Cul-de-sac Page 9

  “I don’t have any. We usually just pick up something already prepared and throw it in the microwave.”

  “Then perhaps I can be of help. Let’s see what you’ve got here.” Mark lines the groceries up on the counter. “You picked some nice things here. Shouldn’t be too hard to pull something together. I assume you have a fry pan and a pot.”

  “Right here.” Heidi quickly opens a nearby cupboard.

  “Okay. What do you think of garlic chicken with honey and rosemary over a bed of steamed rice?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “It isn’t. Come on, I’ll talk you through it.”

  “Seriously?” Heidi asks again.

  “I swear, there’s nothing to it. You’ve got all the ingredients right here. And I see you bought blueberries, so how about we finish the meal off with some blueberry bread pudding? You have some day-old bread?”

  “Is there any other kind?” Heidi asks, grateful when her question elicits another laugh from Mark.

  “Should we get started? And yes,” he adds before she can speak, “seriously.”

  * * *

  —

  The blueberry bread pudding is in the oven and the garlic chicken has been browned and drizzled with honey and lemon juice, waiting to be put in the oven for a final five minutes before being garnished with rosemary and served.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Heidi says for what must be the tenth time in as many minutes. “I can’t believe you have all that information at the top of your head.”

  “Well, there’s not a whole lot else in there,” Mark demurs. “When does your mother-in-law get here?”

  Heidi checks her watch. “She’s picking up my husband from work in about an hour.”

  “Then what do you say we have a little something to help you unwind?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mark opens the palm of his right hand to reveal a fat, hand-rolled cigarette.

  “Seriously?”

  “Just a little something to take the edge off situations such as this,” Mark says.

  Heidi glances nervously toward the front door, then down at her watch, then back to the joint in Mark’s hands. “You’re on,” she says, leading him into the den and plopping down on the small navy sectional.

  He lights up immediately, taking a deep drag and then passing the joint to her.

  Heidi lifts the cigarette to her lips and inhales, feeling the smoke fill her lungs and a welcoming calm almost instantly fill her head. Just what the doctor ordered, she thinks, releasing the smoke slowly into the surrounding air.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” Mark says out loud.

  She smiles and takes another toke before returning the joint to his waiting fingers. “I really can’t thank you enough. You saved my life.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Where’d you learn all that anyway?”

  “TV mostly. The Cooking Channel.” He shrugs. “What can I say? It relaxes me.”

  “Well, you’re gonna make some lucky girl a wonderful husband.”

  “Nah. I’m never getting married.”

  “Sure, you will.”

  “No. My dad’s been married enough times for both of us.”

  “Your dad’s the one with the Tesla?” Heidi asks.

  “The one and only.”

  “Sounds like the two of you don’t get along.”

  “Let’s just say we aren’t each other’s biggest fans.”

  “Well, I think it’s very nice that you visit your grandmother.”

  “She’s the best. And I’m pretty much living here now,” he corrects. “At least for the time being. Till I get my shit together. Which could be a while.”

  “And speaking of shit, this shit is pretty damn amazing.”

  “That it is.”

  They continue passing the joint back and forth in silence until it has all but disappeared.

  “Oh no. Don’t leave us,” Heidi says, feeling what’s left of the tiny butt burn the tips of her fingers.

  “All good things must come to an end,” Mark says.

  Which is when they hear the front door open.

  “Heidi?” a woman’s voice calls out.

  Heidi is immediately on her feet, spinning around aimlessly, like a top on the verge of toppling over. “Shit, shit, shit, shit!”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s my mother-in-law. Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Heidi checks her watch. Aiden doesn’t finish work until seven, and it’s just past six-thirty. What is Lisa doing here?

  “Heidi? Where are you?”

  Heidi swats at the malodorous air, hearing Lisa’s footsteps fast approaching. “I’ll be right there,” she calls out.

  But it’s too late. Lisa, impeccably dressed in white pants and a floral-print Chanel blouse, every dark hair perfectly in place, is already filling the doorway.

  “Good God. What’s that awful smell?” she asks, her gaze shifting from Heidi to Mark. “And who are you?”

  “This is Mark Fisher,” Heidi says. “His grandmother lives next door.”

  “And you’re here because…?”

  Heidi, her newfound resolve struggling with the fog in her brain, manages to quell the urge to respond, “And this is your business because…?” Instead she says, “Mark was kind enough to give me a hand with tonight’s dinner.”

  “Really,” Lisa states. “And is dinner the cause of this cloying odor?”

  “I’m afraid that’s on me,” Mark interjects. “I had a little puff of something before I stopped by, and I guess my clothes still reek.”

  “How lovely,” Lisa says.

  “Is Aiden here?” Heidi asks, trying to see past Lisa’s imposing shoulders.

  “Your husband,” Lisa says pointedly, “is still at work. I just stopped by to see if you wanted me to pick up some wine for dinner.”

  “That’s so thoughtful,” Heidi says, as she’d said when Lisa offered to pick up Aiden from work. You could have just called, she thinks.

  “I should go,” Mark says.

