Читать книгу Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights - Kyra Davis - Страница 9

Alicia let out an exasperated sigh. “Dead people are always so much more likable than the rest of us.”

—Words To Die By

Leah and I were only fifteen minutes late in meeting Anatoly at her house. This was a new record for Leah, but for some reason Anatoly didn’t look like he was in the mood for handing out gold stars.

“Can we go in now?” he asked.

“Hello?” I suggested. “When you greet someone you’re supposed to say hello. Otherwise people accuse you of having Asperger’s.”

Leah looked around the front yard and then stared at the still closed front door. “Where’s the police tape?”

“What’s the point of having police tape if there are no police here to enforce the restriction?” Anatoly asked. “Unless the goal is to entice troublemaking teenagers to mess with the crime scene.”

Leah threw him a confused look. “But in the movies…”

“Hollywood has a very different approach to crime fighting than the police.” Anatoly looked at his watch impatiently. “The police may or may not come back to look for more clues, but they have to accept the fact that by that time things will have been altered.”

“Okay, so let’s go in and alter them.” I looked expectantly at Leah, who was examining the doorknob as if it were attached to the gates of hell.

Anatoly cleared his throat. “Leah, if you want to wait out here I’ll understand. Just give me the keys and I’ll come get you if I have any questions.”

Leah shook her head. “I’ve got to go in eventually.” She pulled out her keys at a speed that underscored the meaning of the word eventually, and after several deep breaths (each one resulting in the further extension of Anatoly’s chin) she opened the door. She stood in the entryway for a full two minutes before Anatoly and I gently pushed past her.

Our first stop was the living room. Things looked eerily normal. If there had been broken picture frames on the floor, they were gone now, with the exception of a few neglected slivers of glass. Anatoly sighed and looked around the room.

“I’m sure they confiscated everything that could possibly qualify as evidence. I doubt we’ll find much.”

“You mean they took my wedding pictures?”

We turned to see Leah standing behind us.

“Can they really do that without asking me?” she asked.

“As long as they have a warrant,” I said. I walked over to the middle of the room and tapped my foot against the bloodstained floor. If I didn’t know better I would have assumed it was spilled burgundy.

Anatoly was now walking slowly around the room, taking it all in. “Show me where the gun was kept.”

Leah led him to the safe, which was tucked into the cabinet below her showcase of Waterford collectibles. It was such a stupid place to put a safe. Like a burglar wasn’t going to search the furniture piece holding thousands of dollars’ worth of crystal. Leah twisted the combination lock a few times until it released. Inside were some insurance papers, a will, a rather extravagant-looking diamond necklace and a few bond certificates that added up to an amount that was considerably less impressive than the value of the necklace. No gun.

Anatoly examined the insurance records. “No life insurance?”

“Bob thought accidental death and disability insurance was enough. After all, both of us were in perfectly good health.”

“So Bob decided to wait until his health failed before approaching the insurance companies for life insurance?” I asked. “Or is it possible he just couldn’t be bothered spending money on a policy that he would never be able to benefit from personally?”

Leah winced and I immediately felt guilty. I was going to have to work on holding back my reflexive insulting observations about her husband now that his previously vacant head contained a bullet.

Anatoly coughed a few times in an obvious attempt to suppress a laugh. “Let’s be grateful he didn’t have an insurance policy—one less reason for the police to suspect you.” He stuffed the papers back in the safe. “Did you have a lot in savings?”

“Just over a hundred thousand,” Leah said softly. “It’s not enough. Our house payments alone are ten thousand dollars a month.”

Anatoly did a quick double take.

“Well, we put down a small down payment!” Leah said defensively. “It’s important to have a nice house to bring business associates to. Besides, Bob was making over four hundred thousand dollars a year and he was getting a promotion, so we knew we’d be fine…or at least we thought we would.” Leah’s eyes misted over. “Oh God, I’m going to have to go back to work, aren’t I.”

“There are worse fates,” I said. “So, other than the savings account, your house and your cars, are there any other assets worth mentioning?”

Leah’s face brightened. “There are the Chalet stocks! Of course, I can’t cash them out yet, since they just went public and the shares are in lockdown….”

“Lockup,” Anatoly corrected. “When a company goes public the employees’ shares go into lockup for the first six months or so.”

Leah dismissed Anatoly’s comment with an impatient wave of her hand. “Lockdown, lockup, who cares what it’s called? The important thing is that Jack and I aren’t going to lose our house and I won’t have to work!”

