Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (14 page)

I wouldn’t bother
calling him. At least I could surprise him with my presence when he
came home.

I changed and unpacked
my suitcase. Assuming that David was eating out, I made a salad and
sat at the kitchen table with my iPad. There were no local headlines
about me, thank God, but there were a few shots in a Houston rag of
Drex pounding on a limo window. Luckily no one had seen me jump
inside, and the headline could only speculate:
Opening
Night Fights?

After doing the dishes,
I tried David’s cell phone. It went straight to voicemail, but I
wasn’t surprised. I’d told him I’d be at a company dinner, and
might not get to my hotel until later. He had no way of knowing my
plans had changed.

At ten I took a shower,
and at eleven, I went to bed. I should have been worried, but instead
I was irritated. You worried about someone you loved, and I wasn’t
there yet with David. It wouldn’t be easy. I’d anticipated
relearning a lot of things, but not how to create love from nothing.

I dropped off to sleep
and woke with a start just before midnight. Still no David, and he
wasn’t answering his phone. I got up and wandered the house,
opening books and staring out at the dark street. Eventually I went
into his office and switched on the floor lamp.

Since coming home, I
hadn’t been in this room by myself. Unlike my cluttered office at
work, the books were neatly stacked and the files organized in
labeled cabinets.

I slid one of his desk
drawers open and peeked inside. There was his Kindle in a black
leather case. I opened it and slid my finger across the screen. His
collection of e-books came up, including one about a father’s
journey through infertility.

My stomach clenched,
first from the reminder of losing Grace, then from the feeling that
David hadn’t told me everything. Or that I didn’t really know
him, and never had.

In another drawer I
found his datebook. He didn’t use his phone to keep his schedule,
but a worn, leather-bound book that looked like a relic from the
fifties. I opened it to find pages covered in his small, neat
handwriting. Every day was recorded in detail: the classes he’d
taught, the people he’d had lunch with. Today was just as detailed,
except for something penciled in at eight o’clock.

A single initial, L.
Nothing more.

Humiliation scoured
through my chest. Who the hell else would “L” be but Lily Barlow?

Datebook clenched in my
hands, I sat in his desk chair. Why was he meeting a married woman at
night while he thought I was out of town?

They were colleagues.
They’d known each other a long time. We’d all gone on vacation
together. There was nothing to be concerned about, except that I
was
concerned. I had no idea what was happening in the life that was
supposed to be mine. That was about to stop.

I looked up Lily’s
address, put on jeans and a t-shirt, and got in my car. The streets
were almost empty. It was cool and drizzly, more like April than
mid-summer, and the wind was gusting from the northeast. I followed
the mechanized voice of the navigation, turning, crossing the river,
and driving into a quiet, upscale neighborhood of old Victorian
houses.

Number 42, 46…I
slowed down and turned off my lights. There it was, a rambling,
restored Mansard with ivy growing thickly down one wall. The house
was dark except for a glowing window on the side. I didn’t see
David’s car outside, but maybe it was on another street.

I parked and watched
the front door. For fifteen minutes, nothing happened. Nothing at
all.

I was being paranoid.
But paranoid about what, exactly?

Lily had a husband who
was probably home right now. Maybe they left the light on every
night, and both were asleep. Maybe David was working late at the
college and his cell battery was dead. Or he was spending the night
at his mother’s a few towns away. She was older and in frail health
– it made sense that he’d visit her while I was away.

I started the car. I
was going home to bed. And when David came back I’d ask where he’d
been, calmly and rationally. I wouldn’t tell him I’d gone through
his desk and driven to Lily’s house. From this moment on, I
wouldn’t even admit it to myself.

Just as I was putting
my seatbelt on, a figure passed in front of the window. I couldn’t
tell who it was, man or woman. Lily or her husband. Or David.

I turned off the engine
again, sat for a minute, then got out. Head lowered against the rain,
I crossed the street. I hardly noticed the slick grass against my
ankles as I ducked around the side of the house and approached the
lighted window.

