by Sandra Balzo
Now Rachel was missing. And she was pregnant. The pregnancy added a whole new dimension to what was already a bad situation.
There had been a rash of similar stories in the news over the last couple of years. Young wife goes missing – young pregnant wife – leaving behind a frantic husband. A husband who later turns out to have murdered his ‘beloved’ spouse.
According to Amy, fount of all knowledge, homicide is one of the leading causes of death for pregnant women in the US. She said as many as twenty percent of the women who die in pregnancy being murder victims. Staggering
I looked at Ted crouched on the floor, clumsily trying to pick up the broken pieces of cup. ChiChi wanted in on the action and Ted kept moving the dog aside.
Could this man have hurt his pregnant wife?
I didn’t know. But what I did know was that he was cheating on her. And had been cheating on me, maybe with more than one woman. I had gone years without knowing. Without even suspecting.
‘You’re going to get those teensy-weensy feet of yours cut, if you don’t watch out,’ Ted was saying gently to the dog.
ChiChi stuck out his little pink tongue and licked Ted on the nose.
Could dogs tell the good guys from the bad?
I hoped so, because I’d sure as hell proved that I couldn’t.
Calling to Ted that he should let me know when he heard something, I snuck a peek out the front door. The media was still there, but at least they were following Pavlik’s orders to stay off the property. I slipped out the door and made a dash for the Escape.
I wasn’t fooling anyone. By the time I got to the SUV, the video cameras were up and focused and the still cameras had joined them and were snapping wildly. I started the Escape and put it in reverse, backing carefully down the driveway so as not to hit either the swarming reporters or the Miata parked in the driveway.
The Miata triggered a memory. Ted and I had gone out immediately and bought a minivan when we found out I was pregnant. It had seemed urgent, like the seven-pound baby couldn’t possibly fit in our Alliance Hatchback on the way home from the hospital.
Yesterday afternoon, Rachel had been driving a new, super-sized SUV, not a pretty little sports car like the Miata. I should have tipped to it. By now SUVs probably had edged out minivans as the most popular family vehicles. I was willing to bet the Escalade was a recent purchase in preparation for the baby.
I backed out onto the street, ignoring the shouted questions as the reporters rallied ‘round the car. I put the Escape in drive and moved forward steadily. As I did, I saw my Jimmy Choo reporter, now wearing both shoes, put a hand on her camera operator’s arm to move him aside as I passed.
‘The bitch will run you over,’ I heard her say, even with my windows rolled up tight.
Damn right.
The sea of reporters parted in front of me. Despite what my mom told me in high school, having a bad reputation could be a very good thing.
I drove a couple of blocks away, parked the car and sat.
So Rachel was going to have a baby.
I’d always been good at guessing that a friend was pregnant before she announced it, but this one had gotten right past me.
Rachel had been pretty shrewd yesterday afternoon, if you thought about it. When I’d offered her a drink, she’d asked for a mimosa. If Ted had told her anything about our wedding, Rachel knew that I can’t – or perhaps, shouldn’t – drink champagne.
Given that, a request for a mimosa in my house would be a pretty low percentage bet. Add the fact you also need a caffeine-free beverage like orange juice to mix with it and the chances are slim to none.
Then Rachel had asked for white Zinfandel, the ‘starter wine’ that she would rightly figure the ‘starter wife’, who thought she knew something about wine, would look down her nose at.
I’d messed her up on that one, though, with my faux white Zin. She’d barely taken a sip, though – that I’d noticed. And she could very well have faked even that.
Rachel didn’t want me to know she was pregnant. Why?
The most obvious reason was that it was none of my business. Admittedly, though, my calendars were none of her business and that didn’t seem to bother her much.
Then again, Rachel might have been being sensitive to my feelings, thinking I would be upset at the thought of Ted starting another family. Still, a baby on the way would have strengthened her argument for the calendars. I was surprised she hadn’t used it to get my sympathy.
I was probably over-thinking this. Maybe Rachel didn’t feel like she was far enough along to tell people. I’d certainly seen no sign of a baby bump and a lot of expectant women don’t announce their pregnancy until after the first trimester, when the greatest chance of miscarriage is past.
