The Deception (9 page)

"And it looks like she was right," agreed Allison. "But you know, I'm also getting a feeling that the next one who comes along really is going to be a keeper. I think he'll even be the one."

"We'll see, anyway, no harm done with Scott. He'll just be a fond memory."

"And a twinkle in your eye," added Allison and they both had a good laugh.

M
aggie Andrews' favorite hour of day was in the morning, right after Scott went to work and the kids left for school. It was her special time to pour herself a second cup of coffee, go into the den, turn on her computer and read her email. She'd just settled in front of her screen to retrieve her email when something went wrong. Her computer suddenly crashed. She tried rebooting it, but she kept getting error messages. She picked up the phone to call Scott. After punching a few buttons to reach his extension, she was relieved to hear his voice when he picked up. She hated landing in his voice mailbox. He rarely returned her calls.

"Scott, I'm so sorry, but something's wrong with my computer and for some weird reason I can't seem to get it to reboot. Can you fix it for me?"

Scott bit his tongue, reminding himself that it would all be over soon. Until that time, he needed to act as normal as possible.

"Sure, Maggie, no problem. I've been telling you for months that you were overdue for an update, so now I guess the time has come. I'll work on it as soon as I get home."

"Thanks, sweetie. Meantime, can I borrow your laptop? I just need to read my email."

"Of course."

Maggie hung up and went over to the Mac sitting on the other desk. She booted it up and entered Scott's password. After she finished reading her email her curiosity got the better of her. Their seventeenth wedding anniversary was coming up and she wondered what Scott might have picked out for her. She clicked on the history tab in the browser menu to see what she could find out. What she found was that Scott had a second email account, one that she knew nothing about. She clicked on the link. When the login page loaded, she tried Scott's password. It worked. She was in. She noticed all the messages in the inbox had come from a single sender, someone named Carrie Daniels. The message that grabbed her attention the most was the last one. The words, "About Last Night," appeared in the subject line. Maggie anxiously clicked on the link and began to read the message.

"I'm still recovering from last night and it's a night I'll always remember. Let's just say I've never experienced anything quite like it before, but next time please stay and spend the rest of the night with me, okay?"

Maggie's stomach coiled into a knot. A choking sob welled up her throat. Tears flowed down her face as she let loose and sobbed like a child. She cried, uncontrollably, for several minutes before finally reaching for a tissue. Once she began to calm down she decided she'd better find out who this Carrie Daniels was. She read all of the email, both in the inbox and in the sent folder, and as she did, she began to piece the puzzle together. Scott met Carrie Daniels at Louise Dickenson's show at Hanson Sisters. They'd gone out twice and Scott had been having sex with her. However, Carrie seemed to have disappeared sometime after their second date, or had she? Perhaps they'd just stopped emailing. Maggie knew that if she wanted to save her marriage, and her comfortable lifestyle, she'd better find out more about Carrie, and fast. 

"Okay, Maggie. So what's your plan?"

She copied the domain name in Carrie's email address and pasted it into the browser address bar. The Carrie Daniels Photography website immediately loaded. So, Carrie was also a photographer. Her attending Louise Dickenson's show at Hanson Sisters made sense. Maggie clicked on the About Us page and what she saw nearly made her fall out of her chair. There was a full-color headshot of Ms. Carrie Daniels and she was a strikingly beautiful woman. Reading the bio, she discovered that Carrie had once been the Mercer's Markets girl.

"I remember those ads, and you were certainly an annoying little bitch, weren't you? Your mommy may have shopped at Mercer's Market
s
, but your mommy sure as hell didn't teach you any manners now did she? I guess she never told you that having sex with another woman's husband isn't very nice."

As Maggie studied Carrie's face more closely something else suddenly occurred to her.

"What the hell?"

She raced upstairs to the master bedroom. Hanging on the wall, right above her bed, was Carrie Daniels in the flesh. She'd been in Scott's line of sight every time they'd made love. No wonder Scott had been more amorous than usual lately.

"Son of a bitch!"

Maggie let out a loud shriek as she ripped one of the photos off the wall and hurled it across the room as hard as she could. She heard the gratifying sound of the shattering glass as the photo crashed onto ceramic tile floor.

"You bitch! You whore! You belong in the centerfold of
Gentry Magazine
and not on my bedroom wall! You're nothing but slut
, a cheap little trollop and a--
" She abruptly stopped her rant in the middle of her sentence. The wheels were beginning to turn in her head. Her face lit up as it slowly began to dawn on her. "My God, Maggie, you're brilliant. It's the perfect plan."

She yanked opened the bottom drawer of Scott's nightstand and began rifling through the contents. She soon found what she was searching for. She pulled out the latest issue of
Gentry Magazine
and flipped through the pages until she found it. Every month
Gentry Magazine
invited readers to submit nude photos for its amateur photo contest, and they would publish the best of the best in each issue, with handsome cash prizes to boot.

She set the magazine aside and walked up to the spot where the photo had landed. She carefully picked it up. The glass was completely shattered, the frame was dented and scratched, but the undamaged full-frontal view of a bare-naked Carrie Daniels, kneeling on top of a four-poster bed, was beautifully shot. It would undoubtedly be the winner. She turned it over. As expected, Louise Dickenson's copyright notice and usage restrictions were adhered to the back of the frame.

"Sorry, Louise, but we're going to have to make an exception just this one time."

She got a broom and swept up the broken glass before taking the other photo off the wall. She carried both downstairs and set them on the kitchen table. She got a screwdriver and disassembled each frame, carefully removing the photos and taking them out of their mats.

