The Betrayed Wife Read online

  Steve heard something rustling in the bushes alongside the house.

  The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He quickly ducked inside, shut the door, and locked it.

  He told himself it was probably just the wind passing through the bushes.

  “Gabe?” he called.

  No answer.

  He hurried toward the kitchen. “Hey, Gabe?”

  The kitchen was empty. Steve suddenly couldn’t get a breath. “Gabe!” he yelled.

  He heard the toilet flush in the bathroom around the corner. “What?” his brother called back through the door.

  Steve sighed. “Nothing,” he said, his heart still racing. He felt pretty stupid. Yet he checked the door to the garage and the kitchen door. Both were still locked. Then he glanced out the window at the Curtis house, where his mom had seen the prowler a few weeks ago. The place was completely dark. He figured the light timers must not have gone on yet.

  Gabe emerged from the bathroom. “Where’s the pizza?”

  Steve shook his head and shrugged. “It’s not here yet.”

  “Well, who knocked?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced out the window again. “Must not have been the front door. Maybe it was just a noise outside.”

  Gabe wrapped his hand around the refrigerator handle and stared at him, wide-eyed. “Maybe it wasn’t a noise outside. Maybe it was a noise inside. Maybe somebody’s in the house with us.”

  Steve stared at his brother. He tried to laugh. “That’s crazy. We—we would have heard the footsteps. And plus, all the doors are locked.”

  “Well, what if it was the pizza guy at the door, but before you got there, somebody killed him and dragged his body into the bushes and then he drove off with our pizza?”

  Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, that’s probably what happened. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  But he could tell Gabe was scared. “Well, then who knocked? Somebody knocked.”

  “Like I say, it was probably just a noise from outside.” Steve wanted to convince himself of that as much as he wanted to convince his kid brother.

  Gabe glanced up at the ceiling. “What was that?”

  “What was what? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I thought there was a noise.”

  “Listen, can it, okay?” Steve said. “There wasn’t any noise. You’re creeping yourself out. And you’re creeping me out, too.”

  It was funny that Gabe was so fearless and tough on the football field, but just like him, his brother could be a total basket case about unexplained noises in the night and the thought of serial killers. And Steve hadn’t even told him much of what he’d read online about famous murders, only a few details about a couple of the more grisly cases.

  “I heard something upstairs,” Gabe insisted. He moved over to the counter, where their mother had a crock full of kitchen utensils. He grabbed a steel meat-tenderizer mallet. “I swear, it sounded like someone’s in Mom and Dad’s bedroom.”

  Taking a step toward the hallway, Steve shushed him. “Well, shut up for a second and let me listen.”

  The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator.

  What if his brother was right? Steve remembered how they’d left their parents’ bedroom—with all the lights off, except for the closet light. They’d left the closet door open and the bin full of DVDs on the floor, near the dresser. Was someone creeping around that room right now, looking for jewelry or money?

  He still didn’t hear anything. But he didn’t want to discount Gabe the way their dad had discounted their mother about what she’d seen and heard the other night. Steve realized he had to be the brave one here. Yet it was hard, especially when he imagined their father coming home tonight to find him and Gabe dead, blood dripping from the kitchen walls. Or maybe his father would find nobody home and their bodies would be discovered days later in some woods, the victims of a psychotic pedophile.

  He turned to his brother. “Listen, let’s go down to the basement and get the movie. We need to put it back. We need to put everything back where it’s supposed to go in Mom and Dad’s closet. I—I’ll show you there’s nobody up there. We’ll check every room, every closet. You can bring that hammer-thing if it’ll make you feel better. It’s going to be okay. If anybody’s hiding up there, between the two of us, we can beat the crap out of him. Right?”

  Gabe just stared back at him with uncertainty.

  Steve wasn’t sure he believed what he’d just said, either. He thought about John Wayne Gacy, who had killed dozens of boys in Chicago. He was a big man who liked to dress up as a clown for charity functions. Steve imagined someone like that waiting up there for them. Maybe he was even dressed like a clown.

  He crept into the front hall, with Gabe right behind him. At the bottom of the stairs, Steve glanced up at the second floor. “The hall light’s on up there,” Gabe said under his breath. “We didn’t leave the hall light on. It was dark in the hallway.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Steve replied in a hushed voice. “You switched the light on earlier, I’m almost positive.”

  But the truth was, they’d both been so excited over the prospect of watching a dirty movie, they wouldn’t have noticed if a hippopotamus had been in the upstairs hallway.

  “I don’t think we should go up there,” Gabe whispered anxiously. “When’s Dad supposed to come home?”

  “Not until nine.”

  “I think we should call him, have him come home now.”

  “No way,” Steve whispered. “I’d rather face a serial killer than try to explain to Dad how we snuck into his dirty video collection.”

  It took a while, but Steve finally convinced his brother to go along with his plan. They retrieved Body Heat from the DVD player in the basement, returned it to its spot in the storage bin, and shoved the bin back into the master bedroom closet where it belonged. Then, switching on the lights along the way, they checked every room and every closet on the second floor. Steve got the baseball bat out of his bedroom while his brother held on to the meat-tenderizer mallet.

