Once her father had left, after she had made a finger-crossed promise to call George on her lunch break, Nancy curled up into herself and began to cry in earnest. She didn't want to see anyone. She wanted Ned to walk up to the door and tell her it had all been some terrible mistake and he was sorry, and he was coming back, and...
The doorbell rang, again.
The initial adrenaline rush died as she raised her damp eyes to the door. Not unless she and her father had both hallucinated a lawyer she'd never seen before. There was no chance.
But she couldn't stop her heart from racing just the slightest bit as she tried to smear the tears from her cheeks. Maybe the lawyer had been lying, maybe Ned had changed his mind, maybe...
Hannah Gruen stood at the door. She opened her arms to Nancy and Nancy fell into them, gratefully.
"You're here?" she asked. "And... who?" A girl of about twelve stood on the porch next to Hannah, her long brown hair tied back into a ponytail, looking up at Nancy's reddened face curiously. Nancy pulled back.
"This is my grand-niece, Amy," Hannah replied. "We're just spending some time together before school starts. Amy, this is Nancy."
Amy shook hands gravely.
"I bet you haven't eaten yet," Hannah said, looking Nancy shrewdly.
--
Amy was content enough, once introduced to the ancient game console Nancy had used while still living with her father and Hannah. Hannah and Nancy sat in the kitchen, Nancy at the bar with her hands curved around a glass. Nancy had told Hannah all about it once Amy was out of earshot, and Hannah had listened as though she had not heard any of it before.
"Did Dad call you?" Nancy took a sip of her drink.
Hannah shook her head. "Bess did," she replied. "Yesterday."
Hannah was taking Amy on a sort of road trip while her parents... well, Hannah wasn't quite sure what her parents were doing, whether they were in the process of reconciling, or going through a bad patch, or maybe just taking a couple of weeks in Europe. She had installed the girl in her brushed chrome trailer and had taken her to the beach for a little while. Amy had never seen Chicago before.
Nancy became aware of Hannah's stare and endured it for a little while before she looked up and returned it.
"You want him back." It wasn't a question.
Nancy nodded. "I'm going to fight him for this," she said.
Hannah nodded, satisfied. "Good. I think you should. Where are the children?"
"With his parents, probably," Nancy said, running a hand over her face. "I can't believe this."
--
Her eyes were still bloodshot as she slid into a private booth at a local upscale Chinese restaurant. Nancy had changed into a tight-fitting black shirt, black slacks, black shoes, a diamond pendant hanging on a silver chain around her neck. Her hair was pulled away from her face in a tight ponytail, her lips bloodless and pale, her unpolished fingertips trembling slightly. The light in the booth, soft and pale yellow, was kind to her taut features.
Tracy had replaced the lifejacket with a bright silk shirt and black miniskirt, dangling hoop earrings, her hair in a riot of curls close to her face. Her eyes were still as intent as ever. When the waitress approached them from behind the curtain, she ordered a ginger ale.
"You holding up okay?" Tracy asked.
Nancy smiled wanly. "Whatever you have to say, it's going to be bad," she replied.
Tracy nodded, holding her eyes on Nancy's, then looked down at her notebook. "Subject was in conference with Paul Morris this morning. Conference lasted about an hour."
"At his office, or somewhere else?"
"Somewhere else," Tracy said. "A bar down the street. They had brunch together."
"How did Ned look?"
"Like he hadn't slept," Tracy admitted. "I decided to stick with Ned, and not follow Paul."
"Paul came to my house," Nancy answered. "What after that?"
"He went back to his hotel. He's in room 412 at the Palisades."
"Room 412," she repeated. "All right."
"You're not going to eat anything?"
Nancy shook her head. "You?"
"I'll pick up something to go and then relieve Simon."
"Put it on the expense account," Nancy said. "And thanks. And we were..."
"Never here," Tracy finished. "All right."
--
Amy took in the bedroom after Nancy flipped the light switch. Hannah had changed the sheets for her, and kept the old ones; Nancy knew negative evidence wouldn't do her much good, but part of her wondered whether anything would be found on those sheets.
no, no
She shook her head to clear it, and Amy stepped inside. "You must really like horses," she said.
Nancy chuckled, softly, sardonically. "People give me these things as a joke," she replied. "Making fun of my name."
His name. She clenched her nails into her fist.
Amy nodded. "It's pretty," she said. She looked at the stitched pillow of a brown and white horse at the head of the bed. "I sleep in here?"
"If you want."
