Lisa Unger - Die For You

He gave me that magic smile then and the lightest drizzle started to fall. It all just washed away as he pulled me close.

“You’re not the jealous type, Iz.”

I bristled. It wasn’t about me being jealous or not. It was about a woman who wore an expression I recognized on some cellular level. Loss, betrayal, a touch of anger. I knew that face; I’d worn it for different reasons. But I didn’t say anything else. I let him drop his arm around my shoulder and steer me toward the hotel. I stole one last look behind us, sure I’d see her standing there grim and lonely in the rain. But the stairwell was dark and empty; I didn’t hear the music that had drawn us there anymore, either.

I WENT BACK to Linda and Erik’s. I had a key and knew that the apartment was empty; maybe not the best idea in the world but I was desperate. I needed space to think, a change of clothes, and some time on a computer. I also needed to figure out how to get some money. I’d stopped at the ATM and cleared out the rest of my cash, a hundred from each account. Now I had five hundred dollars, the money from the accounts plus what I’d already had in my wallet. I knew it wouldn’t last long. I still had my credit cards but I knew I couldn’t use them without creating a trail that was easily followed-that is, if he hadn’t maxed those out as well.

I took a shower in Linda’s bathroom, the only uncluttered space in the house. Her sanctuary with its stone walls and steam shower. The kids weren’t even allowed to enter. Sometimes I think she’d force Erik to use the kids’ bathroom if she could. I tried not to wet the bandage but failed and wound up peeling it off painfully.

After my shower, I looked at myself in the long mirrored wall over the marble sink and was shocked at how horrible the cut on my head looked, reaching from the middle of my brow to my temple-like something out of a horror film. My hair had been hideously shaved back a bit, which was bad enough. And the wound itself was too red, some dark yellow puss leaking out between the black stitching. I didn’t think the leakage was healthy, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I found some gauze and medical tape in the first-aid kit under the sink and bandaged myself up again, nearly nauseated by how much the wound hurt to the touch. I recalled then that I was supposed to be taking antibiotics. Were they in my bag? I couldn’t remember. Brown watched me mournfully, hands on his paws. He emitted a low whine from the doorway, as if he was concerned about me.

“It’s okay, Brown,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

I padded into the kitchen with him at my heels, put some food in his bowl and changed his water, gave him a doggie treat. He seemed to feel better about things after this.

After choosing a pair of jeans and a black wool sweater from Linda’s closet, a matching pink bra and panties from her underwear drawer, I dressed and went into Trevor’s room, where I knew the computer was on 24/7, no log-in required.

I tried my accountant’s office again and just got an endless ringing, no voice mail ever picking up. I called directory assistance, tucking Trevor’s cordless phone between my shoulder and ear while simultaneously searching for the firm on Google. Maybe I had the wrong number.

“No listing for a Benjamin and Heller, Inc., in Manhattan or the five boroughs, ma’am.” And nothing online.

I realized I’d never visited their offices or even made a call to Arthur, the man who came to our house at tax time, who called me with the occasional question about my expenses, requesting this receipt or that canceled check. I let Marc handle it all. I just signed the quarterly tax reports and year-end returns without so much as a glance.

The computer screen swam before my tired eyes as I rechecked my bank accounts, since I knew those log-ins and passwords by heart. Nothing had changed except my recent withdrawals, when I’d basically cleaned myself out.

Then I checked our American Express bill, looking for Marc’s last charges, knowing he was too smart to be using his cards now. I was just grasping at what little information was available to me. All the usual charges-the smoothie shop at the gym, take-out places we liked, the grocery store, our local bar. I started scrolling back through the last few months.

Linda did this all the time, I knew. She checked the Amex bill daily, since they used it like cash, tracked all their expenses that way.

“Poor Erik can’t even buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks without my knowing about it,” she joked. The joke was on her, though, wasn’t it? She was so busy looking at the little things that the big ones completely eluded her. Not that I was one to judge.

I hadn’t looked at my credit-card statements in months, charged what I wanted, took out cash from the accounts I was told to and never once thought about what I was spending. I’d only checked a couple of months ago because my card had been declined.

“You’re using an expired card, Isabel,” said Marcus when I’d called him. Funny how I’d not thought to contact Amex or my accountant. “I left the new one on the kitchen counter about three weeks ago.”

I sifted through a pile of mail and found it with a little note: “Tear up your old card and use this one. Love you, M.”

Still I’d been sufficiently annoyed to think I should start taking more interest in our finances. But I’d quickly lost interest after a couple of days of checking things out.

At Trevor’s desk I found myself scanning Marc’s charges, his small-business card sharing an interface with our personal cards.

I sifted through a few months of charges before I started to see a pattern emerge. On or around the fifteenth of every month, there was a large charge on Marc’s business card, nearly two thousand dollars spent at a vendor listed on the statement as Services Unlimited, Inc. It really could have been any kind of legitimate business service, cleaning or document shredding or some kind of software licensing maybe. But it was the only thing that I could see that brought up any questions-even his charges on our personal card at Cornucopia (my favorite florist), dinner at the Mandarin Oriental, an obscene sum at La Perla, all coincided with gifts and evenings out that I remembered well.

I searched the Internet for Services Unlimited and found a Web site offering temporary “reception services.” Uniquely beautiful women in scanty business attire leaned over provocatively to take dictation or reach for files, listened attentively with pens in their mouths at a board meeting. I would have laughed under other circumstances at the raunchy silliness of it, but instead my insides clenched as I scrolled through page after page of leggy, pouty girls offering their “business skills.” Services Unlimited was an escort service, legal, ostensibly not offering sex, just arm candy. They took credit cards like any legitimate business. I tried to imagine Marcus with the type of woman I saw on page after page; I just couldn’t. I tried to imagine him paying for sex. He was too arrogant; it didn’t seem possible. But what did I know about Marcus? About anything? I’d only in the last few hours learned his real name.

I grabbed a worn Transformers notebook and a purple-inked pen from the shelf above Trevor’s computer. I was about to write down the number emblazoned across the top of the screen, a 718 exchange, meaning one of the outer boroughs, when I saw her, the woman from Marcus’s office. She was listed simply as “S.” Her description read: Six feet of pure stamina and efficiency .

I unconsciously lifted a finger to the cut on my head and startled myself with the pain-of the physical wound and the memory of the text message. I can still feel you inside me .

I tried to force the pieces together-the text message, the woman who’d attacked me carrying a gun, impersonating an FBI agent, now vamping on this Web site, the monthly charge on my husband’s credit card. This was beyond my experience, beyond my ability to weave a narrative from disconnected facts. I was still staring at her, all kinds of dark imaginings parading through my thoughts, when my phone started ringing. I checked the screen. Jack calling . My agent.