  It was a miracle of restraint that neither of them freaked out and bashed in the brains of the pizza delivery guy after he rang the doorbell.

  They didn’t want to go back down to the basement, where they couldn’t hear if someone was trying to break in. Gabe seemed convinced an intruder was still hiding inside the house—just one step ahead of them during their earlier room-to-room search. So with weapons nearby, they ate their pizza in the kitchen breakfast booth and watched a 3rd Rock from the Sun rerun on the small TV.

  Steve didn’t have much of an appetite. He nervously counted the minutes until his dad was supposed to come home.

  *

  Dylan had consumed only half of his cheeseburger and a few fries. He was too nervous to eat. He noticed that Brooke hadn’t eaten much, either. Maybe she was a little nervous, too.

  They were at Harry’s Fine Foods, a neighborhood restaurant that used to be a mom-and-pop grocery store. It still had the squeaky wood-plank floor, and behind the bar were a couple of the old, pull-handle, glass-door refrigerator cases. The restaurant was only two short blocks from Brooke’s apartment building on Capitol Hill, but she assured Dylan that none of her neighbors knew her or her husband very well. So no one was about to recognize her there. “Besides, we have nothing to hide, right?” she’d added.

  “At least, not yet,” Dylan had said offhandedly.

  She’d looked right into his eyes. “I was thinking the same thing—only I can’t joke about it.”

  Talking with her was effortless. During the few, fleeting silent moments, they just smiled at each other, and she was so damn cute when she blushed. He brushed his ankle against hers under the table and she reciprocated.

  But now, near the end of the meal, she said the very last thing he wanted to hear: “So—tell me about your wife.”

  “You want me to talk about Sheila?”

  Leaning back in her chair, she ni
bbled on a French fry. “All I know about her is that she’s the mother of your three children and she teaches ballroom dancing.”

  “What else do you want to know?”

  “Well, for starters, where’d you two meet? How long have you been married? Were either of you married before?”

  “Wow, when you start in with the questions . . .”

  She shrugged. “I’m just curious. Aren’t you curious about my husband?”

  Dylan considered it, and then slowly shook his head. “Not really. I’m a lot more curious about you.”

  She glanced down at the table and pushed her plate away. “So—how did you meet your wife?”

  “College,” he answered. “University of Oregon in Eugene. Sheila worked part time in a coffee house. I used to go in there to flirt with her. She reminded me of a young Diane Keaton, back when she did Annie Hall. We started dating our senior year, but broke up a few months after graduation. It was a very amicable split. Then we ran into each other again in Portland three years later and that was it. We’ve been married for nineteen years. And I forgot your other question . . .”

  “Any other marriages?”

  “That’s right,” he murmured. Then he shook his head. “No other marriages.”

  Brooke’s eyes wrestled with his. “Have you . . . ever been unfaithful to her?”

  “Well, that’s pretty direct,” he muttered. He took a sip of his beer. “I’ve come close once or twice. We’ve had our share of tough times—like everyone, I guess. About two years after we got married, Sheila had sort of a nervous breakdown. It almost did us in. That was the worst. She was—well, she was close to suicidal. The thing that worries me is she never really got any help for it.”

  “You mean, she never saw a therapist?”

  “I really wanted her to, but she refused. She talked to some old priest, and that’s about it.”

  “Well, does she suffer from depression, or what?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I’m really not certain. Like I say, she was never diagnosed or treated. Instead, we just left Portland, severed all ties to the past and moved to Seattle. Sheila felt if she could put it all behind her and forget about it, then it would be like she had never had any problems. I guess she’s made that work for her. It’s been seventeen years, and she’s been fine. I mean, she’s had her moments, but she’s generally good. She’s been a great partner, a great mom. But always, in the back of my mind, is the fear that she’ll fall apart again.”

  Brooke shifted in her chair. “What made her fall apart the first time?”

  Dylan sighed. “I don’t think I can talk about that—at least, not yet. I’m sorry. Sheila and I don’t even discuss it. I know it sounds weird, but telling you would be like a violation.”

  “I understand,” Brooke said pensively. “I guess I’m curious, because Paul and I are going through a tough time right now. In fact, his work dinner tonight, I’m pretty sure it’s something else. I have a feeling he’s seeing someone. And there’s a part of me that doesn’t really care.” She smiled at him. “By the way, that has nothing to do with me accepting your invitation to dinner tonight. It’s not because I wanted to get even with Paul or anything. And it’s not because I didn’t want to be alone, either. I’m here because I like you.”

  Dylan felt a little jolt of pleasure just hearing her say that. “Well, I’m sure, by now, you’ve figured out how I feel about you.”

  Blushing again, she nodded. “To be honest, I’ve been . . . struggling with that ever since you first said hello to me the other night. Do you want to hear something kind of perverse?”

  He laughed. “Yes, please.”

