Michele Martinez - Most Wanted

She deserved the prize for the worst way to find out your husband was cheating. It was almost a month ago now. Maya had been five months old and really sick for the first time-103.6, vomiting, her little body burning up. Steve was in L.A. on a deal, and Melanie was alone with the baby, worried, on the verge of taking her to the emergency room. She needed to hear Steve tell her it would be okay. She dialed his hotel and asked the operator to put her through to him. It was after midnight in L.A., but the phone rang and rang. He must still be working, she thought. So she tried the conference room in his firm’s L.A. office, where he’d been camped out the past few days. A woman answered. Melanie never found out who she was, but this girl had an agenda. Far from covering for anybody or sparing anyone’s feelings, she wanted Melanie to know.

“Oh,” she said, “you’re Steve’s wife. Steve and Samantha left hours ago. If you can’t get them in his room, try hers.” Then she carefully spelled Samantha’s last name.

Melanie’s body went cold and still, but her hands trembled violently as she dialed the hotel switchboard again and asked for Samantha Ellison’s room. When she answered, Melanie asked for Steve in a quiet, controlled voice. Esa puta handed the phone over to him. He said he would call back in a minute from his own room. She sat like a stone, barely existing, until the phone rang a few minutes later.

At least he had the dignity not to lie or make excuses. He told her that it had happened once before, that it was just sex, that Samantha meant nothing to him, and that he would end it right away. He told her that he loved her and Maya more than anything else in the world and that he hated himself for behaving this way. He couldn’t explain why he’d done it. Stress, maybe? Things tough at work, the new baby, Melanie busy and cranky and unavailable. Samantha had thrown herself at him; they were far from home. None of it was any excuse. He knew that. He told her he would never forgive himself, but that if she could find it in her heart to forgive him, he would be the best husband to her for the rest of his life. He told her he didn’t know how he would go on if she left him.

She couldn’t get her mind around it. He came home the next day and threw himself literally at her feet. She just watched, dry-eyed, unable to feel anything, while he cried. He went out and bought her an expensive diamond bracelet. She looked at it with disgust and told him to take it back to Tiffany’s. After several days of utter misery, she realized she needed some time alone. She told him to go stay at his parents’ for a while. He took some suits over there. Then he got sent back to L.A. That was nearly three weeks ago. Since then he’d been back in New York for just one weekend. She let him stay in the apartment so he could see Maya, but she made him sleep on the couch. She barely spoke to him. After he returned to L.A., she mostly screened his calls. She had at least five saved voice mails and, the last time she checked, seventeen unopened e-mails from him that she was thinking about deleting. She knew she couldn’t go on shutting him out. They had a child and a mortgage together. She had to make a real decision. But she couldn’t imagine the future. All she could do was grieve for what they’d lost. She couldn’t stand the sight of him, and yet all she wanted was to be with him, like nothing had ever happened.

She could sit here and wallow forever, but she had things to do. She considered calling her mother, then rejected it out of hand. Her mother wanted her to work things out with Steve. She couldn’t listen to that right now. Her mother was a little too clear-eyed for Melanie’s taste sometimes. Grow up, Melanie, men are like that. Who should know better than me? Just be grateful he’s trying to make it up with you instead of walking out. If I were you, I’d take that bracelet and anything else I could get my hands on, and make him account for his every move from now on . No, she couldn’t listen to that poisonous cynicism. Besides, her mother was too busy for baby-sitting. She was smack in the middle of her second youth, with a cute condo in Forest Hills and a good job as a bookkeeper for a flourishing dermatology practice. She’d gone blond after a lifetime as a brunette. She had at least two boyfriends that Melanie knew of, and she was addicted to swing-dance classes. No, Melanie would call only in a dire emergency.

Reluctantly, she dialed her sister’s cell phone.

“ ¡Dígame !” Linda was out of breath. Car horns blared in the background.

“Lin, it’s me. I need a favor.”

“Sí, claro, los Manolos.”

“Manolos? No, no, it’s Melanie.”

“Oh, Mel. I can barely hear you. I thought you were Teresa. She’s going to a benefit tonight, and she wants my brand-new gold stilettos with the crystals. Can you believe it? I paid five hundred Washingtons for those suckers. What’s up?”

“Listen, I have a problem. I’m in trouble at work, Steve’s still in L.A., and my baby-sitter is about to quit if I make her stay late.”

“Let me guess. You want me to baby-sit Maya?”

“Yes. Would you?”

“Gee, sweetie, I don’t think that’s such a great idea. I’d probably drop her or something. Besides, I’m going clubbing later with a guy who can get me a meeting with the programming people at Telemundo. You know, about developing my show.”

Linda was a fashion and entertainment reporter for a local cable news channel. She was damn good at it, too. She walked the walk, lived the same lifestyle her subjects did, made the connections. Speaking of which, Linda never went out until the small hours, and Melanie knew it.

“What time are you meeting him?” Melanie asked.

“ A medianoche , downtown.”

“Midnight? I’ll be home before then.”

“But I need to get my hair blown out.”

“Use my hot curlers.”

“Hmm. I do like those things. They give me good volume. But did you try Mom?”

“She’s so on my case these days, I couldn’t stand the thought.”

“I hear you on that, chica .”

“Besides, it can take her an hour to get in on the train. Please, Lin, just say yes-I’ll owe you so big.”

“You’re not gonna make a habit of this, are you? Because you know I’m low on maternal instinct.”

“This is the first time I ever asked!”

“You take my next two turns going with Mom to Costco and it’s a deal.”

“You never take her anyway.”

“Is that a no?”

“Okay, okay, fine! Get over to my house, though. Elsie’s waiting.”

“Never saw a woman so afraid of her own help. You should fire her ass.”

“Be nice to her, please! Te amo , sis.”

“Yeah, you better.” Linda laughed and hung up.

MELANIE ORDERED A TURKEY SANDWICH AND TWO cups of coffee from the diner across the street, then knelt down and started reading the labels on the boxes. She had only a vague idea of what she was looking for-something, anything, that could lead her to an address on Slice or Bigga. She’d done a few wiretaps in her day and knew how the files should be organized. But this was a big investigation, bigger than any she’d ever worked on, with numerous telephones tapped. Figuring out which telephones might have some connection to Slice without spending weeks reading every document-that seemed beyond the capacity of her already overtaxed brain.

She jumped when her phone rang. It was the guard in the lobby calling to say the delivery guy was on the way up with her food. She buzzed herself out through the bulletproof door and waited by the elevator, stomach rumbling. This would be her first meal since that bowl of Cheerios early this morning. The Benson case was good for her diet anyway. She’d lost twenty-seven pounds since Maya was born, but when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was the ten still to go. And they weren’t coming off without her starving herself, which she wasn’t good at, or hitting the gym, which she didn’t have time for.