He grinned. “Just teasing. But seriously, where do you want to start.”
“He uses the back bedroom for a study. If he had copies of his visa and travel itineraries, that’s probably where he’d keep them.”
“Great. What are we looking for?”
“Visas and travel itineraries.” Geez. Maybe I should have brought Lizzie instead.
Danny blew out a breath. “Sure, but other than him leaving the country, what exactly are we looking for proof of?”
“I don’t really know. Just look for anything out of place.”
“That doesn’t tell me a lot.” Danny placed his hands on his hips and looked wide eyed around the room. “I’ve never been here before, so everything is new to me. How am I supposed to know what’s out of place?”
“You’re a smart man. You’ll figure it out.”
He gave an over exaggerated eye roll then moved right, along the hall and towards the bedrooms.
I suppressed my own eye roll and moved to the rear of the house and into the kitchen. I wanted to see if there was any fresh food that would indicate Matt was staying here.
The kitchen was dated pre 1980 which meant the countertop was orange, and the cupboards were a dull laminate timber. The tiles were psychedelic yellow swirls and staring at them for too long caused my morning sickness to kick up a notch. Keeping my eyes trained on the fridge, I opened it and checked to see if the milk was still in date.
It was. Plus, the bread was fresh, and the ham hadn’t reached the slimy stage just yet. This all told me he was indeed staying here. But had he ever left like he’d said he had?
“Hey Molly!” Danny’s voice carried down the hallway. “I think this might be what you’re talking about.”
Slamming the fridge shut, I made my way towards him. “Can you keep your voice down? We’re not supposed to be here, remember?”
“No one’s around so what does it matter?” he retaliated, as I entered the master bedroom behind him.
“Well, what if he comes home?”
“Then you can confront him. Anyway, stop talking and take a look at this.” A pen was held between his fingers that he swung towards me, a pink lacy G-string dangling from the end of it. “Is this yours?”
“No. It most definitely is not!” I jumped back out of his reach.
“Matt’s?”
“Not unless he’s a closet cross dresser and I don’t know about it.”
Danny smirked obviously liking that idea.
“Where did you find it?” I demanded, hitting him with a look.
“Under the bed.”
“Do you think it’s been there a long time? Like pre my relationship with him?”
“Not judging by the lack of dust on it. The rest of the floor under there is pretty dirty though.”
“So, what are you suggesting?” I asked, a knot forming in my stomach.
“That Matt find a new housekeeper. This one is definitely not good at her job.”
“I was talking about the underwear.”
“I know.” He flipped it back where he’d found it, his lips tight.
I swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in my throat. “Is that all you found?”
“No. There’s lipstick on the sheets.”
Bile pushed the lump in my throat aside and I had to run to the bathroom. After relieving my breakfast, I sucked back the tears and moved to wash my face.
“I’m sorry Molly.” Danny stepped in behind me and pulled me in for a hug. “I’m sure it’s not what it looks like.”
“There aren’t too many explanations for lipstick on sheets,” I countered. “I just don’t get it. If Matt wanted another woman, why not tell me?”
“Maybe he was going to and then he found out about the baby and didn’t know how to say it.”
“But...this is so unlike him. He’s always been upfront with me. In fact, he told me that he hates cheaters. His father cheated on his mother when she was pregnant with Matt, and he hated that. He always wanted a father who was a part of his life. Instead his mother left his dad behind before Matt was even born.”
“That’s all the more reason for him to be running scared. He’s reliving his own history.”
“Maybe...” I swiped my cheeks dry and pulled my shoulders back, determined to not let this affect me. “Let’s check out the office. Who knows, we might find something that makes more sense.”
Danny followed me as I dragged my feet down the hallway to the only other bedroom in the house.
I could say a lot of good things about Matt. He was kind, considerate and intelligent. He was however, the untidiest person I knew. Papers were piled in the corners of the room, the chair was full of files, and I could count at least three dirty coffee cups scattered around the desk. It looked a mess, but despite all these my senses filled with a distinct smell of Matt and a pang once again surrounded my heart.
