Lisa Unger - Die For You

“You guys don’t have that kind of money do you?” I asked. “Just five hundred K lying around?”

“Uh, no,” he said. “We don’t.” He swept his arm to indicate the space around us. “We do okay, but it’s not like that. I borrowed against the loft.”

My sister was not a financial risk taker. She’d paid off the loft years earlier, after her first major gallery show, and the property had steadily been growing in value ever since. My sister was more successful than most, but an artist’s income was unpredictable year to year. That loft was her security blanket, her “lifeboat,” she called it. It had appreciated wildly over the last decade and was worth a fortune. If everything went to hell financially, they could sell it and live off the money for a good long time. She needed that kind of security to be happy, to feel like a good mom. She needed to know that she’d always be able to provide for Trevor and Emily. I knew all the reasons why this was so critical to her mental well-being-and so did Erik.

“Linda would never agree to that,” I said.

The color had drained from his face and he’d pressed his mouth into a thin line. Then I understood.

“She doesn’t know?” I said.

“You know how Linda is,” he said, hanging his head. “She doesn’t like to talk about money.”

“You did this without talking to her?”

He lifted a hand. “It was supposed to be short term, Izzy” he said. He stood up and walked over to one of the tall windows. I glanced uneasily at the door to their bedroom, imagining that I saw Linda there, her hair tousled, her eyes bleary with sleep. What are you guys talking about? But the door was firmly closed. He went on, talking so softly that I could barely hear him.

“In two months, Marc said, they’d make the sale, the biggest in the history of Razor Tech. They’d had early interest from two of the big game companies; he expected a bidding war. I’d have my principal investment back plus five hundred thousand more, at least. I’d pay off the loan on the loft and put the rest in the bank. Then we’d have that; she’d have the security she needs. She’d never have to worry again. That’s what I was thinking.”

“But you couldn’t get credit like that without her signature, Erik, could you?”

He’d given up a successful career in information technology after Trevor was born so that Linda could work and the kids wouldn’t be cared for by strangers. He’d managed her career, everything from sales to publicity to Web site design and maintenance, taken care of the accounting, helped with the kids. It always seemed like the perfect arrangement, one that made them both very happy. Everything was joint; there were no separate accounts, separate incomes.

“She signed,” he said, resting the heels of his hands on the windowsill. The window looked out onto another building of artists’ lofts, where many residents shared my sister’s aversion to blinds. “She just didn’t read what she was signing.”

“Oh, Erik.” Crushed. I knew my sister; she was going to buckle under the weight of this.

“If it had been anyone else, I never would have even considered it,” Erik said urgently, turning back to me. He must have seen the look on my face, wanted me to understand. “But Marc’s a genius, you know? And he’s family .”

His reverent tone reminded me of a peculiar energy I’d always picked up on between my husband and brother-in-law. Linda had laughingly claimed that Erik had a boy crush on Marcus, like Marc was the cool kid at school and Erik just wanted to hang around him. I’d noticed it, too. I’d also observed that Marcus seemed to realize it as well, and how he appeared to enjoy it. But I figured it was harmless-at least they got along. They were buddies, met for drinks after work, took the kids to the country so that Linda and I could spend the day at Bliss, our favorite spa.

“I wasn’t trying to deceive her, Izzy Understand that. I was trying to surprise her.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything, just stared across the street.

“He was supposed to pay me back yesterday, Izzy. I was supposed to meet him for lunch and he was going to give me a check. But he never showed.”

I watched a woman in a loft across the street move through a series of yoga poses, her impossibly thin body limber and strong. Another young woman chased a naked toddler across an apartment on another floor, both of them laughing. It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard him. I was just waiting for the words to sink in. Their implication echoed all the things Detective Crowe had said and not said the night before.

“He wouldn’t cheat you, Erik,” I said, my voice sounding weak. “He wouldn’t. Something’s happened.”

Erik nodded, seemed unable to find words. I didn’t like the expression on his face. Something dark. Something desperate.

“Did you tell the police?” I asked.

He nodded. “They know; I’m sorry. It felt like a betrayal but it could be… relevant.”

I wish I could say I was numb from the shock but I wasn’t. I felt as if I was standing in the middle of a city that was being bombed from above. I didn’t know where to run as everything solid around me crumbled to dust. My body was flooded with adrenaline, in full fight-or-flight response.

Erik rested his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Izzy. This is not your problem. You have too much to deal with right now. I just didn’t want you to find out from the police.”

“It is my problem. Of course it’s my problem , Erik.”

“No,” he said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “No.”

“Does she know yet?” I asked him.

He released a heavy breath. “Not yet. I need to figure out how to tell her. I…” He just kept shaking his head, his eyes opening and drifting over to the closed door of their bedroom where she lay sleeping. He never finished the sentence.

“Don’t tell her,” I said, leaving him. I grabbed my bag and unlocked the door. “Give me a little time.”

“Wait, Izzy” he said, following. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Something that’s not just sitting around here watching all our lives go to hell.”

ON THE STREET it felt good to be moving. I walked off the curb and lifted my arm at the sea of traffic that was flowing up Lafayette. An old woman in a dramatic, hot-pink pashmina wrap and long coat walking three white standard poodles stared at me. I remembered the large bandage on my head, lifted a hand to touch it as I slid inside the cab that pulled over.

“Hospital?” the driver wanted to know. I couldn’t tell if he was being a smart-ass or not.

“Eighty-sixth between Broadway and Amsterdam,” I told him. I wanted to go home, to examine the place that housed my life with Marcus, to tear it apart if necessary, piece by piece, in an effort to find out what had happened to my husband. There was no place for fear or grief in my mind; I was nothing but my hunger to understand what was happening to my life. In the days to come, this single-minded focus, this terrible drive would be responsible for some very bad decisions and horrific outcomes. Of course, I had no way of knowing that as my cab raced uptown; I was just doing what I knew how to do.

From three stories above, Linda Book watched her sister hail a cab. She knocked on the window, then struggled to open it, but the damn thing was stuck. It was no use, anyway. Linda could just see the black of Isabel’s hair, the white of the bandage on her head as she disappeared and closed the door behind her. She watched the cab speed off, thinking, She’s going home, no doubt. Trying to figure it all out. Trying to fix what was broken, to make it right again. Linda released an exasperated breath at her sister’s stubborn streak, which was all the more annoying because it was a trait they shared.