“What for?” I could hear him saying as clearly as if he were sitting next to me sipping a glass of cold, sweetened iced tea. “It’s a waste of money.” He always had a pitcher of tea in the fridge, made with both real sugar and artificial sweeteners to get just the right combination. In that moment, I missed my husband with a burrowing longing that didn’t feel survivable. Even though he’d had a secret house, and maybe even a questionable relationship with the woman who lived in it.
“What are you thinking?” Lulu asked.
I was afraid to tell her. As if saying the words out loud would make any emerging doubts more real. “Do you really believe Ali bought this house for his ... for a woman ... he might have been involved with?”
“Oh, Amira,” she said, her voice full of feeling. “I hope not.”
One of those trucks used by mowing services pulled up across the street. A man got out of the driver’s side and crossed over. I watched him come up the walkway toward us, half expecting him to demand to know why Lulu and I were sitting on Carol Darius’s front porch.
“Excuse me, miss?” he said in greeting, standing at the foot of the porch stairs. Startled, Lulu looked up from her phone.
“Yes?” I decided to act like I owned the place since there was a decent chance that I did.
“I’m Bob. I own the landscaping company that takes care of your lawn.”
“Hi, Bob.” I decided against sharing my name.
He shifted from one leg to the other. Bob was nervous. “I’m glad I caught you. I knocked on your door last week, but you didn’t answer.”
“I wasn’t here.” I wasn’t going to actively impersonate Carol Darius, but I was OK with Bob the landscaper making assumptions that meant learning why my husband paid for this house.
“It’s about the billing.”
“The billing?”
“Yes, I haven’t been paid in a month.”
“My husband usually takes care of that,” I lied. Or maybe it was true. “I’m not sure how he paid you.”
“Do you have a number where I could reach him?”
“Unfortunately not. He passed away.”
His expression shifted, shock followed by genuine sympathy—reactions I was becoming used to. “I’m sorry.”
My throat constricted, but I pushed through. “I’m just starting to catch up on all of the things he used to take care of. I must have missed your bill. Do you recall how he paid you?”
“Let me see. It came from a company.” He pulled out his phone to check. But I already knew what he was going to say. “Payment came from the FiveA’s LLC.”
I wasn’t surprised. Ali’s secret company owned the house, so it wasn’t exactly shocking that it also paid some of the bills. But the revelationdid chip away at the hope, still lodged deep inside me, that there was an easy, uncomplicated explanation for Ali’s ownership of this house. “I’ll have to look into it.”
He paused. “Do you want me to mow the lawn today?”
Not if I had to pay him. “Maybe we should skip it for now. Do you have a card? I’ll call you and settle everything once I’ve looked through the accounts.”
“All right, then.” He frowned, not seeming to appreciate the answer. He drew out a business card and advanced far enough onto the porch to hand it to me.
I empathized with Bob’s need to get paid for his work, but there was zero chance I was going to pay this Carol person’s bills. “Thank you, Bob.”
He glanced between me and Lulu as if hoping for help from Lulu. When she just smiled at him, he sighed a little and said, “You two ladies have a nice day.”
Chapter Nine
The first thing I did when we got back to Virginia was call Ali’s cousin Nasser, a defense attorney. We met at his office near the courthouse at the end of his workday.
“Who is Carol Darius?” I asked, taking the seat opposite his desk. If anyone knew, it would be Nasser. He and Ali roomed together as undergrads and were close friends. Nasser was good-looking and knew it but pretended to be modest about his appeal to women. Never married, he used to show up at parties at our house with a succession of attractive women—some Arab, others not.
“I have no idea who Carol Darius is,” Nasser told me. “I’ve never heard of her.”
