UNAWARE: A Suspense Novel

by Susan P. Baker

  He ran back into the bedroom and was pulling on his jeans when someone rapped on the door. Hollering for her to wait, Sellers put on a tee shirt and some tennis shoes, combed his hair, and yanked the door open.

  A jolt hit him like a smack in the face.

  Martin stood there, looking like he was itching for a fight. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. Patches of sweat marred the underarms of a gray muscle shirt. No question Martin wanted him to see the size of his biceps.

  Sellers backed up a step.

  “You ready, Fella?” Martin clenched and unclenched his fists.

  Sellers forced a smile, acting like Martin’s unexpected appearance didn’t faze him. He was one man Sellers didn’t want to tackle from the front.

  “Hey, Martin.” He held out his hand. “What’cha know good?”

  Martin looked down at Sellers’ hand, back at his face, and then into the house. “You got her stuff ready?”

  Sellers dropped his hand. The son-of-a-bitch wasn’t even going to attempt to be friendly. “Yeah, but she can come in and look around. She can have anything else in the place she wants.”

  Martin pointed at Sellers’ chest. “You wait here.” He took the stairs down two at a time.

  Sellers shut the door. He wanted to hit something. Breathing deeply to calm himself, he went into the kitchen to start coffee. He couldn’t follow her home if Martin was with her. Martin was no dummy.

  There was another knock. Sellers resumed his smile and took another lengthy breath before opening the door, his shaking hands down at his sides. “Hi, Gin,” he said when he saw her framed in the doorway, her long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. She’d gotten fat. She wore a tee shirt stretched over her jeans, her moving clothes, but it didn’t hide her muffin top.

  “Hi,” Ginny said, her eyes looking past him into the apartment.

  “Come on in and look around. I’ve boxed up a bunch of stuff, but whatever else you want, it’s yours. I’m making coffee, want some?” She looked pretty good, even if she had put on the weight. He didn’t want to run her down even in his mind. He wanted one last piece of her.

  “No, thanks.” Ginny brushed past him, careful not to let their bodies touch. He caught a whiff of her flowery perfume.

  Martin stood in the doorway.

  “You want a cup of coffee?”

  “No, I just want to get this over with. Sis, check those boxes first. When you get through, look around and see if there’s anything else you want while I’m putting them in the truck.”

  “Okay.” Ginny crouched down, examining the boxes in the pile next to the TV.

  Sellers forced a smile. “So how you been?”

  Martin looked sideways at him, a scowl on his face.

  “So I’m going to get some coffee,” Sellers said, his neck feeling warm. “Sure you don’t want some?”

  “Look, Fella,” Martin said, his eyes like slits, “we’re not friends, okay? I don’t want your stinking coffee. I’m getting my sister in and out of here, that’s all.”

  “Okay. Okay. Just trying to be sociable.” Sellers backed into the kitchen. He would be cool. He poured himself a cup and sat at the table.

  “This box can go down,” Ginny said, showing the top one to Martin. Opening the second one, she glanced at the books inside and then closed it again. “And this one.”

  Martin stacked them and carried them out. Ginny checked the others. Sellers watched her but said nothing.

  “Take these, Martin,” she said when her brother appeared again. “I’ll look around for a few other things.” She disappeared into the bedroom. Sellers sipped his coffee and continued to sit at the same place.

  A few minutes later, Ginny came out with an armful of sheets, pillowcases, and towels. “This is half the linens, okay? I counted them out.”

  “Fine. Whatever you want.”

  She looked at her brother. “Get some empty boxes out of the truck, will you?” She dumped the linens on the sofa.

  Martin glared at Sellers before he went out again as if he expected Sellers to do something each time he was gone loading the truck.

  Sellers watched Ginny as she looked into the kitchen cabinets. He continued to sip his coffee. Memories flooded him. It would be a shame to waste her, but she couldn’t get away with treating him like a dog.

  “Can I have this set of glassware?”

  He glanced at her face. Her blue eyes flickered around the room like a fly, not resting for very long in one place. He liked seeing she was still afraid of him.

  “Which set?” He couldn’t see from where he sat. He stood to see what she was talking about just as Martin returned.

  “What are you doing?” Martin bellowed, dropping the empty boxes and coming at him.

  Sellers shrank back. “Nothing, Man.”

  Ginny got between them. “I was just asking him about a set of glassware. He wasn’t doing anything.” She pushed her brother back, separating the two men.

  “Are you sure?” Martin glared over her head.

  “Go sit,” Ginny said. “It’s okay. Alan doesn’t mean me any harm,” she said turning to Alan. “Do you?”

  “No, Man. I wasn’t doing anything.” He backed up to his chair at the end of the table. Fire raged inside him. His brain screamed harsh words. In spite of Martin’s leg injury, his very size alone had always left Sellers feeling defenseless.

  “Just so you know,” Martin pointed his finger at him. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you for one minute alone with my sister.” He moved into the living room.

  Sellers’ hands went up in front of himself, as if to show he wouldn’t touch anything. “I was just going to see what glasses she was talking about. Shit. I wasn’t going to hurt her.”

