Read You Don't Want To Know Online
Authors: Lisa Jackson
You Don't Want To Know (34 page)
The lie stretched between them.
“I'm a mother,” Tanya said. “You know that worrying is second nature.” Her SUV rounded a final corner, and the lights of Anchorville came into view.
As they passed the blue and white W
ELCOME TO
A
NCHORVILLE
sign, Ava told herself that she could get through this, that the worst that could happen was someone finding out and either calling her paranoid or trying to commit her. She'd suffered through worse.
ELCOME TO
A
NCHORVILLE
sign, Ava told herself that she could get through this, that the worst that could happen was someone finding out and either calling her paranoid or trying to commit her. She'd suffered through worse.
But her confidence was eroding.
It didn't help when Tanya said, “There's a reason Cheryl was killed, Ava. I have no idea what it is, but I'd bet my tips for a month that it has something to do with you.” Ava opened her mouth to argue, but Tanya wasn't finished. “Don't even say it, okay?” She slid her friend a don't-bullshit-me look. “This is all too weird. I mean, I'm nervous as all get-out ever since I found out that Cheryl was killed.
Killed.
I check and recheck the locks on my doors at night. I test every window latch, and I still think I hear noisesâsomeoneâin the basement.”
Killed.
I check and recheck the locks on my doors at night. I test every window latch, and I still think I hear noisesâsomeoneâin the basement.”
“But why are
you
afraid?”
you
afraid?”
“I don't know! That's what I'm saying. It doesn't make sense. Guilt by association, I guess. Like Cheryl.” She waited at a blinking red light for a pickup heading out of town to roll past, then turned down the hill to the road that ran past the marina.
“You mean by association with me?” Ava asked. “You think I was the target?”
“I don't know what to think.” She nosed her TrailBlazer into a nearly empty parking lot across the street from the waterfront. “But to tell you the truth, I'm just glad Russ has got the kids tonight. Jesus, did you ever think I'd say that?”
“No.”
“Just goes to show how freaked out I am.” Shoving the gearshift into park, she let the SUV idle. “You have to be careful, Ava. Promise me.”
“I will.”
“You could just go to the police, you know.”
She thought of Detectives Snyder and Lyons, then the sheriff. “Not yet. Not until I have some proof,” she said, opening the car door. A gust of cold, damp air swept inside. “Thanks for everything, Tanya.”
“NBD.”
Ava laughed. “You're wrong. It is a big deal. A very big deal.”
With a dismissive shrug, Tanya said, “Fine, then. Thank me by saying hi to Trent for me.”
“I still owe you, but okay. Will do.”
Some things never changed. Tanya, it seemed, had never lost the soft spot in her heart for Trent.
Grabbing her bags from the backseat, Ava waved good-bye, then walked down the asphalt path to the marina. Her stomach clenched with each footstep. Somehow she had to get through the next few hours with Wyatt and pretend to enjoy spending time with him when all she wanted to do was get back to the island and set up the recording equipment. She'd lock herself in the bathroom, run the shower, and connect all the pieces of her spy equipment so that all she had to do once everyone in the house was asleep was place the camera and recorder in the attic. Motion activated, it would only record when someone came into the bedroom and checked his or her equipment.
“Spy vs. Spy,”
she whispered, thinking of the old comic strip and cartoon show she'd seen as a child. “Two can play at this game.”
“Spy vs. Spy,”
she whispered, thinking of the old comic strip and cartoon show she'd seen as a child. “Two can play at this game.”
But first she had to deal with her husband.
On the waterfront, lights were strung near the entrance to the marina. She passed the open market, where the smell of fish was overpowering, and she saw Lizzy helping to scoop out a mound of shrimp for a couple who were perusing the glass display case.
Three doors down, she entered the coffee shop where the scent of brewing coffee was strong and rows of brightly colored Christmas gifts for the coffee connoisseur were displayed near a case of coffee cakes, doughnuts, and croissants. She ordered a pumpkin latte she really didn't want, then sat at a tall table near the window, her bags at her feet.
Sipping the latte, she set her elbows on the top of the bistro table and stared out the window toward the waterfront, dreading the boat ride with her husband.
Earlier, Tanya had mentioned that Wyatt had cheated on her, though her friend couldn't, or wouldn't, supply the names of whoever had supposedly been romantically involved with him. Now, as she tasted the spicy foam over her hot drink and stared out the window to the inky waters of the bay, she tried to recall who it could be and when it had happened.
