*****
Gary called home as he stood in the hallway leading to the restaurant men’s room. His buyer waited at their dinner table, with the Dover sole and Brussels sprouts. Gary tried to remember how many client dinners he had sprung for, enthused over, gushed during, and then rolled his eyes about afterward. That probably wouldn’t change in New Zealand.
The buyer was not a bad sort. He was smart and he’d probably get along great with Maggie. Or was Gary just trying to allay any guilt feelings over selling before Maggie had a chance to disagree? He listened to his home phone ring a half a dozen times before she finally picked up. By then he had worked up a mild annoyance. Give me a break. How long does it take to wander into the kitchen from the TV room?
“Hello?”
Instantly, he knew something was wrong. Her voice was withered yet controlled. In a rush, all his terrors of the last six months came roaring back in living color to slam into his face.
“What’s wrong?” He clutched his chest and felt his breathing coming in short, labored pants.
“Oh, Gary—” The fear in her voice slithered across the line and wrapped its cold tendrils around his neck.
He could hear her begin to cry—as if the sound of his voice was the only catalyst she’d been vulnerable to.
“Darla,” he said hoarsely.
And then another voice came on the line. A voice that would awaken him time and time again for years to come in a screaming sweat from the deepest of sleeps, the sweetest of dreams. A voice he would remember until the day he died.
“It’s me, darling,” the voice hissed. “I’m here with wifey.”
Gary was speechless. He tried to imagine the scene. Patti at his house, Darla hysterical... “What’s going on, Patti?” he asked evenly, hoping he didn’t sound as out of control as he felt.
“I’m taking care of business, lover.”
“Patti, what are you doing at my house?”
“Don’t worry, darling, I told you—”
“Patti, let me speak to my wife.”
“Your wife? Your wife?” Her voice came across the wire like serpents writhing across dried leaves. “You can forget your wife, Gary. She’s deadsville, okay? She’s terminated, okay?”
My God, my God, my God...Gary felt his mind unraveling.
“I did little Deirdre too, or hadn’t you figured that out? Maybe I overestimated you, Gary. I’m doing it for you, you bastard! Do you hear me? I did ‘em all for you!”
Gary saw his buyer rise from his chair and look in Gary’s direction. Gary turned his back. “My God, Patti. What are you saying? You couldn’t have—”
“Couldn’t have what? Killed someone for you? How about two someones? How about going on three someones?”
“Patti, don’t...don’t hurt Darla. If you care...” His mind raced. How fast could he get the cops there? Could he some how keep her on the phone while he called them?
“The bitch is as good as dead, okay? So forget that. What I want to talk about now is the kid.”
Haley.
“You call the police or screw things up in any way and I’ll kill her, too. Do you understand?”
“Let me speak to Darla, Patti...please.” He felt tears spill out over his lashes and he felt so weak. So powerless.
“Behave yourself and it’ll be the three of us. I’ll be Haley’s new mama. Screw me over, Gary, and I’ll strangle her right now with her own Winnie-the-Pooh bathrobe belt.”
He heard her small, guttural laugh, and he thought he would lose his mind. “Patti, please don’t hurt my wife and daughter. I am begging you.”
“Here. Say goodbye to your first wife.”
He heard Patti laugh again and then a small, muffled voice came on the line. “Gary?” Darla sounded so afraid and helpless.
“Sweetheart, be brave. Keep her busy until I—”
“Until you what, asshole?” Patti’s strident shriek was back on the line. “I told you! The bitch is history. Your only hope is for the kid now, understand? Do you fucking understand me?”
“Yes,” he said, swallowing hard. “Yes, Patti, I do.”
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 50