  “I don’t like you using that kind of language around her either,” Martin said, looking like a thunder cloud.

  “You two stop it.” Ginny cried, looking from one to the other. “Stop it right now. I just want to get my stuff. Stop it, Martin. Sit down.”

  “Just so he understands what I’m going to do to him if he ever lays a hand on you.”

  “He knows that,” Ginny said. “Please, go sit in the living room.”

  Martin glowered in Sellers’ direction one more time as he pushed the linens aside and sat on the couch.

  Ginny turned to Alan and shrugged. “I’m sorry it had to be like this.”

  Sellers looked into the other room at Martin. He was almost afraid to say anything to her. There wasn’t a damn thing he’d do around Martin. That was for sure. But when he did what he was going to do, Martin wouldn’t ever be able to prove it was him. He’d make sure of that. He shrugged back at her, glad she couldn’t read his mind. He could barely contain the frustration and anger boiling inside of him.

  “Come over here, and tell me what I can have out of this cabinet,” she whispered.

  Sellers got back out of his chair, cast a glance at Martin, and crossed to the kitchen cabinet. There were two complete sets of glasses and a lot of mismatched ones they had somehow accumulated during their short time together.

  “Take whatever you want,” he said, friendly as could be.

  “I want to be fair about it.”

  “Then just take half of everything, like you did the sheets. I don’t care,” he said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Thanks for being a good sport.” Her smile reminded him of how young she was. She was such a little girl. Still a bitch, though.

  “Yeah ... you bring some newspaper or something to wrap this stuff in? I’ll help you.” He had to hurry up and get them out of there before he did something he’d regret. He couldn’t take much more of her fake friendliness.

  When the boxes were all stacked up, Ginny asked Martin to load them into the truck. While he was gone, she said to Sellers, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us.”

  Sellers leaned against the doorjamb and star
ed outside. He didn’t think she should get all that stuff since she had taken his money out of that account. He wasn’t going to need it where he was going, though, and he didn’t want to listen to her try to sweet-talk him. He just wanted her to get the hell away from him and take her brother with her. He had to concentrate on remaining calm when what he wanted was to reach out and punch her in that baby face. He reached out and gripped the doorknob instead, his knuckles turning white.

  “Did you ever go to counseling?”

  “Didn’t see any need to.” He couldn’t look at her.

  She put her hands in her pockets, her small breasts jutting out. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure, why shouldn’t I be?”

  She rubbed her forearms. “No reason, I guess.”

  “You going to call your lawyer on Monday and give her the go-ahead on the paperwork?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “When?”

  “If she can get it done, probably early in the week. I want Martin to look over the decree with me.”

  That son of a bitch Martin was going to ruin his plans again. “And the divorce?”

  “Probably Thursday or Friday morning if she can do it then.”

  “Well, if you look over the papers on Monday or Tuesday, I’ll go in on Wednesday and sign them so I don’t have to go to court.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her.”

  “Anything else I need to do?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “I guess not.” She looked out at Martin who stood next to the truck. “See you.”

  Sellers stared after them and breathed a long sigh of relief when they pulled away. He ambled down to the Firebird and pulled his notepad from the glove box where he’d stashed it when he found out Ginny would be coming that morning. He flipped through the pages until he came to the timetable he’d made. He crossed off the line that read “Delivery of Property.” He made an adjustment to the date he would follow her home.

  “What are you looking at?” he said to Miss Bitch who lived downstairs and stood watching him from her doorway.

  She slammed her door.

  He slipped the notebook into his back pocket and climbed back up the stairs to his apartment. Now that Ginny had gotten what she wanted, he would pack up the rest. Before long, he’d be pulling up stakes and moving on. He slammed the front door as hard as he could when he got inside, hoping Miss Bitch would be annoyed. He felt a little better.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  DENA

  “I’m ready to get divorced,” Ginny told Dena Monday afternoon when she phoned.

  The call was a welcome break. Dena had been researching a legal point for another case. Her aching neck told her she’d been hunched over the computer for too long. “You got everything you wanted out of the apartment?” She picked up a pen and started doodling on her desk pad.

  “Everything I wanted that was still there.” Ginny giggled. “I’m so excited to be getting this over with. Print out the decree and get me divorced before he changes his mind.”

  Hard to believe Alan Sellers let Ginny just waltz in there and take whatever she wanted. His behavior didn’t pass the sniff test. “Don’t you think it’s weird he was actually home when you went this weekend?”

  “Can you believe it?”

  “No,” Dena said. She drew a stick figure with horns on her pad. “He didn’t try anything?”

  “He didn’t give me any trouble. He just let me come in and pick out what I wanted.”

  “Anyone go with you?”

  “Martin, why?”

  “Why, that explains it. What could he do with Martin there?”

  “I don’t think he would have done anything to me anyway. He acted almost like he did when we first met and was really rather sweet,” Ginny said, her voice sounding tearful.

  Ginny was so naïve. No wonder Martin worried about her. “You said almost.”

  “He was distant. Like he was hurt, you know? But he didn’t act at all like he did on the phone those times. He even tried to shake Martin’s hand when we first got there.”

