It’s the right play. It makes me feel sick.
But Alex can take it. He can handle Van Wyk.
God, I hope he can.
“Alex always thinks he’s doing the right thing,” I say bitterly, deliberately using Van Wyk’s words.
His eyes flicker. “That must be difficult.”
“It’s…”Cute. Confident. Arousing. So very him. What I fell in love with from the first day.“…suffocating.”
“Mmm, I get it.” Another reassuring pat on my hand. “You want to be yourself. Have your own career, pursue your own interests…”
Investigate murderers.
“Yes, exactly!” I say, leaning forward. Taking his cue to talk about my work, and running with it. “I’ve just started my own business. I have this wonderful construction firm. There’s an expense claim… oh, it’s so much less stressful than the corporate world I was dealing with before—”
“Well, quite.” Van Wyk looks down the hallway, his interest gone. “Let’s get you to Amelia. I’m sure both of you are keen to catch up.”
“I’m so glad she’s here,” I say, walking on. Van Wyk keeps step, and there’s more energy from both of us. Me, so enthusiastic to reunite with his wife. Him, pleased to be rid of me.
Me, desperate to see the back of this creature.
And I can’t help but twist the knife as we walk, the irony of that notion particularly delicious.Damn, I’m channeling Alex.
“…the thing about construction firms is that they run hundreds of line items per project, you see, so if someone wants to hide money, that’s the perfect environment…”
“Uh-huh.”
“…anyway, there’s this thing in Excel where you can do a pivot table, okay? And I got all their data and I…”
“Right.”
“…checking the expense allocations against theactualpurchase records, and guess what I found?”
“Uh… pardon?”
“Guess what I found!”
“Tell me.”
“Well, when you cross-reference theapprovalsagainst the project spend, it shows the—”
“Ah, we’re here.” Van Wyk says with bonhomie. He raps once on a door and shows me into a suite of rooms. Amelia is sitting on a sofa, drinking a glass of wine. She looks up with mild interest, but doesn’t react beyond that. To me, or to her husband.
“Oh, hi.” The words slur, almost like she’s sedated.
“Amelia, you remember Victoria Callahan.” Van Wyk politely disengages his arm. “I knew you two would like to catch up.” His eyes settle on Amelia’s bottle of wine, irritation flaring in their usually flat depths. “Unfortunately, I have to…” He nods to me, ignores his wife, and closes the door behind himself.
I try very hard not to breathe a sigh of relief. Amelia’s watching me. She might be half out of it; she might not. I don’t trust anything anymore.
“So glad to see a friendly face,” I say, walking farther in. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
Her pictures don’t do her justice. In person, she’s quietly striking. Raven hair, pale complexion, a clean, high-contrast look. But her eyes are flat.
The bottle of wine is half empty. It’s not quite lunchtime. I wonder if she’s eaten.
