The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives

by Kristin Miller

“Yes, I mean, I can’t be exactly sure. It was dark, and my head hurt pretty bad. I was fighting a migraine.” Georgia rolls her eyes, so I go on. “But something had been making a noise—it’s possible the boat somehow connected to ours, and Robert was taken.”

  Detective Linard taps his iPad. “What side of the yacht did you witness this?”

  “The starboard. Or, the right, whichever that is.”

  “Time?” He glances up at me, then back down to his notes as I relay the story again. “Your head was hurting. Had you been drinking that night?”

  “I had.”

  “And you?” he asks Georgia.

  “We all were,” she says quickly.

  “I wasn’t asking about everyone,” Linard says pointedly. “I was asking about you, specifically.”

  “Yes, I’d been drinking.”

  “And your fiancé?”

  “He’d been drinking as well. It was our prewedding party, but it hadn’t been in excess, and I don’t know what that has to do with the fact that my fiancé is missing, three days before our wedding. You should be out there searching for him. If he’s been taken, you’re wasting time here, when the kidnappers could be getting away.”

  “If he’s been kidnapped, the people who took him will be contacting you for a ransom. If that happens, call me immediately. Here’s my card.” He hands it to Georgia, who eyes it wearily. “But there are many possibilities for what happened to your fiancé.”

  “Such as?” Georgia asks.

  “One is that your husband had too much to drink and fell overboard. That may’ve been the sound you heard,” he says to me. “If you were still inebriated when you went to sleep, it’s possible there hadn’t been a boat in the distance at all. It may’ve been an alcohol-induced hallucination.”

  Crossing her legs, Georgia taps her foot in the air. “If that’s the case, you should be searching the bay for him. He could be out there somewhere.”

  “If he went overboard last night,” the younger one pipes up, “he’s already deceased. If the cold didn’t get him, the sharks did. If that’s the case, his body will wash up in the next week. Rushing out there right now would be pointless.”

  Georgia makes a tiny whimpering sound into her hand and looks as though she’s going to cry. I watch her to see if it’s genuine, but I can’t quite tell. A single tear rolls beautifully down her cheek. Detective Linard’s gaze flicks to mine, and I instinctively know he’s wondering the same thing.

  “Thank you, Officer Pangburn,” Linard says, turning to him, “for outlining such a grim prospect, but there’s another, less menacing option we should consider first.”

  “Which is?” I ask, while Georgia’s silently sobbing into her hand.

  “He might have gotten cold feet.”

  Georgia glances up through her fingers. “You think he doesn’t want to marry me?”

  “It might be a simple fight-or-flight reflex,” Linard goes on. “Happens in nature all the time.”

  “And I’m the threat closing in on its prey,” Georgia says flatly. “Is that it? I’m the predator?”

  “Not the predator, per se,” Linard says carefully, “but you’ve lost two husbands before him. It’s quite possible he faced that fear last night…and needed some time to himself.”

  “The Black Widow,” Officer Pangburn says quietly.

  “I don’t like you,” Georgia says, pointing straight at his chest. “You can go.”

  She sits straight-faced, pointing at him until Linard motions for his partner to wait by the door. Then, once he’s out of earshot, Georgia seems to soften again.

  “I had nothing to do with my previous husbands’ deaths, and deep down, Robert knows that,” she says, pleading. “He’s never once mentioned being concerned. Why now?”

  What Erin said about Robert taking off without telling anyone, and showing up sometime later, echoes through my head, but I don’t want to intrude on their discussion. I’m here for Georgia. And to watch the show.

  “I’m not sure the reason he’d leave, but you told dispatch you didn’t notice he was gone until after you’d docked,” Linard says. “If that’s the case, it’s quite possible he walked off without saying goodbye. We don’t have reason to believe he’s in the water somewhere, or that he’s been kidnapped. Not yet.”

  “Walked off?” Georgia leans out of her chair now, pleading with her hands open, palms up. “Without his wallet or his keys? Exactly how far do you think he’d get, Detective?”

  “Anything is possible at this point, Ms. St. Claire, which is why we’re not going to write up a missing person report.” Rising, Linard tucks the iPad beneath his arm. “Keep trying your fiancé’s cell. If you don’t hear from him by tomorrow morning, call me immediately.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Georgia says beneath her breath as she follows him into the foyer. “I can’t believe there’s nothing you can do.”

  “One more thing,” Linard says before he walks out. “Do you have access to view your fiancé’s checking and savings accounts?”

  She pauses, hands on her hips, and I’m not sure what she’s measuring.

  “I do,” she says finally. “Why?”

  Linard nods. “Watch them closely. You said he doesn’t have his wallet, but he may still have ways to move money. If you see anything, let us know. You have my card.”

  When Georgia closes the door, she sags against it and slides to the floor, hugging her knees against her chest.

  “I’m going to make you a drink,” I say, striding toward the kitchen. “A strong one.”

  “You’re an angel,” she calls out.

  As I find my way around her kitchen, I wonder if Georgia’s an angel as well, only one of death rather than salvation. Something tells me the detectives were thinking the same thing.