Did it matter?
Of course it does. You need to remember everything. Good. Bad. Ugly. True. False. Whatever. Think, Ava. Concentrate. Everything's locked away, deep inside of you, but you can find it if you look hard enough. Just think!
Her head pounded and her stomach was in knots. Just a few more hours and she would be able to set her plan in motion. Her cell jangled.
Instinctively, she reached into her purse, her fingers grazing the ring of keys she'd stashed there. With all the excitement of the day, she'd forgotten them, but now she pulled them out of the bag, dropped them, clattering, onto the table, then withdrew her phone.
Wyatt again.
“Hey,” she answered, ignoring the tightness in her chest as she fingered the old set of keys.
“I'm about there, but wait for me. We can have dinner in Anchorville and then head back.”
Oh, Lord.
She glanced down at the packages she wanted desperately to stash in her closet. “Virginia isn't expecting us?”
She glanced down at the packages she wanted desperately to stash in her closet. “Virginia isn't expecting us?”
“Doesn't matter. We'll call.”
Whatever you do, don't make him more suspicious than he already is.
“Okay. I'm already at the coffee shop. I'll wait for you.” Her own words circled back at her and slapped her in the face.
“I'll wait for you.”
When had she uttered those before? Her skin crawled and she stared out the window, catching sight of her watery, worried reflection in the glass, a ghost of the woman she'd once been.
“I'll wait for you.”
When had she uttered those before? Her skin crawled and she stared out the window, catching sight of her watery, worried reflection in the glass, a ghost of the woman she'd once been.
Again, she wondered about Wyatt's lover, the woman with whom he'd had the affair. Her head began to pound painfully as she dug into her mind, piecing the past together, forcing the sharp-edged pieces into a pattern she could understand.
Suddenly, the door to that part of her memory flew open.
And all the sordid little details of that time in her life came rushing back to haunt her.
CHAPTER 33
T
he memory was so vivid, almost as if she'd turned back the clock a couple of years, to an autumn when the first frost had already covered the yellowed grass and all the leaves of the maple trees near the house had blazed orange and yellow, as if they'd been on fire.
he memory was so vivid, almost as if she'd turned back the clock a couple of years, to an autumn when the first frost had already covered the yellowed grass and all the leaves of the maple trees near the house had blazed orange and yellow, as if they'd been on fire.
Noah was as busy as ever, getting into things, opening doors, climbing the stairs, insisting upon playing peekaboo and hide-and-seek.
That evening, Ava had been on the phone as she'd carried Noah into the house. He'd been overjoyed with the pumpkins growing in the garden and had pointed repeatedly at a squirrel that had scolded them from the higher branches of a fir tree.
“. . . I just won't be able to make it home for dinner tonight,” Wyatt was telling her as she set Noah on the floor and, holding the phone against her ear, tried in vain to unzip her son's coat before he took off at a dead run through the foyer. “It's all right,” she'd said. “Noah and I will grab something to eat and then I'll get him ready for bed. He's tired, but I'll wait for you.”
“Don't bother. It's going to be late. I might not make it back until morning. I'll probably just crash here.”
“At the office.”
“Yeah, I'll sleep on the couch. I've got an extra suit and there's a shower in the executive bathroom.”
“Butâ”
“Give Noah a hug for me.” He clicked off, and in that moment, the truth hit her with a blinding force. He was with another woman. He was lying. She'd stared down at the phone in her hand, numb, as she put two and two together, all the times lately he'd called to postpone a plan or work late or . . .
“Mommy! Catch me!”
She looked up sharply, saw her son on the landing, and her heart galumphed. For a split second, she thought he was going to jump. Instead he kept scrambling up the stairs, obviously hoping she'd give chase.
Pushing thoughts of Wyatt and whomever he was with out of her mind, she ran after Noah, catching him up as he giggled in delight. She'd then managed to get through the next few hours. During dinner, while alone, Noah in his high chair next to her, she thought she'd caught pitying glances from Virginia but chalked it up to her overactive imagination. No one knew about the affair, for God's sake; she'd just learned of it.
Still. . .
The clock had seemed to move at half its regular rate as she bathed Noah, read him a story, and put him to bed. Afterward, she'd closeted herself in the bedroom she shared with her husband and stared at the digital clock as it slowly counted off the minutes.