  “Well, if you think it’s strange that I’m asking a lot of questions about your wife and kids, it’s because one of the things I find so attractive about you is that you’re a family man. I think it’s sexy. What does that say about me? I mean, I don’t want to break up anyone’s marriage and family, most of all yours. And yet I have these feelings for you . . .”

  Dylan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He wanted to ignore it, but knew he couldn’t. He winced at her. “I’m sorry. Hold that thought, please.”

  He took his phone out and checked it. The call was from Sheila. He noticed the time: 8:21 P.M.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, getting to his feet. “I really need to answer this.”

  “Go ahead,” she murmured.

  Hurrying to the door, Dylan stepped out of the restaurant and clicked on the phone just before it went to voicemail. “Hey, hon,” he said, a little out of breath.

  “Where are you?” she asked. Her voice was loud and a bit shrill to compete with the music booming in the background. “Didn’t you get my text earlier?”

  “No, I—I must have missed it,” he answered, honestly. All he could think was that he’d been too distracted. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s not okay. I just talked to Steve. Why aren’t you home?”

  “Didn’t Steve explain to you about the trainer at the gym?”

  “Yes, he explained. But you could have rescheduled. After what happened the other night, I don’t know how you could leave the boys alone in the house—”

  “Honey, I tried to get out of it, but I couldn’t—at least not gracefully.” Through the restaurant window, he could see Brooke sitting alone at their table. She looked a little sad. “Anyway,” Dylan said, “I figured the boys would be okay. It’s not even nine o’clock yet.”

  “Well, I spoke to Gabe, and he said the two of them were scared out of their wits.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  There was a pause, and all he could hear was the pulsating music.

  “Sheila, what happened?” he asked again.

  “What happened is that they were supposed to have pizza with their father tonight, and he blew it off. You should have been there.”

  “All right, I’m sorry. What happened to them?”

  “They got spooked because someone knocked on the front door and then disappeared.”

  “When was this?”

  “About an hour ago,” she answered.

  “An hour ago, and nothing since?”

  “I guess the pizza arrived about fifteen minutes later,” Sheila said, “but nothing else after that.”

  “Honey, I think they’re going to be okay. It’s not like—”

  “Where are you?” she interrupted. The music was still playing in the background. “Are you still at the gym?”

  “No, I’m done there. I just swung by a restaurant to pick up a cheeseburger to go. I’m practically on my way home now. I should be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Good,” she said. “By the way, the creep from the bus was here at the dance tonight—with his girlfriend. I took their picture, and we can show it to the police if we have to.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “They’re gone now. But for all we know, they could be outside the house right now. I can’t believe you left the kids home alone.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m on my way right now.”

  “Text me when you get there,” she said. Then she hung up.

  Clicking off the phone, Dylan headed back inside Harry’s Fine Foods. He waved at their waiter and made a check sign in the air. Then he sat down at the table with Brooke.

  “Was that Sheila?” she asked.

  Dylan pulled out his wallet. “Yes, I’m sorry. I have to head home.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I think so.” He pried his credit card out of his wallet. “It sounds like there’s a minor crisis with one of the boys—at least, I hope that’s all it is. Like I say, I’m really sorry about this.” He figured Sheila was being slightly alarmist about the boys’ safety. The guy who was supposedly following her couldn’t be at her dance and their home at practically the same time. Still, he knew he had to get home and make sure everything was all right.

  The waiter came by with their check. Without even looking at it, Dylan hande
d the check back to him—along with the credit card. “Could you box these up, please?” he asked, pointing to the food on their plates.

  “Not mine, thanks,” Brooke said.

  “You sure?” Dylan asked.

  Brooke nodded. She waited until the waiter left with their plates and their check before speaking up again. “You know, ever since we walked in here, I’ve had the sensation that someone’s been watching us. It’s silly, because no one knows me very well around here. So I must be paranoid, or I’m feeling really guilty.”

  “What do you have to feel guilty about?” Dylan asked. “We’ve just had a nice dinner, that’s all. It’s perfectly innocent.”

  “I’m not telling my husband about this dinner, and I’m pretty certain you won’t tell Sheila. So it’s not perfectly innocent.” With a forlorn look, she gazed down at the table. “In a way, I’m glad you got that phone call when you did. It gave me time to come to my senses. The good news is we haven’t done anything we’ll regret. Nothing has really happened.”

  I don’t consider that good news, Dylan wanted to say. But he knew it was wrong, so he just kept his mouth shut and nodded.

  “I’m pretty vulnerable right now,” she admitted. “And I—I’m very attracted to you, Dylan. As I started to say before that phone call, it’s been a struggle for me.”

  “Me too,” he whispered. He reached across the table and took her hand. “For the last two nights, you wouldn’t believe how much I’ve been looking forward to going to the gym, just to see you again. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. It crazy, I know, after only a couple of short meetings. But you’re the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time.”

  With a sigh, she gently pulled her hand away. “You’re not making this easy for me at all. I asked you earlier if you’d ever cheated on your wife. But you haven’t asked if I’ve ever been unfaithful to my husband.”

  Dylan shrugged. “I figured you’d tell me eventually. But I’m guessing you’ve been faithful.”