I sure hoped she’d started early on her plans to eat what she wanted and do what she liked, because it looked like she was going through it.
“How about I’ll get the coffee?” I asked as she sat down beside me.
“Sure,” she said, her eyes still distant, as though her mind were on something far away.
“What would you like?”
“Skinny cappuccino with—no. I’d like an iced white chocolate mocha.”
“Coming up,” I said. Nutritionists might disagree, but I felt it was important for Trista’s long-term mental health that she do what she wanted to do. There’d be time to go back to skinny cappuccinos later, if she wanted to.
I brought over a double-chocolate muffin, too. She reached for it, jerked her hand back as if she’d been scalded, then delicately pinched off a little piece.
“You had them warm it up.” Between the smile and the color in her cheeks, she looked like a new woman.
“It’s the little things in life,” I said.
Once again, I waited. Patience wasn’t one of my better virtues, but I’d learned to fake it until I made it.
Finally, she spoke. “Can you really help me find my husband?”
“Before I was a fairy godmother of vengeance, I was a private detective, so yes. I should be able to help you find him.”
“I can’t afford to pay you right now,” she said. “But I will find a way, even if I have to ask my parents to loan me the money, which I do not want to do.”
“I’m going to guess Blake disappeared with a chunk of change?”
“All our investment accounts,” she said with a sigh. “Most of the checking account. All our savings.”
It wasn’t even my money, but I still felt a punch to the gut. It was the injustice of it all, really. It never ceased to amaze me how shitty some people could be. The day I got used to it, I should probably go into another line of business. “I’m sorry. That’s just ...”
“Shitty?”
“Exactly the word I was thinking. Let’s start at the beginning and go over the last time you saw him and what you do know.”
I grilled her mercilessly, and she took it with the same stoic grace she probably showed her gynecologist during a pelvic exam.
“I need to serve him with papers as soon as possible so I can stop the hemorrhaging from our funds,” she said, her brow furrowed. “He probably doesn’t realize I know the extent of what he’s done because he never shared financial information with me. I asked questions, yes, and the cagier he got, the more determined I became to do my own investigating. Fortunately, I have an account thathedoesn’t know about.”
I arched an eyebrow. Good on Trista!
“I have no intention of hiding it, but a couple of years ago, I had a nightmare that he’d left us high and dry. I wanted to have something just in case.”
“And ‘just in case’ has arrived,” I murmured.
Unfortunately, Trista had no idea where her husband might be. He’d never admitted to having another girlfriend, but she suspected. She’d already checked the vacation home in Florida. A different private investigator had told her that he was hiding out at Bel Air Apartments,and she hadn’t wanted to spook him while she was working things out with her lawyers. Then I brought her the video of my Malone.
After I left the Monday of the Flocking, she’d looked for Blake everywhere she could think of. She’d called him, only to hear the prerecorded apology about how his number was no longer in service. In short, she was desperate.
I reached across the table to grab her hand. “He can’t hide forever.”
I, however, could hide like a champ.
I may or may not have gone on a long surveillance trip. My official reasoning was that Attorney Lawless had called with a job, and I needed money. My unofficial reasoning? I was ticked with Malone.
Here we were ready to do the deed, and then he ghosted me.
Sure, sure. I was the one who’d left him on Monday night, but I was coming back. Surely he knew that. I got back late Monday night / early Tuesday morning, but he was gone before I woke up. I waited for him the rest of the day Tuesday. Nothing. When I got up early on Wednesday only to see his car wasn’t there, I decided I’d wasted enough time mooning over him.
