The Other Man

by R. K. Lilley

  “Well, hell. I’ll bring the wine.”

  It was a few hours later. I was on my third glass of wine, and I was cooking Danika dinner.

  The unpleasant phone call had gone about how I’d expected.

  “So what do you do now?” Danika was asking me. “What are the particulars of dating a super spy?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. I’ll keep you posted. A lot of going about my life as usual and waiting for him, I suppose.”

  She made a grunt of a noise at that. I looked at her.

  “You think I’m a fool,” I noted. “That I shouldn’t wait for him.”

  She shook her head, eyes widening like I’d misunderstood her. “I didn’t say that. Only you can say if it’s worth it to wait. I’ll tell you one thing I learned the hard way, though. You can’t unlove someone just because you want to. Trust me on this. So if you love him, really love him, then of course it’s worth waiting.”

  “Even years?”

  “Even your whole life. What’s the other option? Settling for Kevin? That wouldn’t work. I had a Kevin once, too, you know, back in the years when I thought that Tristan and I were hopeless. And just like you can’t unlove a person, you can’t make yourself love somebody, either.”

  “So I’m not a total fool for this?”

  “No. Hell no, you’re not. I’ve taken the foolish route, and it involves going against your heart, not following it. You are in love with him, aren’t you?”

  I don’t know how it happened, but I didn’t even have to think about my answer. “I am.”

  “Then no wait is too long, if you ask me.”

  I thought of something, and grinned at her. “God, I’m terrible at casual sex.”

  We both laughed long and hard at that understatement.

  “Join the club,” she told me.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY

  I was freaking the hell out. Straight up tripping.

  I didn’t even know whom to call to talk it out with, girlfriend-wise.

  This was embarrassing and too crazy to be believed.

  It was nothing obvious that tipped me off. That’s why it took me so long to notice that something was different about me.

  It was the smell of pizza that did it.

  It was just a few days after Heath had visited me. My boys were over for dinner.

  It was Gustave’s turn to cook, and he was making his best dish: Margherita pizza.

  I’d taught him the recipe. We all knew it by heart. I could pick out by smell and taste every single ingredient he put into the sauce, but as he cooked it, it smelled off to me.

  Not like anything had gone bad. It wasn’t even necessarily a smell I didn’t like. It was just wrong.

  “What’s that smell?” I asked Raf. We were in the dining room, setting the table.

  “That is the best pizza sauce in the world that you taught us both to memorize at birth,” Raf shot back, grinning at me.

  He didn’t smell it.

  I went into the kitchen, looking over Gustave’s shoulder at the saucepan. “Did you do something different to the sauce?” I asked him.

  He shot me a puzzled look over his shoulder. “Are you kidding? Who messes with perfection?”

  Well, hell.

  Gus didn’t smell it either.

  I tried to ignore it, but ended up thinking about it more and more.

  The smell of a lot of things had changed to me of late. But it took something that familiar, a family recipe, to make me realize that it wasn’t the food that was off.

  It was me. I was changing, and that wasn’t the only change.

  I’d gained a bit of weight, but I’d attributed that to the fact that I’d gone out to eat so much when I’d been dating Kevin.

  And so back to me, freaking the hell out, driving to the store after my sons left, in the middle of the night, to grab a home pregnancy test.

  It’s impossible, I reassured myself, for maybe the thousandth time.

  It’s at least improbable, I tried telling myself when the impossible didn’t work, because it was simply a lie.

  My God, what was I going to do? This was not a problem I should be having at this stage of my life. It was ridiculous. Too silly to give any credence to.

  Dammit.

  I’d always had problems with the pill, and Eduard had gotten a vasectomy after Gustave was born, so it wasn’t something I’d had to worry about for a very long time.

  Until that one night, months ago, when Heath had decided to show up to my house without condoms.

  Dammit.

  I couldn’t believe it. It was too silly. I was too damn old to be dealing with a mistake like this. Okay, making a mistake like this.

  I bought five home pregnancy tests, brought them home, laid them out on my bed, and just stared at them.

  And then I used them each, one by one.

  And just stared at them.

  Five plus signs.

  I was well aware how unlikely it was to get five false positives. The home pregnancy tests were pretty damn accurate these days.

  Even so, I made an appointment with my doctor, taking her first available window.

  But I knew what I needed to know.

  I was pregnant.

  Heath had knocked me up.

  My first reaction, and it lasted a while, was pure shock.

  Heath had left me a number, nothing else, and he’d said very clearly that it was for emergencies only. That’s why I waited until after my doctor’s appointment to call it. I wanted to be absolutely certain before I freaked him the hell out right along with me.

  “Jimmy’s Market,” an unfamiliar male voice answered the phone.

  I thought at first I’d dialed wrong. But I asked anyway. “I need to talk to Heath. It’s an emergency.”

  “No Heath here. Wrong number, lady.”

  His tone was abrasive, but I checked the card, and the number I’d dialed, and they were the same, so I went on. “Tell him Lourdes needs to talk to him,” I tried.