The babies were asleep, finally. They had been incredibly fussy when they arrived. Nancy wondered if they could sense anything. Amy had been utterly taken with them, and Nancy was pretty sure Amy would have slept in the nursery if Nancy had offered it as an option, but Nancy had a feeling that she was going to roll their crib into the master bedroom and stare at them, sleepless, all night. Afraid she'd wake and they would be gone again.
She and Ned were walking hand in hand on the bank of the Muskoka River, the first place he had ever proposed to her. He was smiling at her. She felt an enormous sense of relief sweep over her.
She woke and reached over to where he should have been, and felt nothing but the bare sheet. Hana made a soft noise in the darkness.
Nancy cried herself back to sleep.
--
Ned worked closely with a guy named Jordan Carroll. Recently divorced, dark-haired, light-eyed, Jordan usually instigated the after-work meetings at the bars or clubs. Nancy hated him on sight, and for that reason he'd only been invited to a few of the poker nights.
Tracy had a light zippered hoodie over a lace-trimmed silk camisole, and was wearing whiskered bootleg jeans, as she walked into the bar. She found a table, ordered water, made herself preoccupied. She checked her watch often, toyed with her hair and hoop earrings, and became more impatient as the seconds ticked by. The place wasn't too busy, so she gave up her table and moved over to where the guys were playing pool.
Jordan noticed her. Brad Turner noticed her too, which was better.
"We've got room for another," he said, offering to move aside. He was about her height in her heels, light-haired, and just a bit sloshed.
A few of the secretaries sized Tracy up, then looked away as she let the light glint off the diamond on her left ring finger.
"Well..."
"Come on," Brad said, turning on the smile. "You waiting for somebody?"
"Yeah," she said. "My boy-- fiancé was supposed to be here ten minutes ago."
"I'm sure he won't mind if you kill time while you're waiting."
She made a show of hesitating, considering, then nodded firmly to herself, chalked her pool cue and took her place next to him at the table. She smiled around at the guys, introduced herself to Brad and Jordan, and made herself seem unsure again when Brad offered to buy her a drink.
"No pressure," he said.
She winked at the bartender, and took her ginger ale with a grimace. After another turn which she intentionally flubbed and allowed him to "just make a few suggestions," she took another sip and nodded at Danielle. Brad was staring at Tracy, obviously hoping her boyfriend didn't show.
"She looks familiar," Tracy said slowly. "Oh-- man, I think she's the girl who used to be my cousin's fiancée."
"Used to be?" Brad asked, politely, and took another swig of his beer.
"She broke up with him." Tracy lowered her voice dramatically. "She's a real-- well, anyway, my cousin was totally heartbroken over it."
"Can't be," Brad said, confidently. "She's one of the nicest girls in the entire office."
"You work with her?" Tracy looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't know, I wouldn't have said anything..."
Brad shrugged. "Maybe she just looks a whole lot like that girl."
Tracy put her hand on her hip, her smile curving the edges of her mouth. "Oh really. So tell me, is she still going out with married guys?"
"Not-- not married. Separated."
Tracy made a mock-surprised sound. "Right. Sure he is."
"He wouldn't go out with her if he weren't," Brad said. "You can ask Jordan here, they're tight."
Jordan looked over, looked Tracy over deliberately. "You two talking about me?"
Tracy laughed. "Brad here is trying to convince me that girl on the other side of the table isn't a total slut. She broke up with my cousin."
Jordan glanced over at Danielle. "I'm surprised she's even here," he said. "She must be waiting for Ned to show."
Maybe due to the weight of their glances, Danielle grabbed her purse and started pawing through it. When she produced her cell phone she started for the door. Tracy reached unobtrusively into her pocket and pressed a button.
"Bet she just recognized me," Tracy said. "I'd leave if I were her, too. If I'd had another drink I might have started something."
Jordan frowned. "Must have been a long time ago, or else..." he shook his head. "I've been here almost the same time she has, and I don't remember her being engaged."
"You sure that's the kind of thing you notice in a girl?" Tracy asked, letting the ring on her finger sparkle. Brad laughed.
"I'm sure your cousin's over it. He's probably married by now, isn't he?"
"Yeah, but it's the principle of the thing," Tracy said. Danielle had walked out, but Tracy didn't dare glance out the window to follow. "I shouldn't get this worked up over it. I'm just pissed that Josh hasn't gotten here yet."
As if on cue, her cell phone rang. "Hey," she answered it, having glanced at the caller ID. "I'm here, where are you?"
"Waiting outside," Simon answered.
"But this is the place, right? The one we drove by last week?"
"No," he answered. "That's not it. I'm around the corner."
"Oh." She flashed a winning smile at the guys around the pool table, and grabbed her purse. "I'm sorry, honey. I guess I misunderstood."
