Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(66)

Wyatt perked up. He could see where this was going now. “Interesting.”

“This morning,” Tessa continued, “I requested the transcript from Libby’s phone. And get this: She received a text in the beginning of June, telling her she needed to keep a better eye on her husband. Then, two days later, asking her if she knew what he was doing during lunch. Then, a third text, the day after that, telling her to check his phone messages. Now get this: The texts to Libby’s phone come from a prepaid cell, no caller ID available.”

“Covering his tracks,” Wyatt mused.

Tessa smiled again. And her blue eyes were definitely brighter, and her face animated, and call him crazy, but he found himself holding his breath.

“Funny that you should say his tracks, because my first thought was her tracks. And the only woman I could think of who’d be in the know is the other woman, Kathryn Chapman. So I asked one of the research analysts at Northledge to run a full background. And guess what? You were right. I think it was his tracks. According to my brilliant research analyst, Kathryn Chapman’s uncle is none other than Justin’s second in command, Chris Lopez.”





Chapter 24


THE FIRST TIME I MET JUSTIN I was working at a friend’s clothing boutique. I helped with customers on the weekend, while tending to my fledgling jewelry business on the side. In return, my friend paid me next to nothing but agreed to display some of my pieces.

I heard the jangle of the front door opening, looked up from a rack of scarves I was rearranging and Justin walked in.

I can tell you everything about those first fifteen minutes of our relationship. I remember his brown hair, longer then, darker, the way it fell to the side of his forehead almost boyishly. I remember the size of him, the sheer physical presence of his broad shoulders, the way he seemed to literally block the sun. He wore blue jeans, but not the designer kind. Real honest-to-God, broken-in, clinging-to-his-long-legs jeans, as well as an olive green L.L. Bean barn coat and scuffed-up work boots.

Then, his smile. Quick, instantaneous. He looked at me, he broke into a huge grin and he declared, “Thank heavens, I’m saved!”

And just like that, I was lost.

I wanted to run my fingers through that hair. I wanted to feel the hard wall of his chest. I wanted the scent of him in my nostrils. I wanted to hear the rumble of that deep voice in my ear, over and over again.

He had needed a present that day, for a female friend. I, of course, sold him one of my original necklaces.

With my phone number on the tag.

Which led to our first date, where I can tell you exactly how his face looked, a little more sheepish now, almost shy as he offered up a single yellow rose, then held out his hand to boost me into his old Range Rover. Please excuse the mud, the scattering of pencil bits and, oh yeah, the rolls of building plans. He was in the construction business, he said, hazards of the trade.

I remember the look in his eyes the first time we made love, not that evening, though I would’ve. Not until date number four, and his blue eyes were so intent, so focused on my face, every sigh coming out of my mouth, every undulating move of my body, I felt as if he were trying to memorize me. This is Libby. This is what Libby likes.

Later, he confessed that he’d been nervous, and that made me laugh so hard he swore he’d never tell me a secret again.

Except he did. He told me he loved me before I ever confessed that I loved him. He told me I’d be his wife one day, before I knew it myself.

Then, that Thursday night, when he returned home from a particularly long and grueling business trip, and I greeted him with a bouquet of pink and blue balloons and the news I was pregnant, the total sea change of expressions across his face. From weary exhaustion to squinty-eyed confusion to slow-dawning joy. Followed by complete and utter adoration. He dropped his bag. He swooped me up, and the balloons broke free, escaping out the open door as we laughed, then cried, and I can taste to this day the salt on his cheeks.

The memories of a marriage. The faces of my husband. So many moments, when I saw him so clearly. So many moments, when I know he saw me.

Is that what you lose over time? Not so much a loss of affection, as a slow clouding of your own sight? We became less and less focal points for each other, and more like pieces of furniture to maneuver around in the course of everyday life. I know there were times in the past few months when I sat across from my husband, as high as a kite, and willed him to look at me. Then, when he continued to calmly shovel dinner into his mouth, I poured myself another glass of wine in order to fill the void.

It’s hard to realize you’re invisible in your own life. But maybe the blindness was mutual. Because if not for three texts sent to my cell phone, I never would’ve guessed Justin was having an affair. Meaning that somewhere along the lines, my own husband had also become unnoticed by me.

But I was seeing him now.

I traced the swelling of his right eye. The five lacerations on his cheek. The lower lip that still welled with a single drop of blood. The ugly evidence of more bruises around his neck and shoulders.

His brown hair, silvered now with age, felt damp, as if the pain of the beating had made him sweat. And he smelled rank and terrible, or maybe that was me.

The dehumanization process, meant to break us, to turn us into animals.

But I wasn’t going to let it. I refused to let our kidnappers win.

I was looking at my husband. I was seeing him again, a good man who’d taken a beating to protect his wife and daughter. A brave man, who had to be in agonizing pain, but didn’t utter a single complaint as Ashlyn and I slowly roused him to standing, then eased him into the lower bunk.