That night had been the longest of her life. Her mind had raced. Questions had burned through her brain, and she hated not knowing, imagining her husband in bed with another woman. The sexâwas it wild? Intense? Had words of love been spoken, maybe even a joke at her expense as she'd been the trusting little wife? It had made her crazy, and after drifting off for a few hours, she'd awakened gritty-eyed but determined not to play the pathetic victim.
At first, for a week or so, he'd denied her accusations. None of this was a surprise.
Finally, in the middle of a huge fight in the living room, several weeks later, he'd thrown up his hands in surrender and given up with his denials and excuses.
Furious, his face twisted in anger that wasn't the least bit tinged with guilt, Wyatt had finally admitted to having been “half in love” with another woman. Despite her suspicions, hearing it from his own lips had been like a mule kick to the stomach, and she'd realized then that deep down, she'd hoped she was wrong.
“Okay, okay, I was involved with someone at the office,” he declared. “There! Are you happy now?”
“Of course I'm not happy,” she'd said, tears hot in her eyes, her chin thrust forward. She would not break down, though, not shed one more tear of grief for a marriage that had probably been long dead. “What's her name?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“Like hell!” It galled her that he would protect this other woman, this stranger who dared insert herself into another woman's marriage!
“She's already gone, okay? Couldn't take the guilt. It ruined her marriage, too, so she left the firm and took a job across the country.” One of his fists balled in frustration, and Ava wondered if he would raise it to her, threaten her.
“Who is she, Wyatt?” Ava had pressed, unable to let it go.
“Why the fuck do you care?” He stormed out of the room and into the foyer, where he'd grabbed his coat and briefcase and walked out the door. With a window-rattling thud, it slammed behind him. Through the window, she watched as he marched down the hill to the boathouse, his coattails billowing behind him.
“Bastard,” she'd muttered, then reminded herself that he was the father of her only child. Noah, it seemed, would be raised in a family that was splintered, something she'd hoped to avoid.
Wyatt had already moved out of their bedroom, and after this fight, she knew he would stay away. As it was, in the next few months, he'd spend more time off the island than on.
He'd sworn the affair was over. “It's history, okay? Forget it,” he'd advised a month or so later.
Ava hadn't believed him, but she did contact a friend who worked in Wyatt's office, and Norm, a junior partner in the firm, confirmed the story. “I thought about telling you,” Norm admitted over the phone, “but I was between a rock and a hard spot with you two. Truthfully, I didn't see what good it would do to let you know what was going on. It would've just hurt everyone.”
“So you let him dupe me,” Ava had charged.
“I did it to protect you, Ava. It wasn't about Beth, but hey, it doesn't matter now. It's over.”
“Of course it matters!” she'd said, angry tears streaming from her eyes. She'd hung up and felt miserable all over again. Torn between rage and pain, she had to know more, to dig until every little bit of dirt was turned over, until all of her curiosity was satisfied and she could move forward again.
Norm had said the woman's first name. Beth. A slipup? Or purposely said? Didn't matter. It was a start. Obsessed, Ava hired a private detective who within three days had confirmed that a Bethany A. Wells had moved from Seattle to Boston less than two months earlier. A divorce with the woman's husband was pending. And in the past few weeks, according to the PI, Wyatt hadn't been in contact with her. The affair had ended when she'd moved.
It hadn't mattered; the ending of the affair was too little, too late in Ava's opinion. Infidelity was infidelity. She'd started divorce proceedings against Wyatt and then . . . and then . . . Oh, God, Noah had been taken from them, and everything else, including her husband's betrayal, had seemed unimportant as she had lost her grip with reality.
Now that same cold feeling of utter abandonment returned as she thought of Wyatt's latest fling. What was it her mother had always said? “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
Though he denied his current affair, she knew in her heart that he'd found someone else to be “half in love with.” This time, though, she wasn't devastated. This time she was relieved. Evelyn McPherson could have him.
She dropped her phone into her purse and looked out the window again. Sure enough, she saw the running lights of a boat crossing the bay, growing closer. Her guts twisted as she took another sip of the latte. Somehow, she'd get through the meal, she told herself as she started to return the keys to her purse, then stopped, one of the keys catching her attention. It was different from the others, not a house key but a car key. Turning it over in her fingers, she saw that it was meant for a Mercedes.
Her father had always driven Fords, her mother a variety of domestic cars, her grandmother only Cadillacs. The only member of the family who'd ever owned a Mercedes had been Uncle Crispin.