A baby.
It was true that Ted hadn’t wanted another child. Eric was enough he had said.
And he was. In fact, during the eighteen months the colicky baby hadn’t slept through the night, not even once, Eric had been more than enough for both of us to handle. Having barely survived that period and a full time job, I had been OK with calling it a day, conceptually-speaking.
But Rachel was young. It would make sense that she’d want a family. But had Ted? I didn’t have a clue.
I started the car and pulled away from the curb.
From Wildwood, I turned north on to Poplar Creek Drive, which, as you might guess, parallels Poplar Creek. The creek runs north and south through Brookhills County.
Ted and Rachel’s neighborhood, Wildwood Highlands, is the newest, most expensive development in the area. It’s on the far south end of Poplar Creek Drive – so far that half the subdivision isn’t even in the town proper, though still in Brookhills County. That fact had caused some magnificent arguments at the town hall and the courthouse over things like sewer and water, trash collection, school districts and, of course, taxes.
Big houses, big taxes – what town wouldn’t want a piece of that? Brookhills certainly did, which is why there was talk of annexing the land and making it part of the town.
From Wildwood, the neighborhoods got less contentious and pretentious as you worked your way upstream. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but if you wanted people to know how much money you had, you headed downstream.
Me? I was upstream, pretty much as far as you could go. Even the salmon would have a hard time getting there. And if they did, they probably wouldn’t stay to spawn.
Which made it all the more curious that Sarah Kingston, the most unpretentious of Brookhillians, lived just one step down – or in this case, upstream – from Ted and Rachel.
Sarah lived in fashionable Brookhills Estates with her two teenage charges, Sam and Courtney. When Patricia Harper, our former partner in Uncommon Grounds, had died last year, Sarah had stepped in as the kids’ guardian. It had shocked all of us, but Sam and Courtney seemed to like it just fine. So did Sarah, though she didn’t often admit it.
As I approached the entrance to Brookhills Estates, I made a quick decision and turned in. It was eleven a.m. on a Sunday. Maybe I’d find Sarah at home before she left to do an open house, or whatever real estate people had to do on Sunday afternoons.
Thing was, I didn’t want to go home. My only other choice besides Sarah’s house was Uncommon Grounds, where I’d be arriving right in time for the after-church crush. No, best to brave Sarah in the morning than the God-fearing in search of caffeine.
Sarah’s house was a Painted Lady, a beautiful Victorian-style home painted in delicate shades of cream and rose. It’s about as unSarah-like as anything you could imagine.
But then, Sarah had always been full of surprises and one of those surprises was walking out the front door.
Sarah. In a tennis skirt.
I gasped.
Sarah dropped her racket and her bag. ‘Jesus, Maggy, you scared me. What’s wrong with you?’
‘What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?’
I’d never seen Sarah in a s
kirt. Or a dress. In fact, if I was put on the witness stand, I couldn’t even swear she had legs. I’d never actually seen them.
And, yet, here Sarah was, going off to play tennis like a regular Brookhills Barbie.
‘You’re playing tennis,’ I accused her.
‘No shit, Sherlock.’ Sarah reached down to retrieve her racket. ‘No wonder that sheriff keeps you around, if you’re this good at deducing things. Which reminds me, has he de-dooed you, yet?’
‘None of your business,’ I said automatically. I was still trying to get used to the new anatomically correct Sarah. Who knew she actually had a waist and a pair of sturdy legs under the baggy pants outfits she’d been wearing.
But Sarah was looking me over as closely as I was examining her. ‘You did. You had sex with Pavlik.’
I started to deny it, but why? God knows how long it would be before I had another chance at locker room bravado now that I was old enough to be a grandmother. ‘Maybe.’
Sarah cackled and suddenly she seemed like her old self, despite the tennis togs. ‘Well it’s damn well time.’ She tucked her racket in the tennis bag and slung the bag over her shoulder. ‘I want to hear everything, but I’m meeting Emma for tennis at eleven thirty.’
