Wish You Were Gone(30)
This is James Walsh. The sound of his voice stole her breath right out of her. Sorry to have missed your call.
As the beep sounded, Emma’s heart slammed. She hung up the phone, but then instantly wanted to hear him again. She redialed and gritted her teeth.
The phone rang once, then, a click.
“Hello?”
It was a woman on the other end.
* * *
EMMA PACED HER room, her cell phone slick with sweat from her palms. She’d hung up instantly, on instinct. But why? That was her husband’s phone. Who was that woman? Why the hell did she have James’s phone?
She braced herself and called back. This time, it didn’t even ring.
This is James Walsh. Sorry to have missed your call…
“Shit,” Emma whispered into the darkness. She shoved a hand into her hair.
Was James having an affair? Before she could even complete the thought, she knew the answer. Of course he was. Why else would some random woman have his phone? She flipped her own phone over and checked her text history again. The last time James had texted her that day was at 4:30 p.m., sending her the name and address of the restaurant. She’d texted him at least twenty times after that missive and not one message had been answered. So at some point after 4:30 p.m. and before he died, some woman had gained possession of his phone.
She must have been with him that night while Emma was sitting alone in the restaurant. They must have been together when she was sending those angry texts. Had he read them in front of this woman? Had they laughed at her? Felt sorry for her? Humiliation burned inside Emma’s chest.
Abruptly, she stopped pacing. If this woman was with James that evening, she could have also been with him that night. This could explain everything. The mystery woman could have been the person James was talking to in the driveway. The person who had wanted the top down. The one he’d taken off his tie for, gotten out of the car for. Maybe they had both gotten out to chat or argue or come into the house. Maybe he was going to introduce his wife to his mistress and see what happened. Maybe he intended to give Emma the divorce papers and tell her he was running off with Phone Girl. Or, perhaps, they had simply parked and started making out in the driveway and James’s tie had come off and been tossed in the bushes…
Bile rose in Emma’s throat and she dove for the bathroom, bending over the toilet, but nothing came all the way up. She guzzled water and dragged the back of her hand across her lips, staring at her wide, wild eyes in the mirror.
He was having an affair. The rat bastard was cheating on me. No wonder he wanted a divorce.
Maybe he and his girlfriend had argued. Maybe they’d gotten out of the car to have it out and this woman had murdered her husband somehow, then staged the accident to cover it up. Stranger things had happened—on TV at least. But no. That was ridiculous. People didn’t do that sort of thing off the cuff. It took planning to cover up a murder. It took brains. Emma could tell just from the woman’s hello that she wasn’t an astrophysicist.
But something had happened that night. Emma could feel it. Just like she knew she was never going to rest easy again until she found out what it was. And she had a feeling that this other woman was the key.
GRAY
The morning was dreary, the sky scattering cold spittle on the windshield. Gray drove in silence, Darnell, in the passenger seat, seeming to fill the car with his bulk. Her brain kept veering from its morning ritual of listing all the things she had to accomplish before lunch, distracted by the overwhelming scent of his aftershave, only slightly less potent than the tension between them.
She bypassed the turnoff to the parkway and headed through downtown Oakmont toward the New Jersey Transit station at the top of the hill. She had suggested a car service, even a Lyft, but Darnell had been fixated on taking the train, as if it was his cross to bear for what he’d done.
“I’m sorry,” Darnell said, breaking the silence so suddenly Gray flinched.
“Darnell, you spent the entire weekend apologizing,” Gray reminded him. “It’s okay. I’m certain it’ll all blow over. Charles will make sure it does.”
She’d called the firm’s lead attorney the night before, and he was confident he’d have Darnell’s car and license back within a couple of days and the charges thrown out. No harm, no foul.
“He’d better. The last thing the firm needs right now is more bad PR,” he said, running his large hands over his thighs, the expensive fabric of his suit swishing.
Fucking James, Gray thought, and wondered if Darnell was thinking it, too. Though she did also notice that he wasn’t entirely taking responsibility for the possibility of bad PR, as if this was somehow Charles’s problem to handle. Didn’t he realize that if he hadn’t lost his temper and acted like a certifiable maniac, there wouldn’t be anything to handle?
“I’ve been in touch with Zoe a few times,” Gray said, attempting to change the subject. “We started talking about details for the memorial.”
Darnell blew out a breath. “Do we really have to jump through that particular hoop?”
“You know we do. How is it going to look to the rest of the industry—to your clients—if you just ignore it?”
Darnell muttered something under his breath. The only word Gray could make out was Judas.
She turned into the parking lot. Up on the platform, a couple dozen commuters scrolled on their phones beneath the meager shelter of a tin roof. One man stood stalwartly in the rain, staring up the tracks, as if his concentration could make the train come faster. Gray sighed at the dreariness of it all. Thank God she’d taken the leap and moved her offices out of the city before the boys were in middle school. She had detested commuting in all its forms.