"Yeah," Simon answered. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
Tracy walked out of the bar. "She's on her way, too?"
"I'll keep an eye out," Simon replied.
--
Tracy didn't ask how Simon had done it, and he didn't volunteer the information. As the supervisory operative, she couldn't afford to get into legal trouble.
For this particular case, Simon was going demure. Hair dyed jet black (she had no idea what his natural color was, she had seen it every shade of the rainbow), eyes brown, hands ringless, no necklaces or earrings, no visible tattoos. A paper cup holding a straw rested in the cupholder of the sedan, but he'd kept the interior otherwise clean. He was wearing a plain white button-down and khakis, casual but enough to appear professional, should he need to show credentials to a disbelieving hotel manager or taxi driver.
"Listen to this," Simon said, and rewound a microcassette recorder he had attached to some innocuous-looking shiny black boombox device. She hooked the earphone over her ear and heard Danielle's voice.
"Hey."
"Hey," Ned replied, on the tape.
"You didn't show up tonight."
"I didn't feel like going out."
He couldn't have been paying less attention to what she was saying, the signals she was sending. "You sound lonely."
Ned laughed, bitterly. "Yeah."
"Maybe I can cheer you up. Watch a movie with you, something."
"I don't know."
"At least let me see you. I'm worried about you."
He sighed. "I'll be fine, Danielle."
"But I don't know that."
"Okay," he said, resigned. "I'm in room 412, Palisades."
Tracy unhooked the earphone after hearing their goodbyes. Simon took the headphone jack out of the recorder and hooked it back into the boombox device.
"Live feed?" Tracy asked.
"Yeah," Simon replied. "And here she is..."
Danielle was walking up to the front entrance of the hotel. Tracy bent her head to Simon's, put her face against the side of his and away from the light, her hand at his neck. "Tell me when she's gone in," Tracy murmured.
After a moment Simon nodded, and Tracy moved back, listening to Danielle as she climbed into the elevator and made her way up to Ned's room.
Tracy wasn't going to just watch. Tracy wanted recordings. Tracy wanted photographs.
Most of all she wanted to catch him where it could do Nancy some good.
--
Ned was still wearing his dress pants when she walked into the room, but he was down to his undershirt. The television was on, some crinkled fast food wrappers were on the table near the bed. A few pillows had been propped up.
His eyes flickered on her face but barely seemed to register her presence once she entered. He settled back on top of the comforter, his face pale in the television's light.
Danielle kept glancing at things, looking away, looking at him to see if he was watching her, but he couldn't be farther away from the hotel room. Something on top of the dresser, in the corner next to the base of the television, gleamed; Danielle reached out and touched it.
His wedding ring.
She glanced back at him, but his left hand was in shadow. She gazed at the ring, again, reached out, touched it with her fingertips, drew it out of the corner.
Ned caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. In a sudden, rough movement he was out of the bed, on his feet, next to her, so close she could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, and then he was gone, the ring in his palm, his eyes shining.
"No," he said.
"Did she leave you?" Danielle said it without thinking.
She had noticed it, days before, his distraction, his bare finger, but being here, in this hotel, was more than "having problems" with his wife. She had been surprised, thrilled, when he'd told her to come to a hotel room, but obviously he had planned no sort of interlude. A few suitcases were open in the closet, shirts on top. He was living here.
Ned laughed. "In a manner of speaking."
"What happened?" Her purse still in her hand, she perched on the edge of the other double bed, leaning forward, her gaze sympathetic and understanding and ultimately, she hoped, strangely alluring.
He shook his head. "I haven't been back since that night."
Better than she had hoped. Far, far better than she had hoped. She had, in her more optimistic moments, been wishing that his wife was sleeping on the couch, starving him of female companionship, but this...
"I bet she's called you, tried to apologize..."
He shook his head. "I haven't taken her calls," he replied. "I told her..." Ned moved suddenly, sat facing her, his legs over the side of the bed and facing hers, his manner troubled. Danielle's gaze traced the line of five-o'clock shadow on his face and wondered for a moment what he'd do if she reached out and touched it.
"There can't be any explanation, can there?" he asked her. "I mean... can you think of any reason... other than, she had, it had to have been him. She was seeing him. That's why she was all moody with me, and then she'd feel guilty and come to me and everything would be great for a few days, but there, in our damn house, in that damn bed..."
"Ned," Danielle murmured.
He pressed his tight fists against his closed eyelids, then took a long breath. "I never want to see her again," he said. She saw him open his palm and throw the ring, hard, against the wall, so that it bounced and was lost in the shadows.