Danny perched on top of the files on the chair and wiggled the computer mouse to life. The screen lit up and a photo of Matt and I standing at the beach at sunset shone back at me.
My breath caught. We both looked so happy. What had happened between then and now to change everything?
“I don’t suppose you know the password to his computer, do you?” Danny asked, his voice constricted.
I shook my head, too afraid to speak for fear my voice would betray my real feelings.
Danny started tapping keys anyway. To both our surprises, after his first attempt the screen unlocked and Matt’s desktop was revealed to us.
“What was it?” I asked, shocked.
“Molly. It was Molly.”
Okay, the lump in my throat grew until I feared I wouldn’t be able to breathe. “Oh.”
Standing behind Danny as he navigated his way through Matt’s files, I felt shaky. Why was my name his password? Surely that meant something? I knew if I’d moved on in a relationship, my password would be the first thing I’d change. Just like Matt had done with his phone.
“We could check his internet banking,” suggested Danny. “This will let me login and we could do the CSI thing and see where he’s using his credit card.”
“No! That’s not the right thing to do.”
“Oh, so now you have morals?” he scoffed, moving the mouse away from the banking app.
“We have to draw the line somewhere.”
Guilt prickled my neck as Danny opened a folder.
“He’s been doing a lot of research into Ancestry DNA,” he announced after scrolling through document after document.
“Yeah. He wants to know who his father really is.”
“His mother wouldn’t tell him?”
“She passed away a couple of years ago, but she never liked him looking into his father, and would never tell him who he was.”
“Birth certificate?”
“It’s listed as father unknown.”
“Bugger. Where did Matt come from before he moved here?”
“He was born in Westport but his mum moved to Tasmania after she had him. Why?”
“Just curious. Oooh look. Here’s a family tree he’s been compiling! Oh. There’s only him and his mother on it. Doesn’t look like he’s gotten too far.” Danny wiggled his backside and one of the files fell off the chair. It hit the ground and papers scattered across the hardwood floors.
I scurried to pick it all up. As I did, I couldn’t help but notice he had copies of Census records from 1966. Collecting everything and compiling it, I left that on the top as a name highlighted in yellow, caught my attention.
“Danny!” I called, tugging his sleeve. “Danny!”
“What?”
“Look at this!” I pushed the paper towards him, my finger on the name Carol Maree Fuller. “That’s Grannie Carol.”
“So?”
“So, what’s Matt doing with a census record with her name on it?”
Ignoring me, Danny’s eyes shot towards the door.
“Oh my God! What was that?” he asked, grabbing my arm.
“It wasn’t the wind. Listen!”
I dropped the paper and strained to hear what Danny was referring to. After a second of nothing but the ticking of the clock somewhere under a pile of papers on the desk, I heard what he heard.
“It sounds like someone’s in the house.”
My heart rate spiked into the danger zone and I stood and moved to the door, Danny hot on my heels.
Thankfully Matt kept his interior doors well oiled, because it meant I could silently close it enough to hide behind. Footsteps tapped against the timber flooring, the odd board creaking under the weight of whoever was there.
“Is it Matt?” Danny whispered in my ear.
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t walk like that.”
“You know what his walk sounds like?” he asked incredulously.
“Ahuh. He has the slightest limp due to a knee injury he had as a kid.”
“Huh. Well, if it’s not Matt, then who is it?”
I shrugged, but as the sound of the refrigerator door opened, followed by the sloshing of milk being swirled in the bottle, I figured whoever it was, was doing exactly what I had done.
“We need to get out of here,” I suggested, tippy toeing into the hallway.
I heard a tiny squeak come from Danny, but he grabbed the back of my T-shirt and followed me.