  There was a long silence on the other end, and with a curse, I added, “It’s an emergency, like I said.”

  More silence. I hoped the fucker was taking notes. “Tell him—fuck—tell him I just found out I’m pregnant.”

  I hated doing it like this, but I didn’t know this system they were using, didn’t know if I’d get to talk to him directly at all, and I felt strongly that he needed to be aware that he was going to be a father, the sooner the better.

  The other line went dead. Well, hell.

  What was I supposed to do now?

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  It was a few days later. I still hadn’t told anyone the big news except that stranger over the phone.

  And I had yet to hear from Heath.

  I was just sitting on it. I figured I’d put off telling anyone for as long as I could, but the fact was, this baby was coming in around six months, and I couldn’t hide it for long.

  I was still in the shock phase, and I’d decided to embrace that for a while.

  I was at home, photo-shopping a shoot I’d done recently, trying to distract myself with work.

  My phone rang, and I checked it.

  Unknown caller flashed on my cell.

  Well, hell. I hated answering unknown numbers, but if Heath were going to call, it would likely be from an unknown line just like this.

  I answered.

  “Lourdes,” a familiar voice said on the other end of the line.

  I hung up the phone instantly, cursing at it.

  What was she doing calling me?

  Christie.

  I’d blocked her number ages ago.

  Right after I’d listened to her having sex with my husband.

  My phone started ringing almost instantly.

  The worst ex-best friend in the history of time had the nerve to call me again?

  I ignored the call. When she tried three more times, I turned my cell off. No way. There was no reason on this earth I should
ever have to speak to her again, for any reason. Women like her, the home-wrecking variety, should be shipped off to their own island in the middle of nowhere as far as I was concerned.

  It occurred to me that with my phone off, I might miss a call from Heath, and I switched it back on a few hours later, but it didn’t ring again.

  It was late afternoon and I was just heading out, literally halfway out the door to run errands, bag in hand, when my doorbell rang.

  I wasn’t expecting anyone, but sometimes, even though they had keys, Raf or Gus would ring my doorbell, so I went to answer it.

  I checked the peephole, because if it was solicitors I was damn well going to ignore it.

  It was her. The home-wrecker. Christie. At my house.

  Was she demented, thinking she could come here?

  She should know better. I should never have to look at this woman’s face again. Never have to hear her voice, or breathe the same air.

  Dealing in any way with the bitch who had pretended to be my best friend while she fucked my husband was nothing a woman like me should have to do.

  When I say we’d been best friends, I mean best friends. Get up every morning and call each other friends. Tell each other our deepest darkest fears and secrets friends. And for over a decade, no less.

  I’d never forgive her.

  It wasn’t even that I was still bitter about the divorce. And it sure as hell wasn’t that I wanted my ex-husband back.

  This bitch could have him. Hell, anyone could have him, as long as it wasn’t me.

  It was the betrayal. The kind of betrayal that, to this day, made me feel more alone in the world.

  A woman that could do that to a friend, sneak around behind her back for who knew how long, and still smile to her face.

  My contempt for her would never change. It was that simple.

  I decided pretty quickly that I’d just ignore her. If I opened that door, there’d be some kind of confrontation, and I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she could get under my skin.

  I started to walk away, heading toward my garage.

  Her voice, calling out loud enough to be heard through the thick walls of my house, stopped me cold.

  “Lourdes! It’s about Eduard! He’s been killed!”

  Well, that did it. One second ago I’d have sworn it was impossible, but she’d found a way to get me to talk to her.

  I opened my door, staring at the woman that had tried her best to wreck my home.

  Tried, I told myself, and feeling it ring true. My home without Eduard was still intact. My boys and I were doing just great.

  Still, the bitch had tried, and I’d never forget it.

  I hadn’t seen Christie in about a year, but she looked like she’d aged ten in that time.

  Her blonde hair was stringy with grease, like she hadn’t washed it in days.

  She’d always been a thin woman, but she was emaciated now, the lines around her mouth and eyes starkly accentuated by the weight loss.

  “What did you say?” I asked her, sure I’d heard wrong or misunderstood, and as soon as she cleared this up, I’d be able to shut the door in her face.

  “Eduard. He’s been killed. I’m sorry to tell you that way, but I knew you wouldn’t open the door otherwise, and I’ve been trying to call all day.”

  I studied her some more, trying to process the information, finding it hard to believe, but the signs of grief were evident in her. This wasn’t some strange stunt. She was genuinely distraught.

  The woman I remembered had been very well put together with a consciousness for the way she dressed that bordered on vain. She’d come to my house in sweat pants and a stained tank top. She was a mess.

  My God. Eduard was dead? My mind kept jumping around, to her car at my curb, to the yellow patch in my lawn. Anything normal that did not involve death.

  “How?” I finally asked her.

  She blinked rapidly, and I could see that she was struggling not to weep. “He didn’t come home for a few days, and I was really worried. It’s not like him to disappear for that long. Overnight maybe, but not for more than one night.”