It was cracked open a
few inches. I stood under it, rain dripping down the back of my neck.
I strained to listen but heard nothing. And then I heard David’s
voice.

“It’s not easy for
me either,” he said.

“Keep your voice
down, okay?”

Her voice was hushed
but sharp. Clearly they knew each other well.

“I thought Porter
took sleeping pills every night.”

“He does, but on the
off chance he wakes up.”

There was silence, then
David spoke again. “It won’t go on forever. You know that.”

“I don’t know that
at all,” Lily said.

“Look, the press has
been bad enough. I’m this close to tenure. I can’t afford more
bad publicity.”

Lily sighed. “Well,
how long, then?”

“Truthfully? Probably
longer than we want to wait.”

A rain drop trickled
into my bra, but I didn’t dare move. They talked like siblings,
like co-conspirators. That was how good friends and colleagues were
with each other, wasn’t it?

But what the hell were
they talking about? And why so late at night?

“The police called me
yesterday,” she said, so quietly I almost missed it.

“Again?”

“They had a few more
questions. They still don’t know I was the last one to see her.”

My breath froze.
The
last one to see her.
Lily could only be referring to me.

She’d been the last
person to see me before I’d disappeared? Why hadn’t David told
me?

“What did they ask?”

“I was only there
half an hour. They wanted to know about the relationship between you
and me.”

“Christ. Why didn’t
you tell me earlier?”

“Because I don’t
want you to worry. We have nothing to hide.”

David scoffed. “Except
everything. We should have been straight from the beginning. It was a
huge gamble not to say she met you at the dock.”

“You agreed it made
me look suspicious.”

“But you didn’t do
anything. I wish we’d just been honest.”

“We were trying to be
smart.”

“I know. It’ll blow
over.”

My hands searched for
something solid to hold on to, but found only the slippery shingles
behind me. I couldn’t run or cry. I had to keep listening, no
matter how hard it was.

“I’m being very
careful now,” Lily said. “I even buy prenatal vitamins with
cash.”

I frowned.
Prenatal
vitamins?

“And Porter doesn’t
suspect?” David asked in a low voice.

“You know Porter. He
wouldn’t see me if I were waving an ax in front of his face. We
don’t even exchange small talk anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. It makes
this whole thing easier.”

“You have to take
care of yourself,” David said. “Promise me. I can’t lose
another baby.”

I scraped my
fingernails across the shingles. Fuck. Is that what this was all
about?

I couldn’t have a
child, but Lily, though much older than I was, apparently could.

“You didn’t take
care of yourself in Mexico. You were out in the blazing sun for two
hours with Karina when she disappeared. Why didn’t you come back
sooner?”

“I’ve told you, I
was looking for her. I didn’t want to tell you she’d vanished. I
couldn’t believe it myself.”

“The boat tipped and
she was just gone?”

Lily let out a short
sigh. “What is this, David? It’s bad enough that the police
interrogated me.”

“I just want to
understand what happened.”

“Well, so do I. It
was all so quick.”

“What if she
remembers?”

“I’ve already
thought about that. First of all, her mind will probably be hazy. We
can say she was confused. She heard about meeting me at the dock, and
now it seems like a memory.”

“Well…I guess
that’ll work. It’ll have to.”

I held my breath. For a
long minute, neither of them said a word.

“Something else is
going on, Lily. You’d tell me if you were pregnant, wouldn’t
you?”

“Of course. When it
happens, you’ll have nine months to leave her. You’ll do it,
won’t you? I know you still have feelings for her –”

“I feel sorry for
her. We have a history. I’m not a heartless bastard, you know.
She’s having a really tough time right now. She needs me.”

“I do, too. Are you
fucking her?”

David sighed. “Lily…”

“Are you?”

“I have to. If I
didn’t, she’d wonder why. It’s an obligation, that’s all.”

I felt like I’d just
swallowed poison. I took shallow breaths and willed myself not to
scream.

“Just wear condoms.
God knows what she did in Texas, not to mention before that. I still
think she was having an affair. I could see it by looking at her.”

