The Affair. Colette Freedman
I can crash at his apartment.”
There was another long pause. Robert obviously expected Kathy to fill the silence, but she said nothing. She turned right onto Storrow Drive. She realized she was just a few miles from where Robert had gotten the speeding ticket. Traffic was almost at a complete standstill, cars bumper to bumper, windows fogged up.
“Kathy . . .”
“You’re breaking up. I can hardly hear you,” she lied.
“Can’t you get what you’re looking for in Brookline?”
“No,” she said truthfully. “I’ll see you at Top of the Hub later . . .”
“No, not Top of the Hub . . .”
Kathy kept her eyes fixed firmly on the road, refusing to glance down at the phone’s lit screen. She took a breath before responding, careful to pitch her voice just right. “I thought you said last night you were going to Top of the Hub. . . .”
“Kathy, I’m having trouble hearing you. Listen, there was a screw-up. I phoned earlier to confirm, and they couldn’t find the reservation.”
Kathy frowned. She knew this to be the truth. So maybe everything else was explicable also. Maybe all her suppositions had a rational explanation. She shook her head; they didn’t. “So where are you going to go?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Well, look, call me when you find a place, and I’ll drop by. I haven’t seen Jimmy for ages. How is Angela?”
“They’ve separated. He wants a divorce. She says no.”
Kathy shifted in the driver’s seat, feeling trapped by the traffic. The lights of Boston burned amber and white in the distance. “Listen, I’ve got to go, there’s a cop nearby, and I shouldn’t be on my cell,” she lied again, and stabbed a finger to end the call.
If Robert wanted a divorce would she say no?
Kathy shook her head. She’d say, “Go.”
If he didn’t want her, if he’d chosen some slut over her, she certainly wouldn’t want him hanging around. But if he was going, she would make sure she’d keep everything that was rightfully hers.
It took forty minutes to get down to Beacon Hill. The stores were open for last-minute shoppers, and street parking was at an absolute premium. She drove around the hilly side streets, looking for a place to park.
For years, Kathy and Robert had run R&K Productions out of their home. About ten years ago, when the company started making some money, they had decided that they needed a legitimate address. It had to be close enough to the city center to impress clients; a respectable address always suggested success, Robert had told her. After all, perception was everything. They’d eventually taken a single room on the first floor of a Federal-style row house on Beacon Hill, less than a mile from the State House. When a second room had become available, they’d taken that. Now R&K Productions occupied a suite of four ground-floor rooms, an outer office, a large conference room, a tiny kitchen, and a bathroom. Kathy had always thought it was an outrageously extravagant expense; Robert claimed it was good for business. And deductible, of course.
As she drove through Beacon Hill, she smiled, as she always did in this neighborhood. Why did people pay so much to live in narrow row houses that were hundreds of years old? The same reason Robert wanted to set up the company here. Location. Location. Location. And the homes were charming. When she got to Charles Street, she could see the offices; they were in total darkness. Kathy glanced at the clock on the dashboard. The amber digits said it was six forty-five. She drove around the block. There was no sign of Robert’s car.
She was . . . disappointed.
What had she been expecting? To see Robert’s car outside the office and then the door opening and Robert and his mistress coming out arm in arm? And if she had seen his car outside, what would she have done? Gone in, or skulked outside in the shadows, watching like some shabby detective in a cheap novel?
Kathy made one last drive around the block before heading toward the Charles River back onto Storrow Drive. There was one other destination she had to visit.
She found Stephanie Burroughs’s address easily enough. It was in one of Jamaica Plain’s historical Victorians that had been broken up into condominiums. Holding the printout she’d taken from Robert’s computer in her hand, she peered out, trying to make sense of the numbering.
“Can I help you?” The voice was querulous, suspicious. The tiny figure of a coat-bundled old lady materialized out of the shadows. She glared into the car at Kathy.
“Yes . . . no . . . possibly.” She tried her best smile.
“Well, make your mind up,” the old lady growled.
“I’m supposed to deliver a Christmas present to a Miss”—she deliberately consulted the sheet of paper—“a Miss Burroughs. I think she lives here.”
“Number eight.” The old woman turned and pointed up to the cupola, toward a brightly lit window. A fully-lit miniature Christmas tree twinkled behind the bubbled glass. “Used to be one building, but it got broken up into four units. I’m on the ground floor in number two. Stephanie Burroughs is above me in number eight. Smallest unit but she seems to like it. Did some construction there when she first moved in, but other than that she’s been a model neighbor.” The old woman drew a breath, delighted to have a captive audience. “Now, there’s a married couple in six who are quiet but they have a baby on the way. And don’t get me started what that noise is going to be like. Thankfully, they’re at the back off the building. In number four, there’s a man I don’t particularly care for. He’s a hippie.”
“Oh, so I do have the right address!” Kathy interrupted before the old woman could speak again.
“You do. But you’ve wasted a trip. She’s just gone out.”
Kathy tried her winning smile again. “I don’t suppose you know where she was going?”
Now the old lady looked at her suspiciously. “Why? You make personal deliveries?”
“This is a special delivery. I’m under strict instructions to place it directly into her hands. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“A surprise? Oh, I love surprises. Bet it’s from her boyfriend. She’s always getting flowers delivered.”
“He must be a very thoughtful man,” Kathy said evenly, choking back the panic. “If you do see her, would you mind not saying anything about the surprise? I don’t want to ruin her present.”
“Mum’s the word. I’m the soul of discretion, young woman. The soul of discretion.”
“Thank you so much. Merry Christmas.”
“And a Merry Christmas to you too.”
CHAPTER 11
It was after nine by the time she got back, and everyone—Julia, Brendan, and Theresa—was in a foul mood. Robert hadn’t come home yet.
Julia started putting on her coat the second Kathy turned her key in the lock. “I thought you’d be back an hour ago,” she snapped.
“I went as fast as I could,” Kathy said. She opened her mouth to say more, but closed it quickly again. She knew she had a tendency to talk too much, especially when she was nervous, and she was terrified she was going to blurt out her fears to her sister. “Were the kids all right?”
“They were fine, I suppose, though they insisted on ordering takeout. I don’t believe in fast food, Kathy, you know that. You never know what you’re eating.”
“It’s not fast food, it’s—”
“It’s