minds.
Stan didn’t think of himself as a criminal. He was just doing a necessary job no one else would do.
He finished his lunch and cleaned his hands off with a wet wipe. It was time for him to move on to the next name on his list.
Carey Moore.
32
IT SEEMED TO take days for the hours to pass. Carey spent the rest of the afternoon in her bedroom with Lucy, playing nurse, taking her temperature with a toy thermometer, and giving her “medicine”-M amp;M’s.
They napped, though Carey couldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. The tension was exhausting. She passed the time second-guessing herself.
Maybe this wasn’t the time to confront David. Maybe she should wait until the rest of this nightmare was over. Except that she didn’t know her husband wasn’t a part of it. She didn’t want to stay under the same roof with a man who might have arranged to have her killed. She didn’t want her daughter in the same house as him.
She worried about Lucy, who was already feeling insecure and clingy. But was there ever a good time for a child’s parents to end their marriage? No.
She thought about sending Lucy to Kate and John Quinn’s home for the night. Lucy loved sleepovers and was friends with the Quinns’ daughter Haley. But Carey didn’t want her daughter out of her control, or out of her sight, for that matter. Things were too uncertain. And she didn’t want to potentially put John and Kate in harm’s way if Stan Dempsey had decided to go after her daughter to make her pay for Carey’s sins. He could have been watching the house, for all she knew. He could follow her to the Quinns’.
She would wait to speak to David until after Lucy was asleep. Anka would make sure Lucy didn’t go downstairs in the event she woke up. Carey was very thankful the nanny had insisted on staying the weekend, even though Saturday and Sunday were usually her days off. Anka wouldn’t hear of leaving. Her responsibility was to the family.
What a sad thing, Carey thought, that she could trust her nanny more than she could trust her husband.
David ordered Chinese for dinner. Lucy was a big fan of moo goo gai pan. David’s appetite was as healthy as ever. Carey picked at her egg-fried rice, continuously rearranging it on her plate but eating only a few grains. She rested an elbow on the table and her head in her hand and stared down at the bright bits of peas and carrots dotting the rice like confetti.
“How’s your moo goo, Lucy Goosie?” David asked, smiling at his daughter.
“I’m Fairy Princess Lucy now, Daddy! Detective Sam said so.”
“Detective Sam?” He looked at Carey.
“He was at the courthouse, Daddy,” Lucy went on. “He was my pretend giant, and he carried me all the way to the car. Isn’t that nice?”
“Yes, very,” David said. “Why was he at the courthouse?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said with a big shrug, going back to her dinner.
“I’m his case,” Carey said. “He was keeping tabs on me.”
“You should have stayed in the hospital,” David said for the tenth time.
“So I could not eat there?” she said too sharply. “So they could force-feed me Jell-O?”
“I like Jell-O,” Lucy piped up. “I like green Jell-O best. My friend Kelly’s mom puts pieces of carrots in her green Jell-O. Isn’t that weird?”
Carey smiled at her daughter.
“I like pineapple in mine,” Lucy said. “It’s pretty.”
“You look ready to collapse, Carey,” David said. “And you’re out running around like you think you’re fine. You’ve exhausted yourself.”
He actually looked concerned for her, and she wondered if any of that look was genuine. A part of her hoped so, even though her practical side told her no. If David cared about her, he wouldn’t have been doing what he’d been doing. The more likely explanation was that he wanted her out of his hair so he could do whatever he wanted to do over the weekend. What had Kovac said her name was? Ginnie.
“Did you get your paperwork?” he asked. “I didn’t see you bring anything in from the car.”
“I forgot it was in my briefcase, which was stolen.”
“So you went down there for nothing.”
“Do I need to pay you back for the gas I used?” Carey asked with a fine edge of sarcasm.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
He went to say something more but stopped himself, held up his hands in surrender, and pushed back from the table. “Excuse me, ladies. I have work to do. I’m applying for a grant for the film.”
Carey didn’t comment. Before this day, she would have encouraged him, tried to be supportive, even though she had long since tired of that game. The time for being David’s cheerleader had passed. The time to move on had arrived.
The evening was passed with Lucy, painting toenails and reading stories. After she had tucked her daughter in bed and sat with her until she’d gone to sleep, Carey showered and dressed in a loose pair of jeans and an oversized black button-down shirt. It was one of her father’s old shirts. Wrapping herself in it was like wrapping herself in the memory of her father’s strength.
It was important to her to feel as strong and secure as she could. Confronting David in pajamas wouldn’t do that.
Lucy had been in bed nearly an hour. Once she was sound asleep, it was rare for her to wake up before morning. The sleep of the innocent, Carey thought. She envied her daughter that.
David sat at his desk, staring at the computer screen and nursing a drink.
Carey stood outside the den, watching him for a moment before he looked up.
“I thought you went to bed.”
She took a deep breath and walked into the room. “We need to talk.”
The four most ominous words with which to open a conversation.
David just sat there for a moment, then clicked his mouse to make his screen go dark. The top-secret grant application.
“I want a divorce,” she said bluntly.
“What?” He looked more nervous than surprised. “Why?”
“Don’t pretend to be shocked, David. You don’t want to be married to me. I don’t want to be married to you. I don’t even know who you are anymore. But I do know all about your extracurricular activities with the prostitutes.”
He was actually stupid enough to try to correct her. “Escorts.”
“They’re women you pay for sex,” she snapped. “A whore is a whore, David. No euphemism is going to put a pretty face on that.
“How could you?” she asked. “How dare you.”
He rubbed a hand over his face and got up from the desk.
“It was just… business,” he said. “A transaction for a service. When was the last time you and I had sex, Carey?”
“When was the last time you were an equal partner in this marriage?”
He laughed without humor and shook his head. “And you’re wondering why I would go outside our marriage for attention.”
“Oh, poor, poor David,” she said bitterly. “You’re the victim. You’ve spent the last how many years contributing not one goddamn thing to this relationship-”