I creased my forehead. “How much are Bob’s shares worth?”

“I don’t know the exact figure, but it’s well over a million.”

I bit my lip and Anatoly let out a heavy sigh. “So much for eliminating money as a motive.”

Leah took a step back from Anatoly and glared at him. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that I would kill my husband for monetary gain?”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman to do so,” Anatoly said.

“Excuse me, but just because I’m unfamiliar with the terminology of the stock market doesn’t mean I’m completely clueless about money. This is a community property state so if I had wanted to get my hands on Bob’s money, any divorce attorney worth his salt could have done that for me.”

“I know you wouldn’t kill for money or any other reason.” I inched closer to Leah and rested my hand on her shoulder. “But the police might think that you weren’t really up for the whole half-sies thing.”

“This is perfect,” Leah said. “If Bob had been bankrupt, Jack and I would be homeless and hungry, but since he wasn’t, I’m a murder suspect. No matter what the situation is I lose.”

“Just because you’re a suspect doesn’t mean you’re going to be charged with anything,” Anatoly pointed out. “Let’s figure out who else could have done this. Did anyone other than you and Bob know the combination to the safe?”

“No one. Just Bob and I. It was our anniversary.”

“Your anniversary,” Anatoly repeated. “The same combination you used for your personal Internet access, your ATM and your online retail accounts.”

“You can see why neither chose careers that required a lot of creative thinking.” Oh damn it, I’d done it again. I was really going to have to make more of an effort on this delicacy thing.

Anatoly did some more coughing before pulling out the necklace. He held up the pendant so that the light caught the yellow stone and the white diamonds that surrounded it. “Is this one of those yellow diamonds?”

Leah took the necklace from his hands. “Don’t be ridiculous. Colored diamonds are trendy and ugly. Diamonds should be clear like these little ones. The stone in the middle is a yellow sapphire.”

“I see. How much is that yellow sapphire worth?”

“I had the necklace insured for fifty-four thousand dollars.”

“Are you kidding?” I squeaked. “My God, what happened to the days when a man could clear his guilty conscience for under a grand?”

“Clearly Bob had more guilt than the average philandering husband,” Leah said, and shook her head in disgust. “I should have known right away. Bob was never excessively affectionate. We’re both too sophisticated to be taken in by all the hearts and flowers nonsense.”

I sank my teeth into my tongue to refrain from blurting out that she had been renting Sleepless in Seattle on a biweekly basis for the past decade and a half.

“…but it wasn’t until last year that he really became distant. He’d stay out late, make excuses for missing dinner, but he’d always make it up to me by buying me something. As the excuses became more frequent, the gifts became more elaborate.” She held up the necklace to eye level. “I don’t want it. I would never be able to wear it without remembering that he gave it to me just months before declaring that he was planning on trading me in for a younger model. I made such a fuss over his generosity, too. I made him gourmet dinners for a week straight. I’m so incredibly pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic. Remember, Bob never actually left you. I’m sure that given the chance he would have come to his senses and stayed,” I lied.

Anatoly stepped back from the safe and scanned the room. “Where do you keep the computer?”

“In the study upstairs,” Leah said absently, still admiring the necklace she supposedly didn’t want.

I tugged at Anatoly’s sleeve. “I’ll show you.” We left Leah downstairs and I took him to the room that stood between Jack’s and the master suite. I stepped in and did a quick visual inventory. “Wait, I know they keep it in here. Where is it?”

Anatoly walked past me and tapped a spot on the empty desk. “My guess is it was right here.”

I stepped forward and examined the dust-free square on the desk where the computer used to be. “The police?”

“Looks that way.” Anatoly shook his head. “Hopefully there aren’t any messages on it from the mistress. It would be better if Leah could volunteer the information about that affair herself.”

“You want Leah to tell the police about Bob’s bimbo?”

“Assuming she didn’t do it, yes, I want her to tell them about Bob’s bimbo. They’re going to find out anyway, and while I recognize that in her case lying is a family trait, lying to homicide detectives will not serve her well.”

I shrugged. “There was a period of time in recent history when I was lying to the police all the time. I never got arrested.”

“No, I did. Let’s not repeat the pattern, all right?”

Leah entered the room and stared at the empty spot where the computer had been. “Hold on a minute. Last night the police escorted me through the house so that I could confirm that nothing was missing and I distinctly remember the computer being right there.” She looked at me and Anatoly accusingly.

