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No. He wouldn’t. Not after last time.
In disbelief, she brings the shirt to her nose and sniffs. A woman’s perfume – floral and exotic, very faint. She tells herself that it doesn’t necessarily mean what she thinks it means. Maybe someone at the office was doused in scent today …
But Nancy can’t stand being lied to, and she won’t lie to herself either. She hasn’t smelled anything like this on her husband or his clothes since she forced him to break off his affair with Anne O’Dowd.
She sinks down onto their bed, her heart racing with the fear of betrayal. She hasn’t trusted him since she caught him cheating. She’s been keeping an eye on him, slipping her hands into his trousers and jacket pockets at night, looking for signs – a receipt, a cocktail napkin, a note … but there’s been nothing. She doesn’t know the passcode to his phone, unfortunately.
She sits on the bed feeling like the wind has been knocked out of her. She doesn’t want to go through this again. Should she confront him? She knows from experience that he’ll deny it. He’ll deny it until there’s incontrovertible proof, like last time.
She’d told him she’d forgiven him for Anne, but it isn’t really true. She hasn’t forgiven him. But she wants to stay in her marriage. She still loves him, and they have a young child to think about. Henry is only four years old. She doesn’t want to be a single mother, making arrangements week in, week out, reminding Niall to make his support payments, because she knows – she has divorced friends, and she knows what it’s like.
He’ll be smarter this time, more cautious. Because he wants the marriage to survive too. He’d been completely undone, before, when he realized that his little fling might cost him his marriage, his family. He’d been shattered. He wasn’t lying about that.
So why does he do it? Why does he cheat on her?
Patrick climbs into bed just after midnight. Stephanie shooed him away as she sat on the sofa with the twins, one propped up on each breast. He knows they’ll be quiet while they’re feeding, but soon after, the crying will begin again, and she will have her hands full for a while yet before they finally cry themselves to sleep. This is their routine – he gets a couple of extra hours at night and she gets the afternoon nap. They’re both functioning on about six hours of sleep a night and have been for months. Even so, when he gets into bed now, he can’t sleep.
They’d walked in circles while holding the crying babies all through the long evening and night. He’d longed for his bed, but now that he’s here, he can’t shut off his mind. To pay Erica would be a stupid thing to do. They must stand up to her, call her bluff. But what if she doesn’t give up? What if she goes to the authorities and they take her seriously? Would they, after all this time? Surely it will make them doubt her, the fact that it took her so long to come forward. He’ll tell them that she’s tried to blackmail him. Surely that would put an end to it right there. He really shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Even if nothing comes of this, though, Erica has already done enough damage. He could see the doubt in his wife’s face – not about the accident, but about him. He’d been unfaithful to his first wife; he could see the calculation behind Stephanie’s eyes – Would he be unfaithful to her?
He’d had a fright when Stephanie suggested she meet Erica. No, they mustn’t meet. He must make sure of that. He’d always sensed something dangerous coiled inside Erica. Maybe that had been part of the attraction all those years ago. But now he has so much more to lose. What if Erica comes around to the house, spouting her lies? She can be very convincing. He has to trust Stephanie. Trust that she loves him enough to tell the truth from the lies.
Finally, he drifts into a troubled sleep.
The next morning, Nancy pours herself a cup of coffee and decides she is not going to be made a fool of. If her husband is starting to see someone else, she has to know what’s going on. This morning when Niall left for work, he was whistling – a bad sign; he used to whistle when he was seeing Anne.
Now, she sits down at the kitchen table with her cell phone. She’s never been very good with technology; she learns only as much as she needs, and beyond that she tries to ignore it as much as possible. She doesn’t use apps. She can work her computer, and she’s adept enough at social media, but she’s not one to adopt new technologies with enthusiasm. Unlike her husband, who has an app for everything and who’s in love with his flashy new Tesla Model X with its falcon wings and futuristic features. She’s afraid to drive it – she finds it intimidating. She has her own car, anyway. Still, when he bought it, in his first flush of enthusiasm, he’d given her one of the black key cards to keep in her wallet, installed the app on her phone and tried to explain to her how it all worked, but she’d glazed over and hadn’t looked at it since.
Now she opens up her phone and clicks on the Tesla app. She studies it and decides there’s some valuable information on here. She can see right now that her husband’s car is parked at 111 Bleeker Street – he’s at the office. She realizes that she can open the app at any time and see exactly where his car is. That might come in handy.
Erica leaves her spartan apartment and climbs into her car. Despite what he said, she doubts Patrick has told his new wife anything at all. He’s always been the secretive type. No, his wife probably doesn’t have a clue. She won’t know what’s hit her, if and when it all comes out. She should be grateful, Erica thinks – maybe he was going to try to kill her and her babies one day. A man like that. Erica tells herself that really, she’s doing the woman a favour.
She turns onto the highway to Aylesford, consumed with curiosity about Patrick and his new little family. She already knows where they live, what they look like. She’s been there. She’s even viewed a house for sale a couple of doors down from the Kilgours’ on Danbury Drive. It’s one of the nicest suburbs in Aylesford, according to the real estate sites. She knows they’ve got money. She’ll drop by again today, to Danbury Drive. Take another look at his new wife.
Stephanie wakes with a start. She has no idea how long she’s been asleep – it could be minutes, or hours. She looks at the digital clock to orient herself. It’s 2.37 p.m. Someone is calling her name. Who is it? She sits up, thinking she’s imagined it.
‘Stephanie?’
She recognizes Hanna’s voice, calling her from downstairs. What is Hanna doing in the house? Is something wrong? Stephanie remembers the fire in the kitchen and gets out of bed and rushes to the stairs – no smell of smoke; she’s halfway down when she sees Hanna in the front hall, the door wide open behind her. ‘What are you doing here?’ Stephanie asks, confused.
Hanna looks up at her, her face showing concern. ‘I saw your front door was open. I came by to check on you.’
Stephanie reaches the front hall. She thought she’d locked the door on her way in from the grocery store – but maybe she hadn’t. She can’t remember.
‘Maybe I forgot to lock it,’ she says, worried, one hand to her forehead. ‘I must be losing my mind.’ She shakes her head and frowns. ‘Honestly, if these babies don’t start sleeping soon, I’m going to completely lose it.’ She hasn’t told Hanna about the incident with the stove. She hasn’t told anyone but her husband. Hanna only has one baby, and his sleeping habits are excellent; she might judge, even if she doesn’t mean to.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ Hanna says, ‘but I was worried.’ She closes the door now.
‘No, it’s fine,’ Stephanie says, giving her a wan smile and looking dully at the area near the door. She’d dropped her handbag there on the floor, by the narrow table in the entryway. She’s sure of it. ‘Where’s my bag?’ she says, looking around for her large black handbag.
Hanna’s eyes sweep the vestibule, following her anxious gaze.
‘I left it right there,’ Stephanie says. It’s obviously not there now. She goes into the kitchen and checks the counter and the table. The floor. She doesn’t see her bag anywhere. Hanna has gone into the living room to look, and now comes back to join her.
‘Could it be upstairs?’ Hanna suggests.