  “What do you mean tried?”

  “Martin hates him. He wouldn’t touch him. But that’s Martin, he never forgives and forgets.” Ginny made a smacking sound, like she was chewing gum.

  “I can’t say as I blame him. He feels responsible for you.”

  “I know, but he can be so hateful when it’s not necessary. And suspicious, even over little things.”

  “Humpf. Beating you up was not a little thing. I would think you’d be at least a little bit suspicious, yourself.”

  Ginny didn’t respond for several moments. Finally, she said, “But if he really has a girlfriend then it makes sense. It’s been two months since all this started. I just think he’s tired of playing games.”

  Dena scratched her head with the pen. She knew she had been too trusting of people in the past, too, but it only took a little experience in family law to open her eyes. The world was full of devious people, and Alan Sellers was one of them.

  “You want to know what he told me?”

  “When he called you? What?” There was a hopeful tone in Ginny’s voice.

  “That he might get married again real soon.” Dena stuck the pen behind her ear and turned back to her computer. She hit print and sent the information she’d found to the printer.

  “Oh?” Was that regret in her voice?

  “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

  “I guess not, not really. Whoever the girl is, she can have him.”

  “Did you see any signs of a woman staying there?”

  “I wasn’t looking for any,” Ginny said.

  “What about perfume or makeup on the dresser or in the bathroom?”

  “I didn’t see any. Not even mine that I didn’t take.”

  “You see why I don’t believe him?”

  “He did tell me in a phone call once that a girl was staying there or spending the night or something,” Ginny said.

  “Then there should have been evidence of it.”

  “Well, I don’t know if there was anything around or not. I really just wanted to get my stuff and leave. Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.”

  Annoyance tugged at Dena. “I’m just saying—”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Armstrong. Martin has already lectured me on not going anywhere at night and looking over my shoulder every time I go outside.”

  Dena pulled her calendar up on her computer to see when she could get Ginny in to look over the decree. “How about you come on Wednesday to review the decree?”

  “That would be okay. Martin wants to come with me.”

  Dena wouldn’t mind seeing Martin, herself. There was something reassuring about him. “How about three o’clock?”

  “Too late. Did he tell you he’s back out on the streets again? He’s on three to eleven.”

  Why did Ginny think Martin would have told her that? She looked at her calendar. She could bring her lunch that day and see them earlier. “How about one?”

  “Okay. Then will you call Alan to come in and sign it on Thursday, so he won’t have to go to court on Friday?”

  Dena clicked on Thursday on the calendar. “I can’t. I’ll be in court all day. I’m afraid he’ll have to come in on Friday, and we’ll have to get you divorced on Monday. I’m sorry.”

  “I guess that’ll be okay.” Ginny sounded disappointed.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Dena thought there must be something going on they hadn’t told her about. “Is there something going on next Monday? Can you get off work? If not, we can do it later next week.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “What, then?”

  “I think Alan had something he wanted to do, and I told him I thought I’d go to court on Friday.”

  “I just don’t see how I can do it any sooner. I could see you after five on Tuesday if you could come without Mar
tin, and then him on Wednesday, but I really don’t want to.” She leaned her elbow on the desk, her cheek on her hand. She didn’t want to stay late that week with Zack going out of town on Friday. Things had been going pretty smoothly, and she should be home in the evenings as much as possible.

  “He’ll just have to tough it out.” Ginny was back to giggling. “Serves him right for being such a meanie in the beginning.”

  “Who cares what Alan Sellers wants anyway? Listen, I need to go…”

  “Okay. I’ll call Martin and tell him when we have to be there, and we’ll see you Wednesday at one.”

  After they disconnected, Dena pulled Ginny’s file and took it to Meredith, who had her face right up next to the computer screen, her stringy hair hanging down like a veil. The ashtray was out of the desk drawer and on the desk, a burning cigarette sitting in it. Dena coughed. She wished she could hold her breath, but she had to have a conversation with the secretary. She wasn’t even going to complain about what Meredith was doing. It was only a matter of time now before she opened her own office and wouldn’t have to deal with Meredith anymore. “Good news.”

  Meredith slung her arm over the back of her chair and pushed her hair behind her ears. “I could use some good news the way this day is going.” She stubbed out her cigarette and took the file from Dena.

  Dena waved the smoke away. “Well, this will brighten your day. You can print out the Sellers’ decree. Ginny’s coming to review it on Wednesday afternoon.”

  “Terrific,” Meredith said. “I’m jumping for joy.”

  “What’s the matter? I thought you’d be happy. Alan Sellers will be out of our hair after Friday,” Dena said.

  “I am. I am, except I have to assemble it all over again. Doesn’t matter. I’ll do it gladly.”

  “I thought it was all ready.”

  “I was working on it when Mr. Barlow came back here this morning to get my scissors and tripped over all the wires.” She looked at the tangle of plugs and extension cords on the floor. “He knocked my coffee over and while we were trying to get everything dried off and straightened out, the computer came unplugged, and I hadn’t saved it, so I have to start all over again.”