“Okay, you caught us. We used Anatoly’s super-micro-blastic shrinking machine and hid it in the drawer.”

“The police took the computer.” Anatoly was now looking through the papers on Bob’s desk with noticeable lack of interest.

“I can’t believe those people. First my wedding pictures and now this? It’s just so rude! You have no idea what it was like to see the photos of Bob and me on the happiest day of our lives covered in broken glass. And now, not only am I unable to reframe them, I can’t even complain about it to my online stay-at-home-moms’ support group! Honestly, is it really necessary to rob me of all my comforts?”

“Not all your comforts,” I offered. “I’m sure they left the ice cream.”

“This is so typical of you, Sophie! My life gets turned upside down and you’re making jokes.”

Anatoly looked up from the papers. “Funny, I thought it was Bob’s life that got screwed up.”

“Shut up!” The words came from both me and Leah in unison.

She smiled at me and I exhaled a sigh of relief. At least we still recognized that we were not each other’s enemy. The real enemy was the heterosexual male.

Leah checked her watch. “Damn it, I was supposed to pick up Jack five minutes ago.”

“Are you bringing him to Mama’s after that?” She had already told me that she was but I just wanted to be reassured one more time that she wasn’t bringing him to my house.

“Mmm-hmm. She’s taking him for the afternoon.”

“How about the night? Can she take him for the night, too?” Anatoly gave me a sidelong glance, which I ignored.

Leah pushed her purse strap farther up her shoulder. “Jack and I will be staying with you tonight.”

“I really think you should ask Mama to take him. You have enough on your plate as it is.”

“I’m the only parent he has now, and he needs me.”

“You’re right,” I said slowly. “Jack needs stability. Maybe the two of you should stay here tonight. That way he’ll be able to sleep in his own room.”

Leah shot me a “you can’t possibly expect me to stay here” look and then turned around to leave before I had a chance to send her a nonverbal message of my own.

Anatoly smirked. “I’m getting the sense that you have some strong feelings concerning your nephew.”

“You don’t know what this child is like. Rosemary’s baby would be easier to deal with.”

He chuckled and opened the top drawer of the desk. “I’m going to take an hour or so going through this place—there’s always the off chance the police left something behind.”

I pulled off my leather jacket. “I’ll help. I think I’ll start in the kitchen.”

Anatoly nodded, although I don’t think he was listening. I went downstairs and left him to his exploring.

Forty-five minutes later, I had discovered a frozen Wolfgang Puck pizza, two Trader Joe’s salads, an open bottle of Kenwood, Pinot Noir, and an entire box of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. I flipped on the small television discreetly mounted on the wall in the corner of the dining room and turned the volume on low before getting to work on the pizza preparation. Ten minutes later the scent of freshly baked mozzarella brought Anatoly downstairs.

I gestured for him to sit at the dining table as I poured the wine. “Do you think the police found anything interesting last night?”

Anatoly glanced at the figure of Montel Williams scurrying around the TV screen, and pulled out a chair for himself. “It’s impossible to know.”

“So what’s our next move?”

“My next move will be to talk to the woman Bob was sleeping with.”

“Why would we want to do that?” I set the pizza out along with the two salads, then sat opposite him. “She has no motive—she won. Not that Bob was any great prize. Maybe that’s it! Maybe she started thinking about what life would be like with Bob and freaked out.”

“We don’t know the details of the affair.” He looked at the glass of wine offered him, then glanced at the wall clock, which read 11:55.

“My brother-in-law died yesterday,” I said. “I think it would be justifiable if we started drinking early. So what were you saying about the affair?”

Anatoly sighed and reached for the prepackaged shrimp Caesar. “I was saying that it’s unlikely Bob told Leah the whole story. Maybe his mistress had reason to want him dead, or maybe someone connected with her did.”

“A husband! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re not a PI.” He tore off a piece of pizza. “You’re a writer…of sorts.”

“One would think that with everything we’ve been through together you would know better than to piss me off.”

“Good point.” Anatoly leaned back in his chair. “All right, who might know the name of Bob’s mistress?”

“Maybe Erika, Bob’s secretary,” I mumbled between bites.

“I’ll need you to make an introduction.”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll help you with the interview.”

Anatoly frowned and shook his head. “I mean it, Sophie, you need to leave this to me.”

