“Maybe the Jäger was telling you something.”
Telling me to leave my husband? Not likely. I shook my head. “No. I just . . .” I thought of Taylor Fortwood. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d chosen a different path in life.”
One without a husband and child. God, the words were so horrible. Could he hear me thinking them? I reached out and grabbed his arm, hoping to distract him from the last thing I’d said. “Tell me I’m crazy, please.”
“You’re not crazy.” He leaned forward and gave me the same slightly crooked grin that had carried me through the last five years. “You’re normal. I know you don’t want to hear it, Lill, but you’re one hundred percent normal.”
I returned his smile, but inside, a part of me cracked in dismay. Normal. How incredibly boring.
CHAPTER 9
LILLIAN
@themysteryofdeath: A wealthy woman, an anxiety-ridden teen, and an elderly man get stuck in an elevator together. Three months later, one of them will be dead. Who will die?
I parted ways with Sam at six thirty, avoided most of the traffic, and was at home by seven, in my pajamas by eight. Mike was working late, and Jacob was parked with his homework at the dining room table. I poured a glass of wine and escaped into the cramped utility room that housed our washer and dryer.
We’d purchased this house during the market crash, when Jacob was a toddler and Mike had an insurance settlement check from a car accident that had permanently damaged the sight in his right eye. Over the last fifteen years, we’d renovated the kitchen and master suite. This room was next on the to-do list—only we’d been saying that for six years, and I was still using a shuddering old machine and stacking clothes on a rusty hot-water heater.
Taking a generous sip of wine, I checked my tweet, curious whether anyone would get the sly reference to a Saturday Night Live skit that Nora Price had been in three months ago. So far, it was going completely over their heads.
I raised the washer lid and pulled clothes from the hamper, checking pockets and then pushing them into the opening. My yoga pants went in, followed by two golf shirts, Mike’s pajama pants, and some underwear. As I went through the pockets of his khaki pants, I tried to justify the business card that I’d withdrawn from the back pocket of my pale-blue skinny jeans just fifteen minutes ago, before I put them in this basket. David Laurent’s card, which he had passed on “just in case” I ever needed anything.
I had accepted it out of sheer politeness, planning to toss it into the trash as soon as I got out of eyeshot. Except that I hadn’t.
It wasn’t too late. Right now, I could go upstairs, withdraw it from the pajama drawer I had hidden it in, and throw it away.
In the front pockets of Mike’s khakis, I found a five-dollar bill, a receipt, and some change. Dropping the collection on top of the dryer, I tossed the pants into the washer and dug deeper into the basket.
The next pair of pants had nothing, and I pushed them in, then unscrewed the top of the detergent bottle. Pouring in the measured amount, I thought of the obituary I would be writing for Nora Price if my prior station in life were restored.
The comedian deserved something witty, a sharp dissection of the life of a sister, daughter, and Saturday Night Live regular. It needed to be both celebratory and mourning, a mini-memoir of her journey and the funny and influential moments that had marked her forty-nine years.
Whatever. I shouldn’t care. It was out of my hands, and the obit was no doubt assigned to Janice, who would craft the important tribute with the care and skill of a toddler with a fat scented marker.
I added a capful of softener, then dropped the lid closed. As I turned to leave, my gaze caught on the crumpled receipt next to the five-dollar bill, both still sitting on top of the dryer.
Gain access to his bank records, phone records, and find a way to track his movements.
I had made it to chapter 3 of the book, which focused on how to properly spy on your spouse. While it all seemed fairly obvious, most of the suggestions were impossible for me. I had spent our eighteen-year marriage oblivious to everything Mike did. He had his bank accounts; I had mine. He had a company cell phone; Jacob and I shared a family plan. I had tried, unsuccessfully, to log in to his bank account using our anniversary, his common pass codes, and the last four of his social but crapped out. What I did have was our joint credit card statements, but those had been pristine.
I grabbed the receipt and uncrumpled it, both hopeful and fearful that it would incriminate him in some way.
It was from a steak house in Malibu. Two filets mignons. One bottle of wine. Dessert. I sucked in a breath at the dollar amount at the bottom of the receipt. We hadn’t spent that much on dinner in years. Only on special occasions, if that. Mike was tightfisted, and I was always happy with a salad and a glass of house wine. I checked the date. Tuesday night, at 7:32 p.m. I fished my cell phone from the pocket of my flannel pajama pants and did an internet search for the restaurant. It was small and upscale, with views of the ocean and attached to a boutique hotel. The exterior view of the hotel was familiar to me—I’d passed it whenever I felt like driving the forty-five minutes to Sam’s ritzy area of town.
I closed the browser and opened my text messages, scrolling back in my history with Mike until I got to Tuesday night.
Two texts. One at 6:22 p.m.
Won’t be home until late. Client dinner.
Typical. I opened the second, two hours later.
Have to stay the night. Clients want to show me the project in the morning. Will call you tomorrow when I’m on the road back. Make sure Jacob studies for his econ test.
Oh, that’s right. Mike had been in San Diego that day. I had spoken to him around lunchtime. He’d been meeting with bankers on an apartment-complex purchase. When he’d texted me about staying the night, I had wondered, for a flash of a second, whether he’d go out for a late-night drink.
This was so much worse.
I stared at the receipt, which proved that he hadn’t been in San Diego at all. He’d been right here in LA. Just twelve miles away, with two different texts showing his thought processes. First—making plans for a late night, wife-free. And then, just after dinner—the decision to stay away all night. Who was she? How had she convinced my husband to spend an entire night with her?
Or maybe he—my meticulous planner of a husband—had been the instigator, the aggressor, the seducer.
I gripped the edge of the washing machine and felt my stomach heave. This was, I reminded myself, not the first clue. After all, just earlier this week, in the grocery store, Heather had told me about his trip to Santa Barbara. I had known, then, just like with the clues here and there, that it had probably been another woman, and here was another domino, set in a line, next to the others.
Nothing to freak out about. My shrink, the one I’d fired after the restraining order was issued, floated through my subconscious, her voice soothing and melodic. Nothing to freak out about, Lillian. Let’s just take a breath. A deep, deep breath.
The expensive e-book was unnecessary. I knew what this was. It was time for me to stop making excuses and giving him the benefit of the doubt. I had married a cheater, and the chances were, he was lying to me tonight. Working late. He was probably with her now.
God, my mother could never find out. She’d be giddy at this news. She had never liked Mike and always preached about the impossibility of male monogamy. Maybe, in this one thin section of life, she was right.