Emma. Ted’s ex-classmate and current running partner. Sarah’s dentist and fitness guru. And perhaps the ‘trios’ in Ted and Rachel’s ‘ménage’?
‘Really? Can I come along?’
Sarah looked startled. ‘You want to watch me play tennis?’
‘Of course. It’s a beautiful spring day . . .’ I paused to make sure, since I hadn’t paid much attention up to now. Sure enough – sun shining, birds singing. ‘I’d love to see you play.’
Sarah just looked at me.
‘And support you,’ I added.
Still nothing.
‘In your fitness efforts,’ I concluded.
She put down her tennis bag and folded her arms.
‘OK, OK,’ I said, holding my hands up in surrender. My God, the woman was a bully.
I ticked things off on my fingers as I went.
‘One: my ex-husband’s new wife, Rachel, caught him cheating.
‘Two: she came to me yesterday afternoon for my help in proving Ted was cheating on her when he was married to me.
‘Three: I finally agreed and we went to meet her good-looking brother.
‘Four: Rachel went to a meeting and never came home last night.
‘Five: Pavlik was called away from my house before we had breakfast.
‘Six: Ted telephoned and asked me to come over.
‘Seven: I was stupid and agreed.
‘Eight: Pavlik arrived and found me there.
‘Nine: and promptly announced that Rachel is pregnant.’
I held up my hands with nine fingers extended. ‘Oh, and ten –’ I unfolded the thumb – ‘I want to come with you because I think your tennis partner may be the other woman.’
Sarah shrugged. ‘Good enough.’ She picked up her bag and signaled for me to follow.
Chapter Seven
It was a huge relief to unload on Sarah.
Usually, I don’t like to tell people my bad news. I’d like to say that I wanted to spare them, but the truth is I’m sparing myself. Saying something – especially something bad – makes it real to me.
In this case, laying it all out in shorthand form to Sarah had made it real, but it also made it seem less like a nightmare, which I guess is the same thing. Real life we can deal with. Nightmares, well, we just hope to wake up.
The other problem with sharing things is that it subjects me to people’s opinions, which I mostly don’t want to hear. Unless they agree with mine.
Sarah, even in tennis togs, is totally insensitive, relentlessly honest and unnervingly free with her opinions. What makes her different than most people is that she really doesn’t give a shit whether you take her advice.
‘I can’t do that,’ I protested.
‘Suit yourself.’
We had arrived at the tennis court and Sarah was busy unpacking her bag. Water bottle. Can of balls. Towel. Sunscreen. Sunglasses. Sweatband.
‘It’s just that with his sister missing and all . . .’
‘Listen,’ Sarah said, popping open the can of balls. ‘You want to know what, if anything, Stephen Slattery told Pavlik. So ask Slattery.’
‘But he’s―’
‘Hot,’ Sarah supplied. ‘Which is why you’re afraid to approach him. It has nothing to do with your being considerate.’
I think I resented that. ‘I feel like it would be going behind Pavlik’s back.’
Sarah was squeezing a ball now, like she could tell if it was good. Everything I believed in would be destroyed if she actually could. ‘Fine. So when Pavlik asks, tell him exactly what Rachel told you.’
‘That Ted is a no-good cheating bastard and she was trying to uncover evidence that proved it so she could divorce him and he’d get nothing from her rich family?’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’ Sarah gave up with the squeezing and started with the bouncing.
I grabbed the ball. ‘But I was married to Ted for nearly twenty years. I’ve talked to Rachel a grand total of an hour in my lifetime. I’m going to take her word against Ted’s?’
‘Ted’s word?’ Sarah laughed. ‘How can you say that with a straight face? He lied to you and cheated on you. That’s why you divorced him, remember?’
What I remembered was Ted asking me for a divorce, so he could marry Rachel. I hadn’t had a whole lot of say in the matter.
‘You would have divorced him, you know.’ It was like Sarah could read my mind sometimes. ‘If he hadn’t gotten out first, you would have kicked him out for fooling around.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But if he’d confessed to the affair and promised it wouldn’t happen again?’ I shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
Sarah took the ball out of my hand. ‘I know. You’re not that stupid.’