  Robert did not have cold feet.

  And he’s not coming back.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ERIN

  “Thank you for squeezing me in today. I came straight from the news station.” I lounge on Theresa’s couch and stretch my arms over my head. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” Thin legs crossed, glasses teetering on the edge of her nose, Theresa flips through her planner. “But before we begin, can we discuss your upcoming appointment? You have an hour block scheduled tomorrow afternoon with Mason. Would you like to keep that or cancel because you called an emergency meeting today?”

  “Keep it. You know we can’t make our marriage work without you,” I say decidedly. “We’ll be here.”

  Mason and I have been seeing Theresa together since last year, when I begged him to work on our marriage. Every now and again, it feels as if Mason pulls away. It’s usually when he feels swamped at work and begins to take out his aggravations on me. It’s not fair, and he’s acknowledged that, but it still happens. It’s nice to have a mediator truly hear me when I feel like the rest of the world doesn’t. And then she simply interprets my jumbled thoughts and translates them to Mason in a way he understands. Works for me, for us.

  “Done.” She closes the planner and rests it on her lap. “I sent invites to both you and Mason regarding the appointment, just in case.”

  “You’re amazing. What would we do without you?” I try to relax into the leather cushions, but the back of my neck is sticky with sweat, and it’s making me itchy. “Did you crank up the heat today?”

  She shakes her head, though not a tendril of dark hair escapes the bun on the top of her head. “Same temperature every week. Are you uncomfortable?”

  “There’s something”—I rub the slickness on the back of my neck—“wrong with me lately. Since I walked out on my job, I’ve been sweating more than normal. Is that strange?”

  “Everyone sweats at different levels, and yours most likely stems from nervous energy. But
we’re going to stop in this space for a moment and focus on the real issue: you walked out on your job?” Her tone is high-pitched, disbelieving. “That’s a new development. You hadn’t mentioned wanting to do that before. What brought it on?”

  I talk about Brooke moving in and looking all fresh-faced, and Ted, the jerk-off. Theresa is quiet the entire time, save for the little sound of encouragement she gives when I start to trail off. Leaning back, I gaze up at her blue ceiling and wonder who chose that color. It’s the most hideous blue I’ve ever seen. Not quite blue, not quite purple. It’s like a bruise taking shape.

  “But Brooke has turned out to be really nice,” I say, “and I think we’re going to hit it off well.”

  “I’d like to focus more on the decision to walk out on your job, and less on Brooke,” Theresa says. “Do you regret your decision to take a sabbatical or have you embraced it?”

  “Well that’s why I wanted to see you today,” I say, the words tumbling out of me. “In my head, I’d planned it all out. They’d call me in, and say they were sorry for pushing me to my breaking point, and I would demand a week or two off—you know, to help my friend Georgia with all her last-minute wedding details—and then I thought I’d maybe ask for a pay raise. Make them really prove to me how much they want me, you know?”

  “And that’s not how it went today,” she says, sensing the disappointment in my tone. “You had a fantasy built up in your head, and then today you faced the reality. Tell me about it.”

  “Bill called me into his office and told me they’d already hired someone to take my place, someone young and fresh.” I can nearly taste the bile as it rises from my gut. I repress the urge to tug on a strand of loose hair lying over my chest. “But he wants me to do a feature segment instead. He said this could be my big break.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Erin,” Theresa says, but she doesn’t get it.

  I jolt up to sitting. “He wants me to do a special on Georgia.”

  Her lips twist. “I see. Did you agree?”

  “I did,” I bite out between clenched teeth. “But there’s a catch.”

  “Which is?”

  “I think my boss wants a sexual favor in return for giving me a second chance.” There comes the bile again, rising hot and fast. I think I’m going to be sick. “And the worst part—the part that makes me hate myself—is that if he’d made me choose right then and there: the job for the job, you know…I would’ve done it. My tit for his tat.”

  I hide my face in my hands as Theresa says, “Oh, Erin.”

  “I’m a terrible, wretched person,” I mumble, sick inside.

  “You’re not terrible for wanting your job back so desperately. You would do anything to regain your position at the station, that’s clear. It’s the cost that should worry you,” she says, her voice soothing to my ears, “because it means your boss crossed a serious line. You should report him immediately.”

  I look up at her. “He was careful. He didn’t actually say the words. It was implied. He would deny it, and say he meant something else entirely.”

  Folding her arms over her chest, she leans back in her chair. “Yet the implication was clear enough that you were ready to drop to your knees.”

  My chest is tight. “Yes. What does that say about me?”

  “You didn’t do it, Erin. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Yeah, but I’m almost positive I would have. I don’t speak the words because she’ll simply repeat what she just said, and we’ll go round and round. I don’t have the energy for games.

  “What do I do when he comes calling for that favor?” I ask.

  “Reject him, and then report him,” Theresa says flatly. “If he’s doing this to you, he’s probably done it to countless women before you. And if you don’t say anything, he could do this again to another woman after you.”

  She’s right, I know she is.

  But being the first one to stand up is harder than it seems.

  “Have you told Mason?” she asks.