“I don’t know,
Lily. I believed you at the time, but…now she just seems lost.”

“You can’t let
guilt stop you from leaving her.”

“Don’t worry about
that. You know how much I want this baby.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

I clutched my stomach.
Any second now I would throw up in Lily’s begonias.

“I just…”

“What?” Lily asked.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because…I’m
getting a sense that – maybe you wanted Karina out of the way.”

I heard Lily’s chair
scrape back. “Come on, David.”

“Just say it’s not
true. Say you had nothing to do with it.”

“I’m not going to
listen to this.”

“I would almost
understand, okay? It would have made everything simpler for both of
us.”

There was a pause so
long, half the night seemed to go by.

“It wasn’t planned,
David. Please believe me.”

“Oh, God.”

“No, listen to me,
okay? She was sitting there, and for a second I just hated her so
much. She had everything. You, her career, her youth, and she looked
so smug. Like this entitled brat who didn’t deserve any of it.”

“What happened,
Lily?” David asked in a strangled voice. “What did you do?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Tell me.”

When Lily answered, her
voice was very faint. “It was too easy, almost like she was asking
for it. She leaned over the side of the boat for a second, and I
pushed her. It was kind of playful, you know? Like I was dunking her
in the water. At first I didn’t even know what I’d done.”

Heart beating wildly, I
tried frantically to remember. The water. Lily pushing me, her hands
slamming against my back. My body falling, going under, being carried
away.

But I couldn’t
remember anything. All I could do was imagine it in horrible,
heart-ripping detail.

There was a heavy
silence coming from Lily’s kitchen. Rain poured out of a roof
gutter six inches from my foot.

“But you knew she
wasn’t a good swimmer,” David said. “I told you.”

“In that moment, I
didn’t even think about it. It’s despicable but it’s true.”

“You shouldn’t have
told me,” he said in a hushed tone. “Don’t ever tell anyone
else. You’ll ruin your life and mine.”

“But I feel guilty.
It’s hard to live with.”

“Look at me. You
didn’t kill her. Obviously she was injured but there’s nothing we
can do about that now.”

I wished I could see
their faces. I imagined him taking her hands in his.

“But I’ve only made
things harder for us.”

“No, you’ve –”

I jumped when her phone
rang. It sounded like it was next to my ear.

“Who’s that?”
David asked.

“I don’t know.
Um…caller ID says it’s my neighbor.”

“Why? You don’t
think they heard us, do you?”

“Of course not.” I
heard her pick up the phone. “Hello? Hi, Natalie. That’s okay,
I’m awake.”

Wouldn’t it be poetic
justice if I weren’t the only one who’d overheard them?
God,
please.

“What do you mean?”
Lily asked, her voice thin and high. “Where?”

“What is it?” David
asked.

“It’s Natalie from
next door. She can see somebody standing outside my house in the
yard.”

I gasped. As soon as I
looked up, I could see a figure at a darkened window in the house
across from Lily’s.

I turned toward the
street and ran.

Why I was running, I
didn’t know. I was the victim, but I felt like a criminal.

My sneakers slipped on
the wet grass and I fell, scraping my arm against a thorny bush.
Scrambling to my feet, I raced through the gate and across the street
to the car.

Where were my keys? Did
I drop them?

With shaking hands, I
scoured the pockets of my jacket. I looked over my shoulder just as
Lily’s porch light flipped on.

Her door opened.

“Shit.”

All I wanted was to get
the hell out of here. I’d heard too much, and I didn’t know what
to do with it. It was the second time in two months that my life had
come to a screeching halt.

When I found my keys I
could barely hold them. My fingers were wet and I was trembling
uncontrollably.

“It’s Karina,” I
heard David say. “Oh, my God.”

He clomped down the
front steps and ran toward me. “Wait!”

I kept pressing the
button to unlock the car but nothing happened. Finally, when he was
only a few feet away, the lock opened. I threw open the door and got
in, starting the engine just as he began pounding on the window. Just
like Drex, but so different.