Is this the beginning of the end of my marriage? I wonder. I don’t want it to be. I love my husband and it’s hard to fathom he would cheat on me. But then I lay it all out in my mind: Guy regularly employed a sexy, provocative caterer; he used her at our house once without telling me; he had a drink with her and confessed only after it became clear I might find out because of the police investigation; he called her frequently and sent her a sexually suggestive text.
Despite Guy’s protestations to the contrary, it all feels horribly fishy. And the text can only mean one of two things: that my husband is the type of guy who thinks nothing of sending a professional contact a message like that, or he sent it to a woman he hoped to sleep with or had already. I don’t know either of those men.
That could be the real reason he tried to find another caterer for the night of our dinner. Once he’d begun a relationship—or a flirtation—he didn’t want her under the same roof with me. No wonder he was annoyed when I went charging down to Eve’s office the day after the dinner party. If they were screwing each other, the last thing he needed was for me to confront her. That comment she made comes to mind again. Why don’t you ask your husband? Was she toying with me, daring me to discover the truth?
And maybe, I realize with a start, it was Eve, after all, who took the cash and left the money. She’d have known about the car crash from Guy. If she saw me as competition, she might have taken special pleasure in fucking with my head.
Outside the car, the breeze sends a McDonald’s bag skidding across the windshield, startling me. My eyes prick with tears. Tears of both anger and despair. A month ago I moved here to be closer to Guy, to de-stress, and to help myself heal both physically and mentally from the accident. Instead, I’ve got cops hounding me for answers I don’t have, and I’ve just sent my husband packing.
What if I pulled out of the parking lot and kept driving all the way to New York? I could be back in my lovely apartment, close to all my old friends. But if I flee town, that’s only going to ratchet up the police’s interest in Guy and, in turn, me. To protect my possibly unfaithful husband, I’m going to have to park my butt in town.
What I need, I realize, is guidance from Dr. G, and I need it before our next session. I send her an email, asking for an emergency appointment.
Finally, when enough time has passed for Guy to have collected what he needs from the house, I return home. I hurry up the stairs to the second floor and tentatively open the door of the closet in the master bedroom. Part of me prays that Guy’s clothes—the crisp dress shirts and beautiful dark suits—will still be hanging there, that I’ve imagined this whole horrible thing, but many of them are gone. So is everything from the top of his desk in the spare room.
Back downstairs, I try to distract myself in my office. I check email. There’s a slew of messages, many from my assistant, eager for yeses and noes, and I send off a few responses. To my annoyance, I see there’s still nothing from Casey spelling out a strategy for how to deal with Stephanie Dunham. Despite how preoccupied I am with both Guy and the murder, I’m intent on quelling Stephanie’s concerns, and I shoot an email to Casey urging her to get back to me.
I turn to the book proposal next. To my surprise, I dash off four more pages, working at an almost manic pace. After weeks and weeks of lethargy this sudden burst of energy seems bizarre, but right now I’m totally grateful for it.
Without warning, the room dims. I realize that the sun has finally sunk from the sky. I rise from my desk and cross the hall to the kitchen. It’s dark in there, too, and I quickly snap on the overhead lights. As I glance toward the stove, an image comes to me, unbidden. Eve swirling oil in a saucepan. And then Eve on the floor of her office, an ax protruding from her face. I squeeze my eyes tight, trying to force it away.
I slosh wine into a glass and, taking it with me, move through the house, flicking on lights as I go. With so many empty rooms, the place seems desolate. When I first saw the house, I wondered why Guy had rented something this large for the two of us but quickly told myself that his goal had been to make the summer special. But the house feels overwhelming now.
I unlock the door to the screened porch and step out there, switching on one of the table lamps. My nostrils fill with the now familiar scent of honeysuckle, and from just off in the distance, I hear the neighbor’s dog bark angrily and then abruptly stop. I glance at the daybed where I’ve spent so many hours.
Did Guy even want me here? Perhaps my suggestion that I move to Saratoga for the summer inadvertently foiled his plan to spend more time in bed with the buttery-blond chef.
She was killed in a rage, I think, and not, as it turns out, by one of the waiters. Probably by someone who’d been seething with jealousy or unrequited lust. Involuntarily, I press my hand to my lips as an idea registers. If Guy was sleeping with Eve, that puts the two of us in the orbit of her killer. It’s possible that the murderer was a former lover of Eve’s—or even a current one—who found out about Guy or even saw them together. Eve might have been killed because of Guy. The killer might want Guy next. Or even me.