“Uh-uh. Erika knows me, so she’s a lot more likely to open up if I’m there. Plus, I’m good at this detective stuff. I figured out who killed Tolsky, didn’t I?”

“How could I forget?” Anatoly taunted. “You’re the genius who put the whole thing together just minutes after the killer confessed. Very impressive.”

I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t care what anyone said, writing the Alicia Bright mysteries did qualify me to be an amateur sleuth. In Words To Die By Alicia solved four murders in less than a month’s time. Surely, with Anatoly’s assistance, I could solve one murder in less than a week. “The point is, I figured it out before you. No, scratch that—the point is, I’m the one footing the bill for this little investigation, so if I say I’m sitting in on an interview, then—”

Anatoly leaned forward and grabbed my wrist. God, I had forgotten just how strong his hands were.

“This is not a game. A man was killed and the murderer may be willing to kill again in order to avoid getting caught.”

I dropped the utensil I had been holding in my free hand. “You’re worried about me!”

Anatoly uttered some Russian curse and attacked his salad with his fork.

“You looove me.” When Anatoly didn’t respond I decided to take it down a notch. “Okay, maybe you’re not ready for the big L word, but you’ve got to admit you like me an awful lot.”

“Careful, Sophie. I like Caesar salad and look what I’m doing to it,” he said as he violently sank his fork into a piece of shrimp.

“Are you suggesting that you want to eat me?”

“Sophie…”

“Good afternoon.”

Anatoly and I looked up at the television to see the anchor woman who had begun speaking.

“Thanks for joining us for Channel Two News at Noon. Today’s lead story is a murder that took place last night in the Forest Hill district of San Francisco.” Anatoly quickly stood up and adjusted the volume. “Bob Miller, the comptroller at Chalet.com, was found last night with a gunshot wound to the head. His wife, Leah Miller, made the call to the police. This morning we had a chance to speak to Bob’s sister, Cheryl Miller. This is what she had to say.”

The camera switched to a shot of Cheryl standing in front of her place of work, Hotel Gatsby. Her overly gelled dyed-blond hair was impervious to the wind that was plaguing her interviewer. “I’m still reeling from the whole thing,” she said, gently patting the corner of her eyes with a pink handkerchief. “Although, I suppose I should have seen this coming. Leah and Bob were having problems, and Leah was never the most stable of people.”

“That bitch!” I screamed, standing up quickly enough to upset my chair.

“Shh!” Anatoly scolded, and turned the volume up a bit more.

“I know the police are looking at her,” Cheryl continued. “Of course, she’s denying it. I swear, it’s just like OJ and Nicole all over again.”

“How so?” the interviewer asked.

“Well, Bob and I came from a very well-respected New England family, and Leah’s…well, she’s black. And now she’s going to try to act like the police are targeting her because of her race, which isn’t the case at all. But if she’s brought to trial, who knows what she’ll be able to convince a jury of.” Cheryl dabbed her eyes again. “Not that Leah has the money to hire the Dream Team, but she does come from some wealth. Her mother’s side of the family is Jewish.”

I wasn’t so much upset as I was floored. Anatoly and I looked at each other.

“Huh,” he said, “I completely forgot that your sister is black.”

“I’m not sure she is anymore,” I replied. “Is it possible for a person to shop in Wilkes Bashford’s women’s department while still maintaining an ethnic identity?”

Anatoly shook his head and cast one last glance at the television. “This is going to get messy.”

Twenty-five minutes later I was clinging to Anatoly as he pulled his Harley into a parking spot right in front of Bob’s office building, located in the heart of the financial district. I doubt I’ll ever get over the thrill of having my breasts pressed up against his well-developed back muscles while riding on the back of that bike. There’s something intrinsically sexy about a non–Hells Angels type riding a Harley. It was like Anatoly was wearing a sign that said, “I’m sexy, I’m fun and I’m secure enough with my masculinity to willingly put a large vibrating phallic symbol between my legs and enjoy it.”