At least one of us knew that.
‘Thanks.’ I lowered my voice because a figure was walking toward us from the parking lot. I assumed it was Emma. ‘But if you dislike Ted so much, why do you go running with him?’
‘I run with Emma.’ Sarah nodded toward the attractive dark-haired woman approaching us. ‘Ted comes along, that’s fine. I don’t have to like people or trust them to associate with them. I’m a real estate agent, for God’s sake,’ she hissed as she turned to greet Emma.
Even close up, Emma Byrne was still as attractive as I’d remembered. Jet black hair, now shot with some gray. Dark blue eyes and an athletic body. She was just the woman Ted would choose to fool around with, if he didn’t have a blonde-haired version at home, nearly twenty years younger.
‘Maggy Thorsen,’ Emma said, setting down her bag and sticking out her hand. ‘It’s been a long time. It’s great to see you.’
‘Same here, Emma.’ I pointed at Sarah, who had already moved away from us and was on the court. ‘I understand you’re the one to thank for the new Sarah.’
‘She’s still the same old Sarah, I think. Snarls at me no-end when I call her to run or play tennis. I have to give her credit, though, she’s keeping it up.’ She cocked her head. ‘You’re looking good yourself. I understand you and the sheriff are an item.’
I smiled. ‘I try to stay in shape.’
It was true. I did try. Just didn’t succeed as much as I’d like.
Emma grinned. ‘Not going to answer about the sheriff, huh? I don’t blame you.’ She pulled her racket out of her bag and pounded the strings against the palm of her hand. ‘I’d keep him to myself, too.’
With that, she went to meet Sarah on the court. Me, I sat back to watch, not feeling nearly as old as I had an hour ago.
Sarah and Emma played two sets, with Emma winning both of them. Sarah did really well, though I did wonder whether Emma was taking it a bit easy on her.
‘Do you play?’ Emma asked when they were done.
‘I did in college,’ I admitted. �
��But I haven’t picked up a racket in about twenty years.’
‘It’s like riding a bike,’ Emma said. ‘Call me sometime.’
‘I will. Or why don’t you stop by the coffeehouse when you’re at the clinic?’
Emma hesitated. ‘Coffeehouse?’
‘Uncommon Grounds. I own it.’ So much for everyone knowing everything about everyone in Brookhills. Then again, Emma didn’t live in Brookhills, she only worked there a few days a month.
She squinted at me. ‘I could swear I’ve met the owner. Caron something?’
‘Caron Egan. She’s my partner.’
Emma blinked. ‘Wow. That’s quite a departure for you, isn’t it? I thought you did PR for some bank.’ She zipped her racket into its cover. ‘What happened?’
‘A moment of insanity,’ I admitted. ‘Owning your own business is tough.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she picked up her bag. ‘That’s why I threw in with the Dental Group. They own the clinics, equipment and all, so that eliminates the overhead and a lot of the headaches. I keep telling Ted he should think about it.’
She said it easily, without a trace of self-consciousness or subterfuge. As if she and Ted were simply friends. If they were having an affair, she was good. Of course, she’d had lots of years to practice.
‘So? What do you think?’ Sarah asked as we watched Emma walk away.
‘I like her.’
‘Yeah, me, too.’ Sarah stuffed her racket into her bag. ‘Still think she and Ted might be having an affair?’
‘Sure.’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Or they’re just old friends. Your guess is as good as mine. Want to get coffee?’
‘Quiet afternoon?’ I asked when we walked into Uncommon Grounds.
Caron had a coffee pot in her hand. She turned, looked at us and gave a little shriek.
I glanced over at Sarah. ‘The tennis skirt.’
Sarah nodded.
Amy came out from in back. ‘Sarah, you have legs. Cool.’
She moved behind the espresso machine, hand poised above the portafilter, like a gunslinger getting ready to draw. ‘What can I get you?’
The portafilter is a small wire mesh filter attached to a handle. To make an espresso, you fill it with finely ground French roast or espresso and tamp it down lightly, then you twist it on to the espresso machine, push a button and, presto! Espresso.