  I’d learned a lot from that little bit. For one thing, they’d been living together. I hadn’t even known, but of course it was salt in the wound that she was likely helping him spend the money he’d gotten out of me in the divorce.

  “Still,” she continued. “I didn’t call the police or anything, even then. I just figured he was off having fun somewhere, and he’d be back, you know, sometime.”

  I didn’t know. Eduard had never done any of his cheating on me out in the open, as he apparently did with her. He’d gone to great pains to hide it well from me.

  If he hadn’t, I’d have kicked him to the curb ages ago.

  I was surprised she seemed accept it, but then, what could she expect when he’d been married at the start of their relationship? Hell, maybe that was what made them compatible.

  “But the police found him before I could call them,” she added tremulously.

  A chill ran through me at those words. That sounded ominous.

  I blew out a breath. God, she had me feeling sorry for her, that’s how pathetic she looked just then.

  “Do you want to come in?” I asked her. This did not seem like a conversation we should be having through an open doorway.

  She shook her head back and forth rapidly. “No.”

  Whatever. I nodded at her to go on.

  “Someone had called in a tip, a tip about a body in a warehouse somewhere near the strip.”

  The word body got to me for some reason. Made it more real.

  Perhaps it was that I was starting to process that Eduard was not a living person anymore, instead he was a body.

  Christie was openly crying now, her whole, frail body trembling with it. “Eduard was murdered, Lourdes.”

  I tensed up. “What?”

  “Murdered! The police said—they said—they said he was evic-er-ated,” she pronounced the word like she’d never said it before in her life. And she probably hadn’t. “They found his body strung up, tied by his wrists. Even they—the police—were shocked by the way he was killed. They said—they asked me if he had any enemies, Lourdes. They asked me if he was gang affiliated.”

  “My God,” I said dully. What else could I say? What did a person say at a time like this? “I’m sorry for your loss,” I added, because it was the only appropriate thing I could come up with.

  At that, her trembling stopped and her eyes hardened.

  She pointed at me. “You know he was about to sue you!”

  And then I saw her game. Why she’d been so determined to tell me herself.

  Goodbye, sympathy. It was real.

  I stood up straighter. She was petite, and I towered over her. “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “You know he was about to sue you, and he—he said you were dating some huge, young, scary guy that kept threatening him.”

  I glared at her. “I was aware Eduard was suing me, thanks for the heads-up, by the way, and I couldn’t have cared less. As you saw in the divorce, I can afford better lawyers than he can. I wasn’t worried. And the only reason my boyfriend ever spoke to Eduard was when he was harassing me.”

  “Where is he? I want to talk to him myself!”

  “He’s out of town. He’s been out of town. And I’m sorry to hear that happened to Eduard, but it had nothing to do with me.”

  She looked unconvinced, to say the least. She was distraught and grief could quickly morph into rage, and she had clearly settled on a target for her misfiring emotions. There was no reasoning with a person in that state.

  “Well, just so you know, I told the cops all about his threats,” she said unevenly. “This isn’t over. Eduard wasn’t in a gang.” She said the last as though I’d been the one to imply such, when I knew as well as her how ridiculous that was.

  “No, he wasn’t. That doesn’t mean his death had anything to do with my boyfriend.�
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  She waved a hand at me like she was trying to bat the words away. “We’ll just see about that, won’t we?”

  “I guess,” I said, my voice as emotionless as hers was emotional. I’d turned off to her. Sympathy, anger, all of it was just gone. I wanted her to leave so I could call my sons about their father. I dreaded that even while I knew I needed to do it before they heard from someone else.

  She turned to leave, thank God, but she hadn’t taken four steps before she whirled, snarling at me, “Also, I tried to tell your sons. They wouldn’t take my calls, either.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” I said coldly. “Did you think they would? I’ll tell them myself.”

  She left.

  I called first Raf, and then Gustave, and asked them both to come over.

  I didn’t want to inform them over the phone that their father was dead.

  Eduard’s death hit me slow and strange, more of a shock than anything. It was tragic, in its way, as all life cut too short is tragic, but it didn’t even feel like a loss to me personally. He’d already been cauterized from my life, and so it was no question that I wouldn’t be missing him.

  But the way he’d died, that affected me, got to me. It was just so awful.

  And the more I thought of it, it struck me.

  Murdered.

  Eviscerated.

  That’s what she’d said. That word, that exact word was already burned into my mind in a traumatizing way.

  Because it was attached to Heath, to that story from his gory past. It was something he’d done to people.

  It couldn’t be such a common thing to do that it would come up again and be mere coincidence, could it?

  But of course it could, and it was, I told myself. Heath hadn’t liked Eduard. Well, okay, he’d pretty much hated him. But he’d had no reason to kill him. And certainly not like that. He’d had no reason to seek him out at all.

  I kept telling myself that, but I would have felt so much better if I could have had just one short conversation with Heath.

  More than anything, even Heath’s violent past, I worried about how Eduard’s death affected my sons.