  “No, and I don’t know if I will.” Because thinking about how he would react scares me. He’s likely to charge into the station and beat Bill’s ass, and I’m sure Bill would press charges. That’s the last thing Mason needs right now. “How can I do a special on my friend? I can’t subject her to the scrutiny, not right before her wedding.”

  “It won’t hurt to ask her,” Theresa says. “You could even tell her what happened with Bill. Maybe she’ll understand and agree to do the interview to save your job. She knows how much your work means to you.”

  My heart returns to its natural rhythm. “I hope so.”

  Theresa leans forward. “Erin, you’re a professional. You’re worthy of having your own special air on television. You have an amazing husband who loves you, and the respect of your peers. You can do anything you set your mind to. Say it.”

  “I can do anything I set my mind to,” I parrot, without feeling the words.

  “Good. I want you to say that to yourself every morning and every night. Words are powerful things, Erin, and eventually those words will become ingrained in you, and you’ll believe them with your whole heart. Are you feeling better?”

  “A little.” Not so much. I twirl a blond strand of hair around my finger. “But there’s a more pressing question I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  “Shoot.”

  When my stomach clenches into a fist, I say the words that’ve been bothering me far longer than I care to admit. “How do you know if your husband is cheating?”

  Theresa checks the time on her watch. “I mentioned that I could only squeeze you in for a few minutes today, so let’s address that during our next session. It’s a bigger issue that’ll take more time.”

  As I’m walking out of her office, I stop in front of a flowering rosebush and remove my phone from my pocket. Holding my breath, I angle myself so that the morning’s rays of gold light slash over my cheekbones at precisely the right angle. The photo makes my skin look washed out, and there’s no life in my eyes. My upper lip looks a bit small; I should stop in at Mason’s office for a touch-up before Georgia’s wedding. After some teeth whitening and a blurring tool around my forehead and at the corners of my eyes to erase the fine lines, I’ll finally look like the Erin I want to be, rather than the Erin I feel like today. I tag it #Can’tFixPerfect and #Nofilter and have thousands of likes before my second panic attack of the day.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BROOKE

  I’m sitting in what has become my office, on the second floor, in the room overlooking the backyard. The sun has set, and the lights in the garden have kicked on, creating a wonderland of flowers, greenery, and auras of warm light. Jack said traffic was terrible, and he wouldn’t be home for a few hours, so I’ve settled in to spend some time in my characters’ heads. But before I can commit to writing, I have to check on Georgia.

  Any word from Robert? I text.

  She texts back seconds later: Nothing.

  She must be hovering over her phone, waiting to hear from her fiancé, the poor thing. I’d be a wreck if I were in her shoes. As I think about her position more, I realize this is the fifth time she’s experienced poignant loss in her life. The first two times when she lost her parents, and the last three times when terrible circumstances struck her significant others. Does she feel the pain as poignantly each time? Or does the shock and grief wear off eventually?

  Let me know if…I check my wording, delete, and try again. Let me know when you hear from him. If you need anything, I’m here for you.

  Sliding on my noise-canceling headphones, I listen to the sound of thundering rain as I dive into another world. I’m in the zone, happily losing track of time. My fingers fly over the keyboard, and my heartbeat slows to a natural rhythm in my chest. Words are cascading onto the page. I’ve been waiting for this moment, when it feels a
s if a faucet’s been turned on, and the flow is full and fast. It takes me only two hours to revise the pages I’d already written, to add Georgia’s charismatic flair to my main character, Grace Dent. I changed her name, though kept the first letter so I’d instinctively know it was Georgia when I sat down at the computer to write. There’s a secondary character too, who reminds me so much of Erin that I’m going to run with it. She and her husband are having major problems, and are going to be suspects in Grace’s husband’s death.

  I’m writing the scene where they’ve all gathered on a rented houseboat to celebrate Grace’s fortieth birthday. It’s dark. There’s a noise. A man, cloaked in shadow, is on deck, reaching out…

  A flash of light streams through the window in front of me, taking me away from the world on the screen and jarring me back to my own. It had been bright, almost like the sweeping of a car’s lights, but that’s not possible. A towering retaining wall separates our yard from the street beyond. The bedroom’s completely dark, the only light glowing from my computer.

  Outside, near the fence between Georgia’s yard and ours, a shadow shifts in the bushes. It’s too big to be a cat or dog.

  Removing my headphones, I get up slowly, narrowing my eyes as I peer through the window. I wait for movement again. Nothing. This is the second time today that I’ve seen something shadowed but couldn’t tell if it was really there or not. Maybe I really should try to get better sleep.

  The moment I sit back down, the bushes move again. Someone is in the large bush on our property, near the fence I share with Georgia. Whoever it is, they’re tall; the top of their head peeks above the bush, and it’s full-grown. From their position, they could easily see into Georgia’s living room window.

  I text Jack: There’s someone in the yard.

  Heart racing, I dash down the hall toward the bedroom to lock myself in when I realize the back door is unlocked. At least I can’t remember locking it when I’d come in earlier. Even if I were to hide in the bedroom, someone could come walking right in.