Page 50 of Ravaged With You

“The picture loaded,” I add. “Signal’s not great here. Is it supposed to be this grainy?”

“That’s the best we’ve got. The system wasn’t hi-res by a long shot.”

I have my tablet balanced between Red and me on the console. We’re looking at two people in a hallway. Mel’s looking over his shoulder, his arm around a woman with long, dark hair facing away from the camera. My stomach clenches at their intimate pose, but I try to analyze the photo, not my irritation that he had a sidepiece.

“Dammit, Mel,” I whisper. “If you were fucking her, why the hell didn’t you just sign the divorce papers?”

Red reaches over and takes my hand. “Can you clean it up?” he says to Ryan.

“It’s doubtful, but I’m trying,” Mario says.

“Is that a mirror in the hall?” Red asks. I look more closely and see what he’s referring to. There’s something there, visible in the gap between their heads. It’s round, and has something blurry in the middle of it.

“You got it,” Mario says. “But that’s as clean as I’ve gotten the reflection. If we can get it, we’ll have our girl. But I gotta tell you, confidence is low.”

“So what’s the plan?” I ask.

“If we found this, we can probably find more,” Mario says. “I’m all over it. This and the exterior cameras. More light. Might get a better quality image. Bottom line, I’m on it.”

Once we end the call, Red pulls back out onto the road. For a while we drive in silence, and I wonder what he’s thinking. Mel was my husband, but I wouldn’t have expected him to tell me about an affair, though it would’ve been nice if he’d agreed to the divorce. But he was Red’s best friend, and unless Red was lying to me, he didn’t have a clue about the affair either.

I’ve been nursing my wounds, but in that moment I realize that Red suffered the same kind of betrayal I did. With a friendship that close, why didn’t Mel turn to him? Why didn’t he tell him that our marriage was in trouble? That he was seeing someone else?

These are all questions I know I’ll never have the answer to, and it eats at me, but at the very least, I’m grateful that I’m not going through this alone.

We’re over the hill and in Studio City when another thought occurs to me. “What if she’s not in danger?” I ask. “What if he was having an affair with someone who was actually plotting to kill him?”

“Not a bad theory, but it raises the question of why she’d want to kill someone like Mel. Was he into something shady? Did she pull him in?” He looks sideways at me. “Would that make you feel better? If his mistress was his killer?”

I sit up straighter, shocked by the question. “Like that’s what he deserves because he screwed around? God, no. I just wish I knew why he didn’t agree to a divorce.”

“Mel was never good at admitting he was wrong,” Red says. “Maybe he didn’t want to face the truth.”

I sit for a moment, watching the familiar buildings go by. “Maybe. I guess I get that. It’s hard to own up to who you are sometimes. To get out of your own way.”

The words linger in the air, and I have to wonder how much they apply to Red. There’s something between us. I know it. I felt it. Good God, I’ve felt it since the first day I met the man. And now, in the midst of all this tragedy, he’s even admitted it to me. And yet he’s not willing to do a damn thing about it. Is he not willing to get out of his own way either?

With a sigh, I lean back and close my eyes, wishing that everything were different. But it’s not, and this is the new normal, and we’re going to get through this. I have to believe that, because the only other option is that we don’t find this thing, and my world crumbles even more. Possibly all the way into dust and ash.

“Is your mom coming for the wedding?” I blurt the words out in an attempt to get my mind off the subject.

He laughs. “Is that a subtle way to change the subject?” I roll my eyes at how well he knows me.

“I didn’t think it was subtle at all.”

He chuckles. “No, she’s not coming. She planned to, but Elise fell and broke her hip, so they can’t travel.”

“Oh, I didn’t know. Will she be okay?”

“Yeah, Mom says it’s healing well. She’ll have to be careful with it, but she’s doing okay.”

“Good. I like Elise. She was a hoot that one time they came to visit when we were in college, and we went to the Getty with them. Do you remember?”

“I do. That was a good day.”

Elise, who at one point taught art history, had been our private tour guide. But she made it so much fun, telling us stories about the pieces that she knew something about, and making up things if she didn’t. It was the only time I’ve ever wandered through a museum and alternated between learning something and laughing my ass off.

I adored her from that moment on, and I was truly happy when I learned that Red’s mom and Elise, who I’d always thought were just longtime besties, had recently gotten married.