"Ned, I'm so sorry," Danielle said.
--
Tracy and Simon leaned back into their seats, and looked at each other, the shared headphone cord dangling between them.
--
Once Nancy had seen that Hannah had not yet returned from the grocery store, the tears started to spill. Three tries to find the right key to open the house to her. She slammed the deadbolt home and braced herself on the wall, willing the tears to stop. But they wouldn't, she couldn't, and she stayed there, the cool air sliding through the vent and onto her skin, the skin exposed between the faded babydoll t-shirt and threadbare capris she had thrown on after Tracy called, the hopes that maybe...
Two hours. Danielle hadn't stayed all night, but she didn't have to, given two hours.
Danielle, she had been told, through ears that longed to lose their ability to hear or comprehend the words that were ripping her to pieces, Danielle had called Ned, and had stayed in his hotel room for a little over two hours. And after that, like a delayed answer to her prayer, she had stopped being able to hear. Anything on top of it was just that much useless information, and Tracy's mouth had moved with silence coming out. Because Tracy and Simon, even if they had been inside the room watching, could not comprehend the sheer magnitude of his betrayal.
i guess he really believes it, then
And she remembered the night, before she was pregnant, when they had both been so incredibly drunk, and the tremble in his voice when he had told her that the one thing he could never forgive was her being with someone else. Any reassurances she had given him were a blur now, any soothed dismissals of his admission, the firm belief that she would never and this future was not in their cards.
It hadn't been, she was sure of that. Not then, not now.
She walked upstairs with a slow, even tread, telling herself that if Hannah did return before she completed her mission that she would abandon it and never think of it again. But she felt it like a tongue on a sore tooth, a distracted fingernail across a healing break of skin, a horrified fascination.
She found the disc.
The photography and videography had been done through a firm owned by a former client of hers, back before she called those she helped clients and back before she'd had a professional license to practice her craft. Very avant-garde, very chic, very expensive, but for her, for what she had done, she had been given a good deal. The disc in her hands had been professionally pressed, the photographs on heavy glossed or matte paper, her wedding portrait, the black and white snapshots of them together, sharing cake, toasting their marriage, the spontaneous joy on her face housed in black square for all to see.
How very crass, to have a second copy of their marriage ceremony, how very pessimistic. But so easy for her to slip it into the drive and make him a copy, unmarked, disguised, to slip past his defenses and remind him, make him feel what she was feeling right now.
Their parents had copies, of course, but her
their
copy was the director's cut, a version that could be shown to their children
oh God
years from now, the official-in-front-of-God-and-everyone ceremony, divided into chapters for the greatest emotional value, and Elise had had the great idea for them to do interviews, to be seen after, included on the disc, like a little time capsule of who they were just before that moment in November when their union was solemnized a second time.
She had seen his interview once. They had watched downstairs on the couch, and he had blushed and ducked his head as she watched his earnestness, and she had laughed self-consciously as he watched her recorded message to him. They had scanned over the ceremony itself, having lived it bare weeks before.
She watched it all, now, unheeding of Hannah's greeting when she returned from the grocery store. She watched the gleam Elise had caught in Ned's eyes, the wash of tears he hadn't shed but she had nonetheless seen, as they spoke their vows; she watched them dance together again for the first time, the bravado as he had threatened to shove cake in her face but had fed it to her very gently. The shaving cream on his car.
Then, the tightness of unshed tears around her chest nearly unbearable, she took out the second disc. Generic case, hand-scrawled label. Honeymoon video.
Not in the traditional crass sense of the word. They had received an expensive DVD camcorder as a wedding gift, and they had been trying it out. She watched herself on the beach, posing for him in a brief but comparatively modest bikini, the welcoming bubble of their in-suite jacuzzi complete with champagne glasses. He had taken the camera on a rafting trip and nearly lost it in the cascade, and she watched the clear frothing blue fill the computer monitor, heard her squeals of excited laughter, remembered the beaming satisfaction on her face as he had extended the camera to arm's-length and filmed them together, pressed cheek against cheek, hair dark and shining from water, crisp blue of an unclouded sky behind them.
This man, the man she had married, could not have done this. Could not believe she had slept with another man, could not have slept with another woman himself. Even during their worst fights she would have called it impossible.
The monitor blurred to an incomprehensible wash of colors as she let go. A tear dropped and in the second of sight before another tear rose to take its place, she looked down at the bean bag, considered throwing herself on it.
"Nancy! Lunch!"
She dashed those sudden tears on her collar and took a few deep breaths before she could trust herself to walk confidently through the door into the kitchen, without Hannah noticing a hair or eyelash out of place.
