Page 28 of Beach Bodies


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“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

“Just what I said. You work in the ER. We’ve had one gunshot wound so far today. I don’t need another.”

“Your victim didn’t come through the ER, Alan. She was already dead.”

“Right. She was pronounced at the scene.”

“Are you ready to hang up?” she asked. “You’ve upset me.”

“I don’t want to upset you,” Alan said.

“It’s too late,” she replied. “See you later.”

Shelly hung up, not saying goodbye. Returning to the nurses’ station, she knew she would spend the rest of the morning trying to block out what Alan had told her, what she already knew about him. It was not the first red flag she’d seen in months of dating him. Her father had warned her that all cops had some baggage, but at the beginning of their relationship, she’d thought Alan’s was superficial. He’d never been married, had been gainfully employed since college, didn’t drink or do drugs, owned his own home, drove a newer-model paid-for car, all the earmarks of a steady guy.

Now this. His best friend’s wife. It would seem Alan was competing with Dan.

She’d see what she could find out as soon as there was a lull in the workload. At a break at two o’clock that afternoon, she Googled Dan Chua. There was a ton of information, including pictures of Dan and a tiny, adorable Asian woman named Julie Hsu. Was this the woman with whom Alan had had the affair? Julie Hsu was young, too, in her late twenties, compared to Alan’s early forties. Shame on him. Dan and Julie had a baby girl they called Margaret. Alan had been aware of all of this when he took Dan’s wife to bed. What had he been thinking? That they’d never get caught? Or that Dan wouldn’t care?

DidDan care?

Against her will, Shelly judged Alan, Dan, and Julie Hsu. It wouldn’t do a bit of good to say anything to him about it. It was done, over. It had happened a while ago. Now she was sorry she hadn’t asked for details. A part of her wanted to call Julie Hsu and question her.Hi, Julie. I’m Alan’s fiancée. He tells me you had an affair.Why would he betray his best friend like that? Was it your fault?

Or even better, she’d call Dan.Dan, it’s Alan’s girlfriend, Shelly. Have you forgiven Alan for betraying you?

Then, the coup de grace. Dan Chua had not only been married to Julie Hsu, but he’d been involved with Lily Porter, too.

The idea that she’d obsess over it made Shelly angry. She wasn’t pure, although her sins hadn’t been as complex until now. She’d never cheated on a boyfriend who expected monogamy.

“Get back to work,” she admonished herself.

***

After seeing Will off to work an hour late, Laura contacted her surveillance clients with updates. The psychiatrist spent time after hours with April Clark, a local schoolteacher and mother of two, but Laura had been unable to determine if her child was a client. It would take more surveillance to determine where they were meeting and what was taking place. The client approved another block of hours, and Laura would work on it that evening.

The trader’s wife received the news about the pharmacist with menacing calm. “I should have guessed.”

“I’m so sorry,” Laura said, grimacing. “I can send you the information in an email or meet you with the file.”

“Just send it,” she snapped. “That bitch is my sister.”

Laura was speechless for a moment. “I’ll send it now.”

The client hung up. For once, Laura was glad she wasn’t a fly on the wall of that house.

The next client was a switch for Laura; this was a lawyer looking for information about a possible client before he took on the case.

“The guy is suing his employer. I don’t have the time to search on social media to see if this is his MO. There’s nothing in public records about previous filings in New York State.”

She’d spend the next hour searching for information about the litigious client and hand it over to the attorney, all the while watching the clock. Making a visit to her stepsister Lisa was the next order of things.

The wind was howling that morning, after the calm of the night before. Winter was definitely in the air, just as Will had said. Laura grabbed his down-filled jacket and wound his blue and red Pennsylvania scarf around her neck. Taking the sidewalk was quicker than trudging up the dune. Their cottages were separated by a few houses and a vacant lot where a beach cottage that couldn’t be saved had been torn down. It made Laura ill, thinking of the history that had disappeared with the building being razed, each board, each windowpane. The cottages had been built at the turn of the twentieth century, when tired New Yorkers had wanted a respite from the heat of the city.

Approaching Lisa’s cottage always gave Laura a bit of apprehension; Laura had had a brief fling with Ryan, Lisa’s brother/husband, when she’d been in Manhattan for only a short time and Ryan had worked for Laura’s father.

When she saw Ryan now, how changed he was from that handsome, dynamic guy she’d been attracted to. He’d become a bearded, depressed landscape painter. Actually, one landscape, and that was what he could see out the front window of their cottage. As far as Laura knew, Ryan never left the cottage except for a fifty-foot radius around it, or to walk along the surf to his stepmother/mother-in-law Pam’s house. His relationship with Pam was one of the oddest Laura had ever witnessed, and she wondered if she wasn’t reading too much into it. They were almost giddy when they were together, laughing and whispering, and Lisa just shook her head in amusement. “My mother and Ryan bring out the best in each other.” Laura pondered that.

“Knock, knock,” Laura called out, waving at Lisa through the door window.

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