We walked inside and took an elevator to the eleventh floor, which was the second of the three floors that housed Chalet. I had only been there once before with Leah. Back then Bob had shared a moderate-size office with a colleague whom he had neglected to introduce me to. Since then Bob had moved up in the world. He held bragging rights to a corner office the size of my living room. Leah had told me the CFO had recently turned in her notice and Bob was to fill the vacant role. Of course, at the time she hadn’t known that Bob had no intention of sharing his success with her…

Now the door to the office was wide open, and sitting at his desk was a petite Chinese woman. Her permed black hair hung delicately around her shoulders as she sobbed into her hands. Even without being able to see her face I recognized her as Erika. The tall man with the salt-and-pepper hair patting her shoulder was Chalet’s CEO, James Sawyer, whom I had met at the occasional dinner party. As Anatoly and I stepped inside, James’s hazel eyes met mine.

“Sophie.” He stepped around the desk and clasped my right hand in both of his. Erika looked up and used the back of her hand to try to wipe away the tears that dampened her face.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Bob,” James continued.

His tone was so sincere and concerned that I genuinely wished I was more upset. “I want you to know that we at Chalet have always considered the family of our employees to be part of our own extended family—no matter what their nationality, race, creed or religion.”

Anatoly cleared his throat and I pressed my lips together. “I see you’ve been watching the news,” I said.

“I…might have caught it while purchasing a coffee across the street.” James adjusted his tie as if that was the reason he had suddenly gone red. He looked past me to Anatoly. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Anatoly Darinsky. I’m a close friend of Sophie’s.”

Close—I liked that.

“I see,” he said. “Well, I assume you’re here for some of Bob’s things?”

“Actually, we were hoping to talk to Erika for a few minutes.” I tilted my head to the side so that I could see past James to Bob’s grieving secretary. “Bob always spoke so highly of you, and Leah feels that your help with the arrangements would be invaluable.”

“Of course, I’ll help with the…arrangements. Oh, poor Bob!” She lunged for the tissues at the corner of the desk.

James regarded Erika with a mixture of sympathy and disdain. “Erika, you can go through the paperwork tomorrow,” he said as he helped her to her feet and led us out of Bob’s office and to her desk. “Waiting another day won’t kill—won’t be of any significance. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off?”

As Erika squeaked in agreement, James checked his watch. “I don’t mean to appear insensitive, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to head out. I’m scheduled to speak to a youth group in Hunter’s Point in forty-five minutes.” He looked up at Anatoly and me and smiled proudly. “Chalet has built a reputation on reaching out to San Francisco’s diverse community.”

“Uh-huh.” I eyed the navy-blue pinstripe suit once more and tried to imagine how that look played with today’s troubled urban youth.

“Bob always said he wanted to get more involved in Chalet’s community projects.” Erika made a loud honking noise as she paused to blow her nose. “Now he’ll never have the chance.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. Expecting Bob to do voluntary community service was kind of like waiting for the Pope to go devil worshiping.

James’s eyes were now darting between the sniffling Erika and his ticking watch. “Yes, it’s all very unfair. Sophie, please express my sympathy to your family.” He nodded at me and Anatoly, and gave Erika’s shoulder one last awkward pat before quickly removing himself from the room.

“I’m sorry.” Erika sat up a little straighter and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I know that I was just his secretary, but he was so incredibly sweet to me. He and Leah both were, and—” she anxiously tugged on her tennis bracelet “—I just can’t believe he’s gone!”

Anatoly had reopened the door to the office and was taking a visual inventory. “Have the police been here yet?” he asked.

“Yes, they came earlier. They took the computer. Other than that I think they left everything intact.”

Anatoly closed the door again. “So as far as you know, they didn’t find anything.”

Erika hesitated. “Did you really come to get my help with the funeral arrangements, or did Leah send you to gather information about…that woman?” By the way she said “that woman” I was unsure if she was referring to Bob’s mistress or a female Al Qaeda terrorist.

Anatoly shook his head. “We didn’t come to find out about Bob’s mistress, but if you know who she is, I’m sure Leah would be interested.”

Erika leaned forward conspiratorially lest we be overheard by the ants currently scoping out her water bottle. “Her name’s Bianca Whitman. Yesterday, before…before—”

“What happened yesterday afternoon?” I asked, quickly cutting her off before she had a chance to indulge in another shower of tears.

“It was the morning, actually. Leah called me. Bob had just broken the news to her and she was so distraught.” Erika looked down at her desk as if she could see the previous day’s events replaying on its surface. “It was such a shock…the very idea of Bob betraying the woman he loved—” she faltered and squeezed her eyes closed against the tears “—it was just so out of character.”

“And Bob was such a character.” Anatoly elbowed me and I forced myself to look more bereaved. “What I meant to say was that he had so much character—he was just full of it.”