--
Simon's hair was spiked blue at the tips, now, his eyes heavily rimmed in black eyeliner, a studded leather collar around his throat. Tracy sat back and made beckoning gestures with just the tips of her fingers. "So give."
He took a seat across from her, at the table, under the soft domed light, and pushed a coffee across, toward her. "You might want a little before I get started."
She nodded, took a sip.
"Two and a half years ago, and you'll need to correct me if I'm wrong on this because it was right around the time I was hired, Nancy took a little trip to the Orient around Valentine's Day. She comes back and within a month has Ned wrapped around her finger.
"If we jump back a little while, we find that Danielle was hired at Ned's firm. Right around December 1. On December 31, she is at a New Year's Eve party. She catches Mr. Nickerson's eye."
"That trollop," Tracy interjected, her eyes gleaming.
"Danielle drove ten minutes out of her way this morning, and slowed down in front of a restaurant. I played a hunch. Their third date was there. About three days before Valentine's. Too early for her to have expected anything. He left for Hong Kong the next day, and when he comes back, he doesn't even seem to notice Danielle anymore."
"We got any hotel registrations, anything?"
Simon shook his head. "Nothing quite so crude as all that. Danielle was utterly heartbroken, but as for Ned, well, he couldn't be bothered. At the end of that year Nancy and Ned were married and Danielle had pretty much thrown in the towel.
"But that, my friend, was just under two years ago."
"So what changed?" Tracy put her coffee down and leaned forward.
"On May 28 Ned took Danielle back to that restaurant for lunch. Paid for her meal, looked very concerned, and she was falling all over herself to comfort him."
"Says the waitress," Tracy said, leaning back and closing her eyes.
"They came back to work and she was staring at his office door the rest of the day."
"Yeah." Tracy rubbed her temples. "So. Ned drops Danielle like a hot potato after meeting Nancy."
Simon flipped a page in his notebook. "Not meeting. Right around the time he turned twenty, the illustrious Mr. Nickerson was arrested on suspicion of murder. His attorney was Carson Drew."
"Twenty?" Tracy opened her eyes, cocked her head. "Damn," she breathed.
Having finished, Simon slumped back in his chair, reaching for his own coffee. "I'm almost positive he hasn't taken her to any hotel, not that we can pin down," he said. "Not any more than we already have. But those lunches look awfully suspicious."
"Don't they," Tracy smiled. "Good."
Simon closed his eyes.
"Just one last question. Why are you wearing that?"
Simon smiled. "Rachel Shirley, Ned's sweet little secretary, frequents some rather interesting clubs."
--
"I can't do this."
Hannah shook her head slightly, her mouth in a drawn line.
"What?"
Hannah flipped a page in the cookbook she was reading. "'She was so ashamed of herself she wouldn't even come out to the car,'" Hannah said, her voice pitched like Edith's. "'I hope we get full custody. Maybe she even had the guy in the house with her, that's why she didn't want to see me.'"
"Do you think that's what she's saying?" Despite the sheen of tears over her eyes, Nancy's voice was hard.
Hannah finally looked up. "What do you think she's saying?" she replied. "He has people around him telling him you're the worst thing for him right now, and if you don't go out there right now and act like you don't have a thing in the world to be ashamed of or hide, it'll just back up what she thinks."
"Maybe I should try to talk to her...?"
"Do you think it would do any good?"
Nancy twisted her hair up into a ponytail, the cuffs of her faded jeans frayed and brushing the floor behind the soles of her bare feet. "No," she said. "I need to talk to Ned."
"And he won't talk to you." Hannah's voice was as hard as Nancy's. "Plan B."
Nancy shook her head. "There is no plan B," she replied. "He-- how could he believe I would do something like this?"
"Because he walked in and saw it with his own two eyes."
"But we weren't..." Nancy bit her lip.
"Oh, you remember now?"
She shook her head. "No. I don't. But I know I didn't. I know that. No matter how mad I was, I wouldn't have done that."
"And what, Michael's stepped forward to back you up?"
Nancy shook her head miserably. "I haven't heard from him."
"He has Danielle ready to swear that Michael is a correspondent in your divorce, and you have nothing. Would you believe him if he came to you and said 'I don't know what that half-naked girl was doing in our guest bedroom with me, it was a misunderstanding...'?"
"No," Nancy muttered.
"So find out what did happen, Nan."
The car honked outside. Nancy adjusted the hem of her pale t-shirt, squared her shoulders, and met Hannah's eyes. "How do I look?"
"Like someone who is about to leave her mother-in-law with just a bit of doubt."
"A bit?" Nancy asked, an old gleam in her eye.
