Page 6 of One of Us Is Guilty

Shit.

The fleeting glance she caught of her reflection was enough to know her tears had ruined her make-up. The mascara had run over her cheeks like warpaint. She flipped the mirror closed and slammed the visor back into the roof.

Shit.

She definitely didn’t want anyone to see her, but least of all the man who exited through the rear emergency door of the building straight ahead. He was maybe a hundred yards away, but the light above the door just caught enough of him to notice that he wore a dark navy suit and thick wool coat, his tie strung loosely around his neck like a scarf. Vanessa thought he looked well in that coat. She had bought it for him for Christmas. A lousy gift for a husband whohad everything. He hurried across the lot and Vanessa slunk down into the driver’s seat, fearful that Patrick might catch a glimpse of her in the moonlight, or worse still, maybe he had noticed the light from the vanity mirror.

He glanced in her direction, and she shuffled down further into the driver’s seat. She thought, for just a moment, he might have seen her, but he never broke stride and got into his Mercedes, parked fifty feet to her left beside an old Ford and a brand-new Hyundai. Patrick switched on the engine, then drove out of the lot.

Vanessa replayed the scene in her mind – Patrick striding across the dark parking lot, the look in her direction.

Had he seen her?

She thought not.

She waited.

Sat up straight in the driver’s seat.

And thought about her husband’s tie hanging loose around his neck. When he was getting dressed in a hurry, he would leave their home with his tie loose, slung through his collar, top button open. Just like tonight.

There was no doubting the situation any longer. He was sleeping with Molly.

The affair wasn’t in her imagination. It was real. It was happening.

It was still happening.

She had warned Molly.

Vanessa was only thirty years old, but she had been betrayed many times before. Thinking back on it, each time had been unique. The pain was the only constant. It felt hot, like a burning coal in her stomach. The level of anger varied from partner to partner. For the worst of them, the men who she knew she should never have been with in the first place, the anger was less potent, as if their cheating was an inevitability – just part of who they were. For the better men who had passed through her life, the anger wasmore profound and targeted inwards toward herself. What had she done to make these men cheat?

Tonight, the pain was a ten-foot-high inferno and the anger was just as white hot.

She had warned Molly to stay away. She had trusted her to do the right thing.

And Molly had betrayed her.

She had to end this, one way or another.

Molly had to leave. She had to disappear out of her life. Out of Patrick’s life. Forever.

And it had to be tonight.

She reached over to the glovebox. Opened it.

Inside was a small red leather Valentino purse. It was expensive, and secret, and the perfect size to snugly hold its contents. No one knew about this purse. Not Patrick, not Molly, not anyone.

She put the purse in her pocket. Felt the weight. It sank deep into her coat.

Tonight could be dangerous. She had learned to recognize those high points of peril. She might need what was in that purse.

She checked her watch, and after a few minutes she got out of the car and made her away across the jagged stones that filled the lot until she reached the steel door.

She pulled the handle on the door, found it open.

Like last night.

She went through the dark hallway, and then up two flights of stairs.