Ring of Lies (5 page)

The desk held
seven drawers
—
three in each pedestal and one in the
centre
.
Her fingers hovere
d over the small brass handle on
the
centre
drawer.
Feeling like an intruder, she pulled it open.
It was empty.
One by one she opened the remaining drawers.
Apart from an assortment of envelopes, a few credit card receipts,
a letter opener shaped like a dagger,
and some spare batteries for the hand-held dictating machine Daniel occasionally used, she found nothin
g connected to the beach house.

Daniel’s
brief
case
,
which the police had found in his car,
and the personal items from his office,
sat
in a box
next to
the door
.
She
slipped out of the chair,
picked it up,
and placed
it on the desk.
Item by item
she removed the contents
:
a
desk diary, a
box
of post-it-notes, a calculator, and a framed photograph of her and
Catherine
.
The desk diary she
placed to
one side,
replaced
everything else,
and
then
put the box on the floor
.

She’d given Daniel th
e Raffaello briefcase
for his
thirtieth
birthday.
It had cost two weeks housekeeping money, but it had been worth it to see the smile on his face when he opened the box.
She ran her fingers over the
now scuffed and torn
calfskin
.

Grace
flipped
the lock
s
to open the case,
but
nothing happened
.
She dug the fingertips
of her right hand
into the frame
and
tugged at the handle.
The
catch
on
one side
gave
, and
she
realize
d that
the
frame
had somehow become
warped
.
With
great care she
eased the blade of the letter
opener
into the
lock
on the opposite
side
and twisted sharply.
There was a loud click and the
lock
popped open
. She removed
Daniel’s MacBook and a number of
manila folders.
One by one, she went through the
internal compartments, but found nothing
else
of interest.

P
art of the silk
lining
had come away from the frame
.
When
Grace
ran her fingers along the edge she
felt
something underneath.
She pulled
back
the fabric
and found
a
n
envelope
taped to the
bottom of the case
.
She tore
it free
and
turned it over in her hand.

Why go to so much trouble to hide something as innocuous as an envelope?
She slipped her finger
nail
under the flap and opened it.
A passport and a tiny piece of paper fluttered
on
to the blotter
.
A series of numbers, written in Daniel’s unmistakeable scrawl, covered the surface.
Perplexed, she counted the digits.
Twenty-four
.
Daniel was fascinated by numbers and frequently designed puzzles as a way of relaxing.
Were these something he was working on, or the combination to the safe at the office?

The latter seemed the most likely explanation, yet Daniel had an eidetic memory.
There
was
never a
need
for him to write anything down.

Grace
open
ed
the passport
at
the photograph on the back page.
Daniel’s face stared up at her.
Only the name in the passport wasn’t
hi
s
,
but that of
Lionel Lattide.

A flicker of apprehension coursed through her.
She
tried to catch her breath, but couldn’t get air.
The more she struggled to control her breathing, the more terrified she became.
Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead.
She willed herself to relax, just as the doctor had told her to, but it was i
mpossible.

S
he staggered into the kitchen.
Her medication
lay
on the shelf next to the fridge.
Standing on tiptoe, she reached for the bottle, but her hands
shook
so much it slipped from her grasp, the contents spilling out along the shelf and on
to the floor.

She could get through this, she told herself.
It was only a panic attack—she wasn’t about to die.
It wasn’t real.
Crying with frustration, her fingers trailed along the floor until she finally pinched a wayward pill between her thumb and forefinger.
She popped it in her mouth, and washed it down with a glass of water from the tap.

Leaning against the sink for support, she forced herself to breathe deeply
,
in, out
,
in, out.
The pill started to do its work, and the room began to steady itself.
As her heartbeat
slowed
, she tried to ignore the questioning voice in her mind, but couldn’t.
She pressed her hands over her eyes
in an attempt
to blot out her
fears
.

What have you
done
,
Daniel
,
to
need
a second passport?

She took another sip of water.
The passport lay on the drainer next to her hand.
With trembling fingers, she opened
it and turn
ed
to the visa section.

It
was
stamped
.

She fro
ze
.
H
er mind and body benumbed.

She peered at the faint impression and
could just make out the words
‘
Department of Homeland Security
’
.
America!
She turned to another page, and found that too, had been stamped.
During the last six months alone, Daniel or whoever he was, had travelled to the United States on
five
occasions.

Why?

She wrenched the calendar off the wall, and compared it to the passport.
Every entry visa coincided with a
date
when
Daniel
had been away on business
.

W
aves of panic and nausea
overwhelmed her, and she
sank to her knees
and sobbed.
The man to whom she had trusted her heart had lied to her.
Not o
nce, not twice, b
ut least four
times
.

Pain
yielded to anger
.

Who
was
her husband?

It seemed that the only way
to
find out
was
to fly to Miami and meet wit
h
the attorney, Zachary Parous
.

It sounded so
easy when she said it quickly.
But the thought of such a journey aroused old fears and anxieties.
She wasn’t a traveller
and certainly not alone.
What if she had a panic attack mid-Atlantic?
Who would help her?
And then there was the small problem of getting from Miami to
some place called
Gasparilla Island and locating the
mysterious
beach house.
How hard would it be to find?
Would she be safe?
She’d heard such things about Florida
,
stories of gangs, drug lords, and even worse.

She snatched up the phone
before she could change her mind
and
booked a seat on the
nine-thirty
flight to Miami
the following morning
.