Maybe it was fate bringing me here. Maybe just coincidence. Either way I took it as a good sign. I sank into a chair at an outside table and ordered the tallest, strongest cup of coffee I could get and a chocolate chip scone.
No nonfat lattes for me today.I needed sugar and energy.
The door in the building beside Jive Hive opened, and a petite, blonde woman walked out. She looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t think we’d met before. Her face was red and blotchy, and she fumbled her phone in shaking hands. My gaze traveled up to the sign above the door.
Rossetti Medical Clinic
I averted my gaze, as the woman had obviously just received some kind of unexpected or unwelcome news. As she walked by my table I could hear her breath hitch, and I realized she was crying. She bent over her phone, still peering at the screen, but it slipped from her hands and ended up under my feet.
“Oh, no.” She ran her hands over her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s no problem.” I leaned over, grabbed it, and banged my head on the table on my way up. “Ow.” I handed her the phone, but not before I glanced at the screen to see if the glass had cracked.
Congressman Reynolds and his two little girls smiled up at me.
You’re the cheater’s wife?
Now I knew why she looked familiar. “Here you go,” I managed to say.
“Thank you.” She brushed her hair behind her ears, and I realized she was prettier than the pictures I’d seen. She had that mature look about her, a woman who’d settled into her good looks and was glad to have her twenties and thirties behind her.
I tried to think of something to say, but I wasn’t sure my training had covered how to confront the wife of a cheating spouse. In fact, I seemed to recall that a mistress dispeller was to avoid confronting the wife at all costs. I had no idea if this woman knew about Angela, if she’d been the one to hire me, or if someone else in the campaign office had made the suggestion. Grace handled all those details.
She gave me a little smile but didn’t go far. She sank into a chair at an empty table a few feet away and put her phone to her cheek. “Hey, sweetheart. Guess what?”
I did my best to look aloof and not like I was falling over in my eagerness to eavesdrop.Sweetheart? She couldn’t be talking to her husband, not if she was the Ice Queen Angela had told me about. Maybe she was cheating, too. Maybe that would make everything easier. I leaned a little closer and inspected my fingernails.
“We’re having another baby.” She burst into tears, but it was obvious they were happy tears. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I know. That’s what I thought, what the doctor kept saying. I guess we surprised everyone.” She listened for a few seconds, nodding and beaming, and when she finally said goodbye she practically radiated with happiness.
I didn’t know what to think. Or say. Or believe.Anotherbaby? She had to be talking to the Congressman. Either that or the screensaver on her phone wasn’t her own family at all. My mind whirled, trying to make sense of the conversation. Then she caught me looking her way, and I decided not to pretend I hadn’t heard.
“Sounds like congratulations are in order?”
“Yes.” She grabbed some napkins and swiped at her tears, still smiling. “We’d been trying for a while, my husband and I. He’s busy, works in Congress, and we already have two daughters but we wanted to try for a boy. Of course, it’s still early so we don’t know yet if it’s a boy or another girl but...” She burst out into fresh tears. “It doesn’t matter. We always wanted three.”
“That’s great. He must be really happy?”
“He is. He’s wanted this for so long.”
Oh, really?My fingers itched for my phone, and I had to sit on one hand to keep myself from grabbing it and texting Angela. The answer to my prayers had fallen into my lap.Separate bedrooms, my ass.Whatever the Congressman was telling his mistress was a flat-out lie. It didn’t surprise me, but I bet it would shock the hell out of Angela.
When she found out the Congressman was still sleeping with his wife, the affair would be over. I knew that as surely as I’d ever known anything.
14
I waitedfor her to leave, nursing my coffee until it was cool. While I wanted to text Angela right away, I wondered if this was news better shared in person. Probably. I hadn’t been to a yoga class in days, and though my body would protest tomorrow, my future as a mistress dispeller would thank me.
Hey how r u?I finally typed.Great show at the gallery. Thx again.I thought she might be busy, but my phone buzzed right away with her response.
Glad you made it!A line of smiley faces and hearts followed the words.
I added a couple hearts of my own and typedYoga tomorrow?
Yessss!!More hearts and smileys and a figure which was probably supposed to be a yogi sitting in prayer pose.
I set the phone aside.Finally. I’d found a way in, a crack in the affair. Maybe I wasn’t a total failure after all. Of course, I still had to convince Angela to break up with the Congressman, but that seemed like a minor detail now. He was about to paint a nursery with his wife, not leave her.
I tossed my cup and crumpled napkin into the garbage and got up to leave. The sun hid behind the clouds, but I left my glasses on and my hat pulled low. Funny, but something about my disguise made me feel daring, dangerous, incognito. Grace said a lot of her employees wore wigs; maybe I’d try that with my next assignment. I strutted along the sidewalk, peeking into some of the office buildings and trying to get my bearings. I was just a few blocks from home, but I’d been so lost in thought I wasn’t paying attention on the way here.