  “Yes, you should,” Lisa tells him. “Really, Heidi,” her mother-in-law says when he is gone, “do you think it’s a good idea to be entertaining young men when your husband isn’t here?”

  Heidi starts to explain, then stops. “White wine would be lovely,” she says instead, refusing to rise to the bait. “We’re having garlic chicken with honey and rosemary over a bed of steamed rice.”

  Silence.

  “You know I don’t eat garlic,” Lisa says finally.

  Did I know that? “You don’t?” Since when?

  “It’s fine. We can order in.”

  “But it’s already made. And there’s not that much garlic. Won’t you at least try it?”

  “And risk having heartburn all night? I don’t think so.”

  “I’m so sorry. I honestly didn’t think…”

  “Clearly. But it’s my fault,” Lisa adds, unconvincingly. “I should have reminded you.”

  “Well, at least there’s a delicious blueberry bread pudding for dessert,” Heidi offers, feeling the threat of tears building behind her eyes. “No garlic in that.”

  “No garlic, but hardly worth all the calories! I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.”

  Heidi turns away as the tears become a reality. Only after she feels Lisa leave the room and hears the front door open and close does she collapse on the sofa and let them fall.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sean Grant stands at the living room window, staring out at the street. It’s almost eleven o’clock and Olivia is already in bed. A large quarter moon sits high and yellow in the sky. Clear, focused, ineffably beautiful. As if it’s been photoshopped, he thinks. Pi
cture perfect.

  Unlike everything else in his life.

  He does a quick scan of the neighboring houses. It’s so quiet now. Not that it’s ever all that noisy, which is interesting when you count the number of children who live in the small enclave: the two Wilson boys, the two McKay kids, his own three. And now Julia Fisher’s grandson, who seems to have taken up permanent residence, although technically he’d qualify as a young adult.

  The kid strikes Sean as a troublemaker. What was he doing earlier with that sexy little number from across the street? Sean had been here at the window and he’d witnessed their introductions, then watched the boy take the bags of groceries she was holding and carry them into her house. He’d waited to see him come out again, but after an hour, the kid still hadn’t emerged. And then Olivia came home from work, full of questions about his latest round of interviews, and Sean had been forced to abandon his watch.

  The kid is definitely playing with fire, Sean decides now, watching hordes of mindless insects buzzing around the lights of the streetlamps. Not the smartest thing in the world to mess around with the wife of an army vet. If the boy isn’t careful, he’s liable to get himself shot.

  A white Lexus is parked in the Youngs’ driveway, which means that Lisa—he’s pretty sure that’s the woman’s name—is visiting. Again. She’s there so often, she might as well move in. Nice that she gets on so well with her daughter-in-law, Sean thinks, wandering into the kitchen and removing the bottle of vodka from the freezer, pouring himself a glass, and downing it in one long, satisfying sip.

  He needs to forget all about this miserable day, the string of nonexistent interviews with the company’s top honchos he pretended to go on, his subsequent lies to Olivia, making it sound as if the job at Advert-X was all but in the bag.

  Talk about playing with fire! What the hell is he doing?

  He’s been praying for a miracle, that’s what, hoping to have secured another job by now. Or at least a decent prospect. Something tangible. Something real. Anything.

  “Looks like the job at Advert-X fell through,” he could tell his wife then. “But hey, something else has come up….”

  At least the lies have forced him to start taking better care of himself, to start shaving every day, to put on some clean clothes. So that’s something, he tells himself, trying not to picture that ridiculous linen jacket accumulating wrinkles in the trunk of his car, because there’s no way he can risk bringing it inside the house.

  “Here’s to me,” he says, raising his glass in a mock toast. How long does he think he can keep this up? How soon before his lies catch up to him, before Olivia gets wise to his deceit?

  What will she do then? Cry? Definitely. Hurl well-deserved obscenities at him? Probably. Pack up the kids and leave? What the hell would he do then?

  He pictures the look of disbelief on her pretty face, watching it morph into anger, and then worse—oh, so much worse—into pity.

  I’d rather be dead than see that look, he thinks.

  The thought triggers spasms of alarm throughout his body. Although, if he’s being honest, Sean has to admit this isn’t the first time such thoughts have popped into his head. What good is he after all? What purpose is he serving, now that it doesn’t look as if he’ll be “bringing home the bacon” anytime soon? Olivia certainly doesn’t need him. She’s proven that. He can no longer provide for her. And his kids don’t need him, other than to pick them up from school. Hell, the insurance money they’d collect from his death would be more than enough to pay for a chauffeur.

  Does his insurance policy cover death by suicide? he wonders, warming to the idea of his death as he downs another glass of vodka. If it doesn’t, he’d just have to figure out a way to make said suicide look like an accident. He returns the bottle to the freezer before the urge hits to have another. The bottle is edging close to empty. I notice we’re running low on vodka, he can hear Olivia say, and he laughs, although the laugh is joyless, a hollow bark that scratches at the air like the claws of a cat.