We crept along the hallway, my ears straining for any indication as to who it could be in the kitchen. I’d just rounded the corner when the sounds moved. And in my honest opinion they were headed our way.
Hurriedly I ducked into Matt’s bedroom, a room I knew well. Danny scurried behind me and I pushed the door closed, as the footsteps moved into the hallway. “Don’t step there,” I whispered, pointing to a couple of wonky boards.
Danny looked at me, his eyes wide, and palms up, but side stepped the noisy flooring.
“Why aren’t we demanding to know who they are?” he asked, his thumb pointing towards the door.
“Because if we give whoever it is some time, they might reveal something. If we confront them, they’ll have a chance to talk themselves out of it.” Honestly, it had more to do with the fact I didn’t want Matt to ever find out I was checking up on him.
It seemed like I’d made a bad decision entering this room, as whoever was out there, had the same idea I’d had. Hmmm, you’d swear they were my twin. As the footsteps moved towards us, I pushed Danny towards the wardrobe, and followed him as he launched himself inside it.
This was an old house and didn’t have a fancy walk in robe like I had. This one was an added extra, was as deep as a shirt, and only just taller than me. With the two of us snuggled up inside it, I was glad Matt didn’t have an addiction to clothes.
I’d just slid the door closed behind us when the bedroom door opened, and the floorboards creaked as the intruder entered the room.
The beauty of sliding doors is they leave a tiny gap between them. And it was just enough if I closed one eye and strained the other, I could see a woman. She was tall, with long blonde hair pulled back in a severe ponytail tucked through the adjustment hole in the back of her cap, and she wasn’t dressed for a B&E. Her mini skirt could have doubled as a belt, her singlet was tight revealing her noteworthy assets, and her hands were covered with a pair of latex gloves. She may not be dressed like a professional, but she’d come prepared.
Her movements were rapid and jerky, as she repeatedly eyed the door suspiciously. She searched the bed, pulling back the sheets, her bracelet tinkling as she moved. Obviously not finding what she was looking for, she tossed a pillow at the headboard, and ducked to look under the bed.
I wondered what she was searching for, but as she dropped to her knees, and slid under the mattress, she emerged holding the pink lacy G-string. Smiling she dropped it onto the sheets.
Instinct made me irritable and my body twitched with the desire to fling the cupboard open and demand she tell me who she was. Danny must have picked up my vibe as he grabbed my arm and squeezed it tight.
The woman continued flipping pillows, rearranging sheets and searching the corners of the room. I crossed everything that whatever she was looking for wasn’t kept in the wardrobe, when she muttered: “Perfect,” and leaned towards the beside cabinet. Her back was to me so I couldn’t see what she was doing, but whatever it was, she was interrupted by the loud bang coming from somewhere near the back of the house.
She snapped upright, her gaze moving to the door. Within seconds she was across the room and into the hallway, disappearing from my line of sight.
I had no idea what had made the bang, but I knew we needed to escape before we got caught. I held my breath, counted to ten and then opened the cupboard door, ready to follow her.
Danny tumbled out behind me, as I rushed to check if the coast was clear. I caught sight of her ducking into the laundry and seconds later the sound of the door clicked shut behind her.
“Who was that?” Danny whispered.
“I don’t know, but she found something she was looking for.”
“Which was?”
“Her underwear.” Bile rose into my throat once again as I ran after her. I pulled back the blinds just enough I could watch her stride down the path, whistling as she went.
Sliding my phone from my back pocket, I hurriedly snapped a couple of photos of her retreating backside. Danny looked over my shoulder as I checked to see I’d captured her properly, when the creak of a floorboard behind us startled me.
I squealed and spun around, elbowing Danny in the process.
As my eyes connected with Matt, my heart palpitated, and I dropped the phone with a clang.
Chapter Seven
My intestines tangled themselves in all kinds of knots. My heart rate couldn’t decide whether it was doing the trippy thing because Matt looked all kinds of good, or if it was entering fight or flight mode. All I knew for sure was that my breath caught in my lungs and my voice fled the scene.
