with a tissue and keeps an eye on the app. Soon she sees the little blue dot coming back down the highway. She watches it arrive at their home and stop.
You bastard, Nancy thinks.
She sends him a text.
I’m at the movies with a friend. I’ll pick up Henry from my mother’s when I’m done.
16
That night, as they try to soothe the babies, Patrick’s mind is working overtime; he needs to know what he’s up against. He needs to find out the truth.
He walks blearily around the living room, a crying infant in his arms. He and Stephanie have given up trying to be heard above the noise; besides, they are all talked out. Now it’s as if they are both existing within their own cones of misery.
Patrick thinks back to those early days in Colorado, when he was newly married. Lindsey was pregnant; they had moved to the little bedroom community of Creemore for him to take an internship in Denver. There he’d met Greg Miller, who was also interning at Wright & Fraser Architects. They worked, socialized, drank together. Erica and Lindsey had become good friends, having met at a photography class, although initially one might think they had little in common. Lindsey was pregnant, putting most of her energy into preparing for the baby, homesick for Grand Junction. Erica was working part time at a pharmacy and pining for something more.
For Patrick, it was all about keeping his head above water. He was in his first real job, trying to support a wife and expecting a new baby too. Adjusting to life, wondering what the future held. He hadn’t planned on marrying and having a family so young. And then one night Erica started looking at him across the table at the bar, and his eyes wandered, and his thoughts, and he’d betrayed Lindsey.
And now he was paying the price.
He’s lost touch with Greg. They’d worked together day in and day out, but were not so close that he’d told him about sleeping with Erica. He’s glad about that now. Patrick wonders, as he tries to comfort little Jackie, red-faced and squalling, if he should get in touch with Greg. He’s already looked him up; he knows Greg now lives in Denver, and has found out where he works, and has located a home number. Should he talk to Greg? Would he know if Erica has a son? Should he tell Greg what Erica is doing? Or should he hire a private investigator? He’s already tried to find Erica on Facebook but there was no sign of her.
How would Greg react to what Erica’s doing? Surely he would be appalled. He would be on Patrick’s side. Greg had been very supportive after the accident. Greg was the first person he’d called, after 911. . . . Maybe the fewer people who know about this the better. Patrick mulls over the decision for hours. By the time he surrenders the babies to Stephanie and his head hits the pillow, despite his reservations he’s decided to call Greg.
* * *
• • •
STEPHANIE SITS ON the sofa with the twins as she feeds them; they will go down soon, and she will be able to go to bed. She’s so tired. It’s affecting her ability to think, to cope with even the littlest things. She remembers her visit to the pediatrician. . . . Was it only a few days ago? And now . . . how the hell is she supposed to cope with these revelations about her husband’s past, and this woman who’s threatening them?
Her thoughts are anxious, confused. She can tell that her husband is afraid of Erica. And he’s more afraid of her today than he was yesterday, she can tell that too. But what’s changed? Is it because Erica was there, at the sandbox? In the drugstore? Or is there something he isn’t telling her?
He’d told her his first marriage was good.
But then why was he sleeping with his wife’s best friend?
* * *
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING is Saturday—usually their favorite day of the week. Patrick makes pancakes and they laze around together with the twins like they usually do, but this Saturday feels entirely different from the Saturday before. So much has changed since Erica showed up at his office last Monday.
Midmorning, when the twins go down for a short nap, Stephanie tells him she’s going out to run a quick errand and Patrick closes himself in the upstairs office. He opens his laptop. The house is quiet. Should he call his old friend Greg? Or send an email?
He decides it would be better to talk to him. Finally, he dials Greg’s home number and waits for the call to connect.
“Hello,” a voice says, and even over the line, and despite the years, Patrick recognizes it immediately. It gives him a start, just how familiar it sounds. They could be in Colorado again, on the phone; it’s as if almost ten years have fallen away. Suddenly he’s feeling all sorts of emotions that he’d long buried. He’s waited too long to speak, so long that Greg repeats, “Hello?”
“Greg,” Patrick says, trying to sound relaxed and comfortable, “it’s Patrick Kilgour.” He waits for the reaction. The pause on t
he other end indicates surprise, certainly. But of course he would be surprised, Patrick calling out of the blue like this.
“Patrick! Holy shit! It’s been ages!”
Patrick is relieved to hear genuine pleasure in his old friend’s voice. . . . What had he been expecting? The truth is, he hadn’t been sure. He’d wondered if Erica had been in touch with him, after everything that had happened. Or perhaps more recently. “I know, it’s been a long time. How have you been?”
“I’ve been all right. How about you—I saw you started your own company a few years back. Business good?”
“Can’t complain,” Patrick says. “How’s the family?” He’s done his research—Greg is married now, with a little boy and little girl.
“They’re grand, really good. You?”
“Married, four-month-old twins.”
“Twins! God. What’s that like?”
“Oh, you know. Hell.” They both laugh.
“Are you coming to Denver?” Greg asks next.
Patrick feels an immediate alarm. Why would Greg think he’s coming to Denver? “No, why?”
“Just—figured that’s why you called me up.”
“No, I have no plans to come to Denver,” Patrick says. “But you never know,” he adds.
“So what’s up? I mean, it’s nice to hear from you, but what can I do for you?”
Patrick’s hand is clammy on the phone. His gaze flits automatically to his office door, which is firmly closed. Should he confide in Greg? He’d always trusted him; there was never any subterfuge about him, any hidden agenda. When he takes the plunge, it feels like he’s jumping off a cliff into water far below. “You remember Erica?”
A wary pause. “Yes, of course.” Greg doesn’t say anything else.
Patrick tenses. What does Greg know? “Are you in touch with her?”