  He grabs his laptop from where it’s charging on the kitchen counter and opens it, typing in ways to commit suicide that don’t look like suicide. Immediately, the screen fills with information and suggestions, some straightforward, others pretty far out there. The more practical include drowning, which wouldn’t be difficult to accomplish, considering that he lives in Florida and the ocean is only minutes away. The fact that he’s an accomplished swimmer means relatively little, given the ocean’s strength and unpredictability. Still, he’s not sure his survival instinct wouldn’t kick in at the last minute. He suspects it’s not that easy to purposely drown.

  There are also snake and spider bites to consider, along with being eaten by an alligator, although none of these strikes Sean as a particularly pleasant way to go. He’s always been terrified of snakes, wouldn’t know a poisonous spider from its harmless relation, and short of throwing himself into the Everglades, he imagines that the chances of being eaten by an alligator are slim to none.

  Poisonous plants are offered as another option. But Sean knows next to nothing about plants in general, and despite the plethora of recipes he finds for concocting lethal soups and salads, he’s come to despise any form of meal preparation in these prolonged months of forced unemployment. Besides, poisoning suggests intense stomach pain, and there’s no guarantee that, before dying, he might not spend endless hours throwing up, a thought even worse than death.

  There are also recipes for making deadly hydrogen sulfide gas by mixing toilet cleaner with pesticide, recipes for cyanide poisoning, and suggestions for concocting a deadly combination of ricin and castor oil, all of which seem needlessly time-consuming and complicated. But wait—there’s a book that makes all this easier to navigate: Suicide for Dummies.

  Perfect, Sean thinks, laughing and closing the laptop. Probably easier to just hire a hit man to murder me, he decides, then laughs again, knowing he has no money to hire a hit man. Maybe his would-be killer would consider a designer jacket instead?

  He’s suddenly reminded of a wild story he read online a few years back. A man, right here in Palm Beach Gardens, was discovered lying dead by the side of PGA Boulevard at around six o’clock one morning, a bullet in his chest. He’d been on his way to meet friends for their regular morning cup of coffee, and when he didn’t show, the police were called and his body was quickly discovered. His wallet was missing, indicating he’d been killed during the commission of a robbery.

  But it eventually came to light that the man had, in fact, committed suicide by fastening a gun to a helium-filled balloon, then shooting himself in the heart, the balloon carrying the weapon off into the sky as the man dropped lifeless to the ground. Apparently, he’d gotten the idea from watching an old episode of CSI: Miami.

  Ingenious, Sean thinks, although it’s unlikely the trick would fool anyone twice. Hell, it hadn’t even fooled them once!

  Besides, he doesn’t own a gun.

  Not that it would be difficult to buy one. He’d have no trouble passing the background check, having no criminal record and no history of mental illness. And this is Florida, after all, where guns are as accessible as gummy bears. He reopens his computer, types in guns, and immediately finds his screen flooded with sites to visit. “Whoa,” he says, his mind unable to absorb so many options.

  Not that he could afford most of the weapons he sees on display. Shit—he’d had no idea how much some of these things cost.

  Although most are considerably cheaper than that stupid jacket he bought, he thinks, and almost laughs.

  “Sean,” Olivia calls from the top of the stairs. “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

  Damn it. He hoped she’d be asleep by now. “Be up in a minute,” he calls back.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just reading up on Advert-X. Be right there.”

  He takes a deep breath and pushes
away from the table, experiencing an overwhelming wave of fatigue as he fishes for a mint in his pocket and pops it into his mouth, hoping to disguise any telltale hint of alcohol on his breath.

  He mounts the stairs, each step feeling as if he’s walking through freshly poured cement, then peeks in on his three children, Zane and Quentin in their beds, side by side, Katie in her four-poster princess bed in the smaller room next to theirs. Still so sweet, so trusting, so innocent. Is he seriously considering saddling them with the stigma, the guilt, of his suicide? Would they grow up to blame themselves, or worse, to hate his memory?

  Maybe it would be better for all concerned if he took them with him.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he whispers, genuinely horrified by the thoughts swirling through his addled brain, hoping it’s the alcohol that’s responsible.

  Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? he hears his father whisper in his ear.

  “The Shadow…” Sean mutters, the word freezing on his lips when he enters his bedroom and sees his wife.

  She’s standing beside the bed, wearing makeup and a pink satin corset trimmed in black lace, the same black lace as her thong. A garter belt holds up a pair of sheer black stockings, her shapely legs disappearing inside a pair of open-toed silver high heels. Thick brown hair falls around her shoulders and a pair of long rhinestone earrings dangle from her ears.

  “What’s this?” he asks, although the answer is obvious.

  “You like?”

  He feels a welcome stirring in his pants. “I do.”

  “I thought that since your interviews today went so well, you deserved a treat.”

  His erection immediately disappears.

  Not that Olivia doesn’t work hard to revive it, doing all the things she knows he likes, the things that always helped before as well as a few new things, things that make him wonder where she picked them up. Is she having an affair? he finds himself thinking, as she continues trying to arouse him. Nothing works. Not her fingers, not her mouth, not her tongue.

  “I don’t think it’s going to happen,” he says finally, pulling away. “Sorry, hon.”