This
was his set of keys, then. Huh. The Mercedes was long gone; he'd sold it just after losing his job at the hospital. . . .
This
was his set of keys, then. Huh. The Mercedes was long gone; he'd sold it just after losing his job at the hospital. . . .
Oh, crap!
The ring of keys had to be to all the locks at Sea Cliff! Her uncle had left them at the house? Along with a set for the car he'd sold ages ago?
A forgotten set, or more likely a lost set.
Ava straightened, feeling she was on to something now. And her memory was starting to return. Good. Through the window, she watched her husband dock the boat, and she stuffed the keys into a hidden pocket of her purse. Then she finished her latte and met Wyatt at the door of the coffee shop.
His hair was windblown, his face ruddy, his smile seemingly sincere as he brushed a kiss across her cheek. Somehow she managed to force a smile as he motioned to her two large shopping bags. “Wow. Looks like you cleaned out the store,” he joked. “Let me carry these.”
He reached for the sacks, and it was all she could do to let go and whisper, “Thanks,” while silently praying that he not try to peer inside.
“What'd you get?”
“Lots of thingsâshoes, a purse, a couple of pairs of jeans . . .” God, it was difficult making small talk.
They walked through a cool mist to a fish house located on the waterfront, a couple of blocks from the marina.
Once they'd been seated in a corner booth, near a hissing gas fireplace, a waiter took their drink orders, then left menus and a basket of warm bread. A few other couples were scattered at nearby tables and booths, the conversation and clink of silverware audible.
Wyatt, ever attentive, again asked Ava about her day while she felt her damned bags nearly glowed in bright neon:
spy equipment inside!
spy equipment inside!
“It was nice to get out of the house,” she said once they'd ordered. That much wasn't a lie. “The weather was great, so we didn't get wet dashing from store to store.”
“Downtown?”
“Mmm.” She nodded, reaching for her water glass just so she didn't have to look into his eyes as she repeated the story she'd created earlier in the day. “Tanya's great at bargain hunting, so she knew just where to go. And, oh, they were having a major sale at Nordstrom. Tanya was in heaven.”
“How is Tanya, by the way?” The waiter brought Wyatt a glass of wine and Ava the club soda she'd ordered to keep up the pretense that she was still taking her prescribed meds and thus avoiding alcohol.
“Crazy as ever.” To hide her case of nerves, Ava unwrapped the bread and buttered a slice. “She talked nonstop about her kids and remodeling the shop, which she hopes to do next year. I got the blow-by-blow of dance recitals and soccer matches for Bella and Brentâcute kids, of course.”
Somehow she ate the slice of bread and nattered on about nothing and finally asked, “What about you?” just as the waiter returned with their meals, steak and prawns for Wyatt and a salmon pasta salad that Ava had ordered and couldn't imagine forcing down.
“I've been away from the house most of the day,” he said. “I'll be out early tomorrow. Into the office and then depositions for the next couple of days.”
“Anything interesting?” She wanted to keep the conversation focused on him.
“Nothing I can talk about,” he said between bites of steak, and their small talk dwindled. Ava picked at her salad, forcing down bites as Wyatt dug in with the same gusto he'd had for as long as she'd known him. The silence stretched thin as they ate. The couple at the next table finished and left, and eventually, he'd had his fill and pushed his plate aside. “I think we should talk.”
“About?” Every one of her muscles grew taut. Her heart began to drum. Where was this going? Was he planning to bring up her fights with Jewel-Anne again? Or something even worse?
“Us.”
Her heart was really pounding now. “What about us?”
“There is none. We aren't us any longer.” He looked down at his hands before meeting her eyes. “You feel it, too, Ava. I know you do.”
She didn't respond. Didn't know how to handle this kind of honesty from him.
“We're barely civil to each other. Neither one of us trusts the other. We don't make time for the other person.” His face tightened with frustration. “Oh, hell, I'm as much to blame as you are.”
“So . . . what're you saying?” she asked. “You want to start over? Split up?”
“I want you to get well, Ava. I know you haven't been taking your medication, and now you're trying to get rid of Dr. McPherson under some ridiculous pretense that she and I are involved.”
Oh, God, she wasn't ready for this. Not when she was about to finally set her own plan in motion.
“You want to have this discussion now? Here?”
“I just want to clear the air. First of all, I'm not having a damned affair with your psychologist or anyone else! That's all in your mind. And you keep coming up with wild scenarios in which you see Noah when you and I both know he's gone. Forever.”
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