“I’m sorry.”
“What?” I know what he’s said, but can think of no other response.
“I’m sorry.” His voice returns full blast, as though he’d turned the volume dial to the max, unaware that the sound had been on mute. I fight the desire to put my hands over my ears. “I should have told you sooner. Sometimes people have arrangements, and I didn’t want to embarrass you in case you had an agreement.” He clears his throat. “But if you only just found out about Nick . . .”
“David’s not gay.” My voice is too loud. The lights in the coffee shop are blinding. Where’s the exit?
“Well, I suppose it’s a sliding-scale kind of a thing for some people.”
“You must be mistaken.” I realize that Trevor is still holding my hand. I yank it to my chest. “Maybe they were talking close.”
“Liza, I’m pretty certain of what I saw.”
“No.” I stand. “We’re trying for a baby.”
Trevor rises. “I know. That’s why I thought you should be aware of it. If Nick was planning to reveal their relationship and ruin your marriage, maybe David did something to keep him quiet?”
My breaths have become short and raspy. I could be sick, right here on the shiny, stained cement floor of this chichi coffee shop. The bitter smell wafting from my cup is suddenly retch-inducing. I have to go. Now. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Liza. I’m worried for—”
“You’ve read too many suspense novels, Trev,” I say while backing up to the exit. “David’s my husband. He’s not gay. And he’s not a killer.”
Chapter 15
I do not expect to see Jake in the living room. Yet when I walk through our apartment door, there he is, sitting on the couch with his head bowed against his folded hands. Is he saying a prayer for Colleen? Pleading for himself? Asking God to spare me from discovering his actions?
When I enter, he jumps from the couch. His eyes are rimmed with red. “Beth.” He says my name in a breathless fashion. “Can we talk?”
A vindictive voice in my head is dying to repeat, verbatim, his argument to me the prior night: I can’t rearrange my schedule on such short notice. I’ll make it up to you soon. We’ll go out someplace nice. In the meantime, you should get some rest. I mean, Vicky doesn’t let you really sleep. Think of it: without her and me bothering you, you can get a good eight hours for once. Saying any of this, though, would tip my hand. Such snark wouldn’t be warranted for what I’m supposed to believe: Jake cancelled on me last night because of a difficult case. His dinner with a female colleague was a working meeting.
I push Vicky into the room. She stirs in her bassinet as we enter, disturbed by the tense energy in the apartment. I pick her up and hold her to my chest.
“Can you sit down?”
I feign concern as I sink into the couch. Inside, I am dancing a hula to a female empowerment song. Jake is going to admit to the affair! His confession will be a permission slip to do what I please. I’ll be able to kick him out without raising any suspicion about my prior knowledge of his indiscretions. He’s giving me a get-out-of-jail-free card.
I chew my bottom lip as I carefully pull aside the V neck of my dress and place Victoria on my exposed breast. Biting the dead skin from my lips is one of those unconscious acts that I perform when really worked up. Jake should see my telltale signs of stress.
“I need to tell you something.”
Get on with it. I swallow the words. “Honey, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
“The woman the police came about wasn’t just a coworker.” His face reddens as though he’s constipated, straining over the toilet. “I slept with her.”
I admire his tense choice. I slept with her. Not I was sleeping with her, which would indicate that he’d been screwing her up until the time of her apparent death. His phrasing could mean once a long time ago or a thousand times up until the moment she moaned her last. He’s leaving me to guess.
“Are you saying you had an . . .” I trail off as though it’s too difficult for me to verbalize the word “affair.” A couple of weeks ago, it had been.
“I’m sorry, baby.” A tear snakes down his cheek. He leaves it there for me to see, a glistening reminder that he is broken up about his betrayal—now that he has been forced to admit it. “I made a mistake. I was working with her. She came on to me.”
It is not enough for Jake to confess wrongdoing. A true lawyer, he has to outline the mitigating factors. Sure, he’s to blame. But there’s plenty of fault to go around. His affair is the result of the butterfly effect. If pretty women didn’t exist . . . If his mother had not been so permissive during his childhood . . . If he hadn’t been living in New York City, with its nonstop nightlife . . .
“And you’d been spending so much time with the baby.”
Oh, it’s my fault too. Of course. And let’s not forget to blame our infant.
“I was feeling vulnerable and neglected. We hadn’t been together since your last trimester, and then there were the rules about no sex the first month and a half after delivery.”
He looks at me for sympathy, or at least to see whether I am buying any of his excuses. I continue nursing Vicky, relishing the visual of me as the consummate caretaker. The better parent. The better person, for all Jake knows.
“I was weak and I’m so sorry.” He reaches for the hand not holding our baby. I tuck it around Victoria, blocking his view of her little head. His arms retreat to his side. “I want you to know that it wasn’t serious. I didn’t love her or anything like that. I’d planned on ending it before she disappeared. And I had nothing, nothing, to do with whatever happened to her. I saw her the night she went missing, but I came home to you. Something must have happened afterward. I swear. I have no idea what went on. I came home to see you.”
I open my mouth as though crying on mute.
Another stage tear announces itself. “I am so sorry,” he sobs.
Not as sorry as you’re going to be. I look away so he can’t see me not cry. After a minute or two, I sniff and return my attention to his guilty face. “Do the police think you were involved?”
There’s a change in his body language. His posture straightens. Chin lifts. I’ve witnessed this shift before. Exit Jake, the husband. Enter ADA Jacobson, the prosecutor. He clears his throat. “The police are necessarily looking into the timeline of her disappearance, and I’m the last one known to have seen her. But they’ll discover that I didn’t do anything once they figure out when the blood was spilled outside her apartment. People must have seen me come home. Our building has security cameras that would pick me up. I bought a metro card on the way back with my Visa, so there will be evidence of that transaction. They won’t be able to suspect me for long.”
I don’t know how to feel about his CCTV alibi. Part of me wants him to continue sweating it out. Another part of me wants the police looking as far away from Jake and me as possible. “Could you have said something that might have made her hurt herself? Maybe she was distraught. Maybe you said you were going to break things off . . . ?”