Danny casually draped his arm over the washing machine and smiled. “Oh! Hi Matt!” he trilled, yet his tone was so high I figured his testicles had disappeared with my voice.
“Molly!” Matt’s full lips parted as his shoulders tensed and he pulled himself up to his full height of six foot one. His hair was messily hanging over his tired eyes and he hurriedly swiped it back as he dropped the bakery bag he was holding.
I gave him a little finger wave as adrenalin flooded my system and my knees became rubbery.
“I, I heard a noise,” Matt confessed. “I thought someone must have broken in. You were the last person I expected to see in my laundry.”
A nervous giggled escaped me as Danny stepped aside and pushed me in front of him.
“Oh really?” I squeaked. “I, ummm, thought I’d ummm...” Shit. Thinking up a quick lie wasn’t a strength of mine at the best of time, but when his deep soulful eyes were locked on to mine, I had Buckley’s chance. “Water your plants,” I managed weakly. “You know, what with you being away and all.”
Matt’s grin exploded and all thoughts disappeared from my mind.
“My plants are plastic.”
“Huh? Oh, right. Silly me.”
“It’s good to see you.” Matt moved closer and extended his hand for me to take. As our fingers touched, my skin sizzled and my eyes stung with unexpected tears. He pulled me into his arms, and I collapsed into him, his warm musky scent overtaking every sense I had, filling me with peace and contentment, but mostly I felt like I was home.
“Hang on a second,” yelled Danny, grabbing my arm and wrenching me out of Matt’s hold. “You have some explaining to do before I let you anywhere near my sister.”
To his credit Matt didn’t argue. Instead a blush started at his collar and didn’t stop until his entire face was red and sweat started to bead on his top lip.
“I know. I’m sorry Molly. I really am. I got back early and I was going to call you, but there were a few details I needed to attend to beforehand.�
�
“Yeah, like clearing Miss Miniskirts underwear out from under your bed and changing your sheets,” challenged Danny. His surprise at seeing Matt was gone and protective brother took over.
Danny’s words brought the morning back to me, and all loving feelings I was having at seeing Matt got swamped by jealousy, resentment and hurt.
Anger started to bubble as I thought of the dozen calls I’d made to him over the last week and how he’d ignored every single one of them. Well, not all, but most of them.
“What are you talking about?” A vertical crease formed between Matt’s brow as he looked at Danny.
“Don’t deny it! We saw it. It was pink and lacy and disgusting.”
Matt frowned as his hair fell over his eyes. He hurriedly swiped at it, and stuttered. “W...what?”
“We saw her,” I admitted. “Look.” Retrieving my phone, I showed Matt the photo I’d taken only minutes before. “What I don’t understand is why? Why weren’t you just honest with me? Why didn’t you tell me there was someone else?” The volume of my voice rose until the neighbor’s dog started to bark.
Matt shook his head, his look blank and his eyes wide. “I don’t know who that is,” he replied taking the phone from me and zooming the picture in close.
“You don’t know who you’re sleeping with?” Danny demanded.
“No! Well, yes, I do know who I’m sleeping with and last I checked it was Molly.” Matt’s gaze fell to me and he momentarily hesitated. He gulped then said, “I’ve never seen this woman before.”
“Really? What do you take us for, Matt?” Danny continued.
I wanted to agree with Danny, but something in Matt’s eyes told me to stop and rethink things.
“Look, if she was my lover, which is what I think you’re accusing me of, then why did she disappear out the back door when I came home?”
Huh. It was actually a good point. One I didn’t have an answer to. It appeared Danny didn’t either, as he bit his lip and stuck out his hip.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Danny froze as Matt slowly sunk in on himself, his eyes downturned and sad. “It’s complicated,” he said on a sigh.
Wicked Little Lies- Molly Page 7