She brought the photos into the den and placed one onto the scanner. It was slightly larger than the scanner bed, which meant she'd have to do some minor photo editing. As soon she finished, she scanned the other before taking them back to the kitchen and placing them back in their mats. The one frame, however, was damaged beyond repair and would have to be replaced. She let out a sigh as she took both frames to the garage and dropped them into the garbage can. When she returned, she placed the photos in a large shopping bag and headed off to the nearest arts and crafts superstore.

* * *

"May I help you?"

The pimple-faced young man behind the framing counter didn't look a day over sixteen. Maggie pulled the photos out of the bag.

"I accidentally dropped one of these this morning and broke its frame. They're a matching set. Can you put them into new frames for me?"

"Of course--wow!" He'd been caught off guard by the subject matter. The look on his face revealed that he was probably experiencing some sort of sexual fantasy. "These are great. The artist did a fantastic job. So who's the model?"

"I have no idea. I'm just upset that I broke one of the frames. How long will it take to reframe them?"

"Not that long. Since they're already matted I can have them ready for you by this time tomorrow. You just need to pick out a frame."

Maggie took her time, carefully selecting the perfect frame. She let out a little gasp when he totaled up her order. She was glad she'd stopped at the bank to get some extra cash on her way over.

"Name?"

"What?"

"Name," he repeated, "so we'll know who you are when you pick them up."

"Oh, right. Daniels. Carrie Daniels. And I'll be paying cash."

"Okay, Ms. Daniels." He handed her the pink copy of the invoice. "They'll be ready for pick up by one o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

Maggie thanked him as he counted back her change. A smile of satisfaction broke out across her face as she rushed back to her car. She stopped for a burger on the way home, and once she arrived she went straight to Scott's computer. The clock was ticking and she had a number of things left to do before Ben and Sarah came home from school. She quickly opened a new email account and immediately composed an email to Carrie Daniels.

"Dear Ms. Daniels, my name is Kendra Clarke and I'm in the fifth grade. I'm doing a report for school about you being the Mercer's Market
s
girl. If it's not too much trouble, could you tell me a little something about what it was like and would you mind emailing me an autographed picture? Thanks."

She quickly hit the send button. Her next step was to do some minor photo cropping. Once that task was complete, she looked up
Gentry Magazine
on Google. After a few clicks on their website, she had the instructions on how to submit a photo for the monthly amateur contest. She carefully reviewed them before downloading the release form. She filled it out using Carrie Daniels' name, along with the mailing address and telephone number posted on her website. The form also required an email address so that the magazine could send a confirmation notice once the materials had been received.

"Whoops. We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, now would we Carrie? So I guess I'll have to give them Kendra's email address. That way I can stay on top of things and still keep you in the dark. By the time you find out what's happened, it'll be too late, but don't you worry. I'll make sure you get credited as the model in the photos. That way the entire world can see you for the tramp you really are."

While Maggie waited for the release form to come out of the printer, she decided to check the email. Sure enough, Kendra had received a reply, with a photo file attached.

"So, Carrie, I want to thank you for helping this sweet little fifth-grader with her homework." There was a venomous tone to Maggie's voice. "Of course, what you don't realize is that you've just dug your own grave. Hope you rot in it, bitch!"

Maggie printed out the photo and carefully studied Carrie's signature. She practiced copying it a few times on a piece of scratch paper. She checked the clock. Ben would be home in less than thirty minutes so she'd have to hurry. She practiced a few more times before copying Carrie's signature onto the release form and placing it into the scanner. Ten minutes later all of the necessary files had been scanned, attached, and emailed to the magazine. The deed was done and not a moment too soon.

Maggie quickly gathered up the photo, release form and scratch paper. She took it to the family room, placed it in the fireplace, lit a match, and watched in delight as all the incriminating evidence turned black and crumbled into ashes. She returned to Scott's computer to delete her files and clear the browser history.

"Mission accomplished." She triumphantly shut the computer down. "A few months from now, Ms. Carrie Daniels, when you least expect it, your entire world will implode. But hey, with any luck, you'll get to keep the prize money."

M
aggie was busy preparing dinner when Scott arrived home. She put on her best poker face, greeting him with her customary kiss and asking him about his day.

"The usual," he replied. "I'll go in and start working on your computer. And the next time I tell you to do an update, Maggie, just do it, okay."

"Okay, okay. You don't need to be such a grouch about it. And by the way, I accidentally knocked one of the photos off the wall over our bed this morning while I was making it up. The glass broke and the frame got damaged. I'm so sorry. I feel really bad about it."

"Great."

"Now don't go getting upset," she said, trying to shrug it off. "The photo itself is okay, so I took it over to Taylor's Hobby and Crafts. They're reframing it and it'll be ready tomorrow afternoon, good as new."

"Why didn't you take it back to Hanson Sisters?"

"What?"

"I said, 'Why didn't you take it back to Hanson Sisters?' They probably could have replaced the frame, and it would have been a much better one at that. These are limited edition prints, Maggie. They deserve something better than a cheap, hobby-shop frame. In all the years I've been trying to teach you about collecting art, have you not learned anything?"

"Sorry, Scott, I didn't even think of that."

"That's your problem, Maggie. You don't think. You don't have a brain in your head."

"So what's that supposed to mean?"

Scott let out a sigh. "It means, that instead of being able to relax and enjoy my evening, I get to spend it working on your computer because you refused to do the updates I told you to do months ago. What about the other photo?"