Erika shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Yes, well anyway, Leah asked me to look around the office for any information on this woman. So I…I went through his things while he was at lunch.” She looked up at us pleadingly. “I know I shouldn’t have. I just wanted to help Leah. She’s become such a good friend. And Bob…you have to understand, Bob wasn’t a bad person. He was just…”

“An adulterer,” I finished. I was pretty sure he was a bad person, too, but I decided to let that one drop.

“Did you find anything in your search?” Anatoly asked.

Erika nodded. She unzipped her large purse and began unloading its contents onto her desk. Anatoly’s forehead creased as she pulled out a miniature package of Kleenex, a bottle of prescription pills, a lipstick, a wine cork, a small package labeled insulin, her wallet and finally a small, light pink envelope. I had forgotten about all of Erika’s health problems. She had both severe diabetes and a heart murmur. Yet it was her hearty golf-playing boss who had checked out at the ripe old age of thirty-five. It was irony like that that made a person want to take up smoking.

Erika picked up the envelope with her thumb and forefinger. “This should give Leah most of the information she wants.”

“Which is?” Anatoly asked, taking the letter.

“Her name and address. There’s no phone number and she’s unlisted—I checked.”

Anatoly scanned the letter while I helped Erika reload her purse. “What time did Bob leave work yesterday?”

“Five o’clock, as always,” Erika said.

Anatoly nodded and stuffed the letter back into the envelope. “Did you tell the police about Bianca?”

“No,” Erika paused a moment to blow her nose again. “I didn’t want to tarnish Bob’s memory. Besides, there’s Leah to consider. I know she’s suffering horribly right now and if she did something in the heat of passion that perhaps she shouldn’t have…I just don’t want to be the one to make things worse for her.”

My hand clenched the Chateau d’Yquem wine cork that I had been about to drop in her bag. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “You’re not actually giving credence to baseless allegations made by some cross-burning bitch on Channel 2 today.”

“I’m sorry?” Erika blinked at me. “What are you talking about? You’re not saying that Bob’s mistress was a Klan member, are you? Bob would never get involved with a person like that! She must have lied to him about who she was or…or brainwashed him!” Erika dropped her head to her arms again and started weeping.

Anatoly grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the exit. “Thanks for your help. Leah will contact you to discuss the memorial service,” he called over his shoulder before shoving me into the elevator.

“Sophie, I doubt a lot of people saw that report,” he said when the doors closed. “I know this may be hard for you to understand, but some people might think Leah’s guilty just because she had means, opportunity and motive.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell it to Dershowitz.” I jammed my finger against the button labeled L. “Let me see the letter.”

Anatoly handed it over to me and I quickly unfolded it.

Dear Bobby,

I know I shouldn’t be writing this, but you’re all I can think about these days. Every time I drive by a restaurant in which we dined, or pass a park bench on which we sat, or walk down a street on which you held my hand, I think of you.

Oh, yuck.

I hope that by putting the feelings that are in my heart on paper I will be better able to sort through them and maybe even figure out the right thing to do.

I know you think I shouldn’t, but I keep thinking of your wife and child. I know that she’s been disloyal and that she’s hurt you, but two wrongs have never made a right. Thus, it is my moral obligation to end things between us.

But I can’t do it, Bobby. Whenever I force myself to entertain the idea of life without you, a little part of me dies. I can still remember the way your shirt felt against my cheek as we danced at the Starlight Room. That night you told me we were soul mates. When I recall those words I know that I will never be able to walk away from you. Does that make me a horrible person? How can an immoral relationship feel so right?

So, despite the guilt, I am yours. I have no right to ask you to choose between me and your family, but I hope that you will have pity on me and make your decision. If you choose your family I will be heartbroken but I will understand; it’s the right choice to make. I just don’t have the strength to make it.

Love Always,

B

“Oh, this chick is a piece of work!”

Anatoly stifled a laugh as the doors opened to the ground floor. “Maybe she’s being sincere,” he suggested as he escorted me to the sidewalk.

“Nah. All that ‘I’ll be heartbroken but I’ll understand’ stuff is total passive-aggressive BS. She actually had the nerve to try to guilt him into leaving his wife and child!”

“Mmm, maybe—”

We stopped in front of his bike and he handed me the spare helmet.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” he added.

“You think?”

“I know. We’re going to pay her a visit right now.”