Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

Frowning, he let out an exasperated sigh. “Honey, listen. .”

He stopped talking at the sound of someone at the front door.

Molly heard the lock click. She peeked down the front hallway to see Chris opening the door. He wore his school jacket and had his backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Hey,” he mumbled. “Sorry I’m late. I took the bus to the hospital to see Courtney. But she was pretty out of it, so it wasn’t much of a visit. . ”

Molly just nodded, then turned and walked into the kitchen again. At the breakfast table, she grabbed her cardigan from the back of her chair. “I’m going out,” she said. “There’s leftover ham in the refrigerator. Or you can order out. I don’t care. You guys are on your own for dinner.”

Chris looked at Jeff — and then at her. Unlike his kid sister, he seemed to sense the tension in the room. “What’s going on?”

“Ask your father,” Molly grumbled, throwing on her sweater. She grabbed her purse. “Good luck getting a straight answer from him. I’ve tried, and I can’t.”

She headed down the hall — and out the door.

“I heard you come in at eleven,” he said.

Molly squinted at Jeff standing at the top of the attic stairs. She lay on the chaise longue in her art studio, snuggled under the comfy throw from Restoration Hardware. She realized Jeff must have snuck up there in the middle of the night and covered her with it.

He was right. She’d come home at eleven o’clock. She’d driven to Capitol Hill and gotten Thai carryout from Jamjurri. Then she’d driven to a lookout point on Fifteenth Avenue, a small park with a panoramic view of Husky Stadium, Lake Washington, and Bellevue.

Molly had sat in the car, eating her ginger chicken and gazing at the Bellevue lights in the distance. The park was across from Lakeview Cemetery, where they’d buried Angela — a fitting spot for her to admit to herself that Angela had been right all along. She didn’t even want to think it, but the evidence — or lack thereof — was overwhelming. All those business trips Jeff had taken without any expense records meant he was hiding something — like an affair, or several affairs. Jeff had been with another woman the night Angela had been murdered.

The son of a bitch wasn’t much better than Jeremy Hahn. And now she was going to have his baby.

When she’d come home last night, she’d had no desire to see him — or even sleep on the same floor as him. She’d gotten a pillow from one of the twin beds in the guest room, and then taken it upstairs to her studio.

“I’ll see the kids off to school,” Jeff was saying. “You just sleep.”

“You need to make Erin’s lunch,” she muttered, turning away from him.

“I’ll handle it,” she heard him say. “Just do me a favor. If the phone rings today and the number’s blocked, don’t pick it up. And please don’t say anything to the police about those calls. Just hold off for today. You and I will straighten this out tonight, and then we’ll both talk to the police tomorrow. Okay?”

Molly didn’t say anything.

“Maybe we can get together with that cop who’s so fond of you, that Blazevich guy.”

“Yes,” she said, tonelessly. “We’ll have to be discreet. When it comes out where you were that night, it’ll be embarrassing for you. Am I right, Jeff?”

She heard him sigh. “We’ll work this out, Molly,” he said. “I promise.”

Then she listened to his footsteps retreating down the stairs.

Molly didn’t want to wait until tonight to “straighten this out.” She imagined trying to talk to Jeff about his infidelity while his children were in the house. They were better off having their discussion over lunch — preferably in a cafeteriastyle place, where they paid up front. So — if she wanted to storm out of there, she could. Or maybe they’d just talk in his office with the door closed and his assistant out to lunch.

That was where she was now, downtown on the twenty-ninth floor of the Bank of America Tower. With a trench coat on over her navy-blue blouse and black skirt, Molly stepped off the elevator and through the glass double doors to the suite of offices for Kendall Pharmaceuticals. She never much cared for the wannabe — Jackson Pollock artwork on the walls. But she liked Jeff’s assistant, Peter, whose desk sat outside Jeff’s office in a separate alcove. A husky, handsome, ebony-skinned man with a goatee, Peter always wore vibrant-colored shirts with dark, subdued ties. Today, the shirt was Orange Crush orange.

Usually, Molly enjoyed chatting with Peter, but this time she’d been hoping to catch Jeff with no one else around.

“Hi, Molly,” Peter said, looking up from his monitor. “I’m sorry, but if you’re looking for Jeff, you just missed him. He’s out to lunch, I don’t know where. He told me he’ll be back in an hour, but you never know.”

“Yeah, you never know with him,” she said, working up a smile. The frosted-glass door to his office was closed; and it looked dark in there. “Well, he wasn’t expecting me. I’ll just go in and leave him a note.”

“Go on in. Do you want some coffee or a soda?”

“No thanks, Peter.” She stepped inside Jeff’s office and closed the door. He had a spacious office with a bookcase on one wall, a sofa, and a large mahogany desk — on which sat a computer monitor and a framed photo of her, Chris, and Erin. One wall was a floor-to-ceiling window — with a view of the Olympics, Puget Sound, and the ferries on their way to and from the islands. Gray clouds hovered over the horizon, and not much light came into Jeff’s office. Molly switched on the overhead, then went to his desk and sat down.

She was wondering about those business trips that hadn’t shown up on Jeff’s Visa or American Express accounts. He must have had a secret account, and the bills were either coming here or at a post office box someplace.

Molly tried his desk drawers, but all of them were locked. She wondered if he’d set up the account online. But he’d logged off his computer, and she didn’t know the password. Molly tried her name, then Chris , then Erin , then Chriserin , and other combinations that included birthdays.

Through the door’s fogged glass, she could see Peter getting up from his desk. She quickly grabbed a pen and started scribbling on a notepad.

Peter knocked, and then stepped in. “I’m headed out to lunch, Molly,” he said. “I’d stick around and keep you company, but I’m meeting Mark and his mother at Ivar’s. I can’t keep her waiting. She already thinks I’m not good enough for her son. Anyway, take your time in here. Everything’s locked up, so just turn off the lights and close the door when you leave.”

Molly nodded. “Will do, thanks,” she said. “And good luck with Mark’s mom.”

“Thanks, I’ll need it,” he said. Then he set some mail on Jeff’s desk and headed for the door.

Molly heard the door close after him. She wasn’t looking in that direction. She was staring at the mail he’d left in front of her — and the MasterCard logo in the left-hand corner of one envelope.

At this point, she didn’t care if Jeff knew she’d looked at his mail. She was sick of secrets. With his letter opener, she cut open the envelope and pulled out the bill. The most recent purchase was listed on the day she’d found out about Angela’s death. He’d checked out of the Chateau Granville Hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia. The day before, there were charges from BC Liquor Store, Divine Vine Florist, and Blue Water Café—all in Vancouver.

Earlier in the month, when Jeff was supposed to be in Minneapolis, he’d taken a brief trip north about sixty miles to La Conner instead. There, he stayed at the La Conner Channel Lodge, and he’d had a $122 dinner at Palmer’s Restaurant, and spent $247 at Windmill Antiques & Miniatures. From all the prices, Molly could see Jeff was treating his girlfriend to the finest hotels and restaurants. He was also buying her flowers and antiques. Maybe he was in love with her.