AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She didn't defend herself again. She just answered my questions as I got a better sense of her relationship with her husband's new girlfriend.
Sheila had known Cherise before that. She'd been the children's babysitter at one time.
"World's oldest cliche, huh? But it wasn't quite like that. I don't think Victor was shtupping the eighteen-year-old sitter. She left for college, and I didn't see her for years. Next thing I knew, they were together. She was twenty-five by then. Right in that sweet spot. Young enough for a guy in a mid-life crisis, but not so young it's creepy."
She laughed, and there was no animosity in it, no bitterness.
"So he was having a mid-life crisis?" I asked. "You figured his relationship with Cherise was temporary?"
"She didn't seem like his type, long term. He seemed like hers, though. I have no idea how it would have worked out." She smiled. "I get the feeling Cherise might have prevailed. She had tenacity. Gumption, too, as my gran would have said."
"How did you feel about that?"
She shrugged. "Like I said, I wouldn't have been thrilled with Cherise as stepmommy, but honestly, I won't be happy to see anyone taking that role in my kids' lif
e. Someone will, though. Victor is the marrying type."
We picked up coffees. As we started back, at the same pace, I waited a few minutes before I resumed the conversation exactly where we'd left off.
"Any chance you two will get back together?"
"Hell, no. I love Victor dearly, but I love him as a co-parent. A friend. I'm hoping we'll get back to that once they find out who killed Cherise. The sad thing, hon, is that we were exactly that--friends and co-parents--for most of our marriage. That's how I got hooked on the meds."
"You were unhappy."
"Yep. I wasn't miserable. I wasn't depressed. I was just unhappy, and so was he, and I think that bothered me more than anything. I wasn't making him happy, and I began to wonder if I ever had."
"I'm sure--"
She cut me off with a look. "I don't need a teaspoon of honey to make the medicine go down. I prefer honesty, as bitter as it might be. Victor and I met in college. Engineering. I was the only girl in the program, and I thought that would mean, for the first time in my life, the boys would notice me. They'd have to."
She laughed and shook her head. "Didn't quite work out that way. I told myself they were intimidated. I got better grades than they did. I had companies fighting for me before I even graduated. I would be more successful than any of those boys, and they knew it, so they steered clear. Truth is, I've just never been the sort of woman that men chase. Not until Victor."
"He chased?"
A smile softened her face. "He did. He wasn't intimidated--he was impressed. But he wasn't . . . Well, he wasn't my type. But I liked him as a friend, and no one else was interested so . . . Damn, that's a shitty thing to say, isn't it?"
"It happens."
Her gaze slid over me. "I'm sure you had no problem getting the boys."
"That doesn't mean I kept them. I'm a little . . . unusual."
"Aren't we all? I remember my mother telling me I just wasn't like the other girls. Now I wonder, who is? Who fits this mythical mold?"
"Guys used to say that to me. That I wasn't like other girls. I never knew what it meant--I just knew I didn't like hearing it."
"My mother meant it as a compliment--that I wasn't some insipid twit." She rolled her eyes. "I'll never say it to my daughter. She's strong, and she's unique--just like other girls. With Victor, I settled, and as cruel as that sounds, I think he did, too. He pursued me because I was the proverbial fish in a barrel. Easy to catch. I'd say our marriage was a mistake, but he gave me two amazing children, and he is a wonderful father."
Everything she said reinforced my first impression. Any animosity toward Cherise had been mild, and getting rid of her would only put another woman in her place--a potentially worse stepmom. Sheila didn't want Victor back. So what did she stand to gain by killing his girlfriend?
"I asked Detective Lee if I could see the remains of that device," Sheila said when I brought up the IED. "I wanted to point out all the problems with it. Then she'd see that if I'd done it, I'd damn well have done a better job."
"You'd have built it right."
"Hell, no. I'd have built it wrong properly. You've heard that it probably wasn't supposed to detonate, right?"
I nodded.
