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“I am. It just doesn’t sound like Melanie.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Surveillance says otherwise. She met him at that restaurant, same as you. On the same night you first made contact, in fact. Pretended her name was Jenny...”
This does sound like Melanie. “Oh.”
“I could tell she wanted in on the deal and I told her no. I told her it was too dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?” I ask but then I back off knowing I’m skirting too close to a pain point for him. He wouldn’t have wanted Melanie anywhere near Elliot Parker for the simple fact that he would be exactly her type—gullible and lonely.
“I just don’t know why she would do such a thing,” he says. “And it’s killing me.”
She wants to beat you at your own game, I almost say. This is what you two do. You mess with people, you use them as pawns, and when they’re no longer useful, you rid yourselves of them. Problem is, you pull the rest of us in with you. The truth is, Melanie sleeps with a lot of people. But I don’t tell him that.
After I’ve soaked in the tub, thoroughly soaked, until the hot water seeps into my bones, and I feel nothing, I can’t help myself. I recognize a test when I see one, so I check on Matthew, and then I dial Melanie.
She answers on the second ring. “V?”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you...”
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine. Why?”
“It’s nearly midnight. Jesus, Vanessa. When I saw your name, I thought something was wrong.”
“No, we just haven’t really gotten a chance to talk and I was wondering how your date went the other night.”
“You called this late to discuss my love life, V?” She seethes silently until she doesn’t. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?”
Sometimes I forget we aren’t really friends.
That well, huh? It’s the new vitamins, I want to tell her. They make me brazen.
“Stop. I’m tired. I have ten thousand meetings tomorrow, and lunch with a potential donor.”
She realizes I’m fishing, which is half the point. Typically, Melanie loves to talk about her dating life. Particularly if Adam or anyone who might relay information to him—which is everyone— happens to be within earshot.
She lowers her voice, speaking so quietly I have to strain to hear her. “I had another proposal though.”
“Wow.”
“Not from the guy last week,” she continues. “He was a dud.”
“The guy you met at that restaurant downtown?”
“What guy?”
“You didn’t say. You just said you'd met someone.”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you about that guy.”
“You didn’t tell me about him. You just mentioned you met someone. How else would I know?”
She’s silent for several beats. The silence is quite clear. She can’t pinpoint which of us is lying. She’s right. She didn’t tell me about him. But it worries her too much to believe that someone else might have. “Anyway,” she says finally, “This makes fourteen…or something like that…who knows? I lost count.”
I haven’t. “Sixteen,” I say recalling the last time she mentioned the subject. “This makes sixteen.”
