After the beep, she said, “Enough of this. We have to talk. Your mother is having serious issues. Grow up and call me.”
Megan hung up, nearly hurling the phone across the front seat. On the one hand, of course she understood his behavior. She was the one in the wrong. But maybe that was the problem. In a sense, she had always been the one in the wrong. Over the years, she had let the guilt of her deception color everything in their relationship. Her fault? Sure. But maybe Dave had taken advantage of it. Her guilt had made her acquiesce too many times. She didn’t resent the kids for any of it. She wouldn’t trade it but…
But why wasn’t Dave calling her back?
All those years he had been working, yes, providing, putting food on the table and all the rest of the crap men use to justify what they do-but Dave liked his work. He thrived on late hours and travel and golf on Sunday mornings and then coming home to his hot, willing wife. She had been all that for him, even when she didn’t want to be. Don’t get her wrong. Dave had never bullied her. He had never been mean or deceptive, but then again, why would he be? He had the perfect wife. She had given up on finding a career of her own. She paid all the bills, took care of all the shopping, drove all the carpools, made sure the household was in order. She took care of his mother, cared about her more than he ever could, and after all that, all the sacrifices she’d made, how did he treat her?
He was ignoring her calls-and he’d somehow been spying on her.
Not that she didn’t deserve that. But still. Here she wanted to talk to him, tell him about her past and inner demons and let him know that the wife he had sworn to protect was in danger, and he wouldn’t even return her desperate calls, choosing instead to act like a petulant child.
She reached for her phone again. She had already put Ray’s number in so she’d remember it. She hit the dial button, but before it could even start ringing, she saw the sign for the Sunset Assisted Living Home.
Don’t be an idiot, Megan, she told herself.
Megan hung up the phone, parked, and with the anger still seething, she headed inside.
Barbie stayed two cars back.
She wasn’t overly concerned about being spotted-Megan Pierce hardly seemed like an expert in noticing tails-but you never knew. The fact that this seemingly simple housewife was somehow caught up in all this indicated that she was not merely what she appeared to be. The same, of course, could be said about Barbie herself.
As Barbie drove, her mind kept slipping back to Ken’s sudden proposal. It was sweet and cute, sure, but it was mostly disturbing. She had always assumed that Ken saw past the illusions cast upon us, that their relationship had opened his eyes to a new and different reality. But it hadn’t. Even he could not see past the bill of goods we are sold from our first days on this planet.
We are told, for example, by our unhappy, miserable parents, that the way to find joy in life is to live and do exactly as they have. Barbie never understood that logic. What do they say about the definition of insanity? It is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Generationally the world seemed to do just that. Barbie’s father, for example, had hated trudging off to work in that tired suit and tie every morning, coming home at six P.M. feeling angry and defeated and finding classic solace in a bottle. Her mother had detested being a housewife-forced into a role her mother had played and her mother before her-and yet, in the ultimate life blind spot, what did Mom want for her own daughter?
To find a man and settle down and have children of her own-as though resentment and unhappiness were a legacy she hoped to pass down.
What kind of subversive logic was that?
Now Ken wanted to marry her. He wanted to have the house and the picket fence and of course, the children, even though Barbie had long ago accepted that she did not have a maternal bone in her body. She looked out the windshield and shook her head. Didn’t he get it? She loved this life-the rush, the excitement, the danger- and she firmly believed that it was God’s plan for her. He had made Barbie this way. Why would He do that if she was meant to be yet another brain-dead housewife, wiping kid snot and cleaning up poop?
She would help Ken see that they had been brought together for a reason. She loved him. He was her destiny. Her role, she knew, was to pull the blindfold off his eyes. He would understand. He would even feel relief that he would not have to simply do the expected.
Megan signaled right and took the exit ramp. Barbie followed. She dismissed thoughts about the proposal and focused on her feelings about what she had to do to Megan. On the one hand, she didn’t relish killing this woman. If she had believed Goldberg-and she hadn’t-but if she believed that the woman held no threat to her and Ken, so much the better. She would let her get back to that pathetic house and that husband and those kids without a second thought. But that couldn’t be now. It had to be done. In this line of work, you don’t last long if you allow loose ends.
Up ahead Barbie saw Megan park her car and enter a place called Sunset Assisted Living. Hmm. Barbie parked farther down the lot. Then she reached under the car seat and pulled the blade into view.
Still in a daze, Ray started for home.
Broome had called his crime-scene people, and without another word, rushed back to the ruins in the park. Ray stayed where he was for another five minutes, seemingly unable to move. None of this made any sense. He tried to sort through it, but that only led to more confusion.
As Ray stumbled down Danny Thomas Boulevard past the tacky-to-the-point-of-classy Trump Taj Mahal, he felt his phone vibrate. He reached for it, his hands feeling too big for his pocket, and clumsily withdrew it. The vibrations had stopped, and the missed call icon appeared. He checked the caller ID. When he saw the call had come from a “Megan Pierce,” his heart sped up.
Cassie.
Should he call her back? He wasn’t sure. She had called him, which was certainly a sign of some sort, but then again she had also hung up. Or been disconnected. But if she’d been disconnected, wouldn’t she call back when she was back in range? Right, okay, wait for the return call. He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? All of a sudden he was a clammy-handed adolescent trying to interpret the signals of his first crush.
Ray wondered how she had gotten his phone number. Didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had called. Why? He had no idea. He kept the phone in his hand, willing it to vibrate, checking the battery to make sure it had enough juice, checking the bars to make sure he had enough coverage. Pathetic. Stop it. Cassie would call back or she wouldn’t.
And what if she didn’t?
Was he willing to go back to… to what? More booze and blackouts?
When he made the final turn toward his basement home-a grown man renting out a basement, for crying out loud-Ray pulled up short. There, in front of the dwelling, were four police cars.
Uh-oh.
He ducked behind a telephone pole. More pathetic. He debated making a run for it, but what good would that do? Plus, if they wanted to arrest him, Broome could have done it ten minutes ago. He took another look. His Pakistani landlord, Amir Baloch, stood in front of the house, his arms crossed. Ray approached tentatively, waiting for the cops to grab him. They didn’t. They entered and left the house with boxes.
Amir shook his head. “Like I’m back in the old country.”
“What happened?” Ray asked.
One of the cops spotted Ray and approached. His name tag said Howard Dodds. “Raymond Levine?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Officer Dodds.” He handed him a sheet of paper. “We have a subpoena to search these premises.”
“He only lives in the basement,” Amir said with a whine.
“The search is for the entire property,” Dodds said.
Ray didn’t bother reading the order. “Can I help you find something?”
“No.”
“I can give you passwords to my computer, if that makes it easier.”
Dodds smiled. “Nice try.”
