A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(44)

He tipped his head in concession. "I guess it couldn't hurt. We don't want a repeat of last weekend."

After Lance left, Gwen went to her desk and pulled her laptop out of her briefcase. She and Art had an agreement. They would discuss any purchases over two hundred dollars before making them. But right now she rebelled at the thought of asking him for money. She would make more on this one deal than Art made in a year. She wasn't a child.

If Gwen had learned one thing from watching her mother's life, it was that she needed to be able to take care of herself, retain some measure of autonomy. Her mom had once been a beautiful, intelligent woman. She could have done anything she chose with her life, and she chose to be a wife and a mother. She excelled at it. No one could out bake her at church bake sales. She was the class mom, Brownie leader, and in charge of fundraising for Gwen's soccer team.

She made all the costumes for the school plays and designed picture perfect holidays. Their home could have graced the pages of Red Book, or Better Homes and Gardens. The birthday parties she threw were the envy of the neighborhood.

When Gwen's father left, her mother had to sell the house she loved and move into a small, sterile apartment. Gwen's father did his duty by her, as he’d promised. She received an alimony check each month that covered her basic expenses and occasionally a little extra.

She tried to find work for a while, but no one was interested in hiring a forty-year-old woman who hadn't held a job since she was twenty-two. There were no sections on applications for killer banana bread recipes, or elaborate Juliet costumes. Gin became her comfort and then her executioner.

One day in Gwen's senior year of high school, she came home and found her mother passed out on the couch. After that, Gwen watched as she disappeared into the bottle's black hole a piece at a time. She died ten years later of a stroke.

Gwen opened her computer and logged into her bank page. She scrolled until she found the savings account she and Art had created for emergencies. In her mind, this qualified.

Last time she looked, there had been about thirty-five hundred dollars in there. The balance at the top of the page now showed only two-thousand-six-hundred, and change. Strange. She was sure there had been over three thousand. She scanned the list of credits and debits. Her eyes stopped on an eight hundred dollar withdrawal. It was made that Monday.

It took several moments for her brain to compute the implications. Art had taken eight hundred dollars out of their account. He hadn't said a word.

She sat still in her chair, staring at the screen. She reached for her phone and began to punch in his number, but instead of hitting call, she hit cancel. She needed to think this through.

If she asked Art about the money, he'd know she was looking at the account. He'd wonder why. She hadn't told him about the dead cat, and she wasn't planning to. Why would she? He'd just get angry with her for putting the house on the market all over again. He'd want her to give the listing to Lance and stay home.

Her cell phone dinged. She opened her text messages. Funny timing. It was Art. "Can you take Friday off? Want to leave early for Big Bear."

Could he have spent the money on this trip? No. Camping didn't cost eight hundred dollars.

Maybe he was going to take her away as a surprise—the camping trip a ruse? He'd done that before. Once he'd told her they were going to his parents for the weekend then spirited her away after they dropped off the kids. Another time he told her to get ready for a picnic on the beach. The beach turned out to be the one in front of their hotel room at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego.

But he'd put a hotel on a credit card. He wouldn't pay cash. Lorelei. The name flitted through her mind. He wouldn't use a credit card if he bought a gift for Lorelei. It would be impossible to hide the purchase of, say, an eight-hundred-dollar necklace from a jewelry store.

Suddenly she didn't want to know where the money went. If it wasn't returned in a month or two, or if any more disappeared from the account, she'd ask him then. She prayed silently her fears were unfounded, that this mystery would have an innocent answer.

She picked up her phone and typed, "Fine." Then she clicked open the bank's transfer form, found the correct savings account number, and transferred five hundred dollars into her personal checking account. Done. If he noticed, he couldn't very well ask her about it. Not without telling her what his withdrawal was for.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


I sat in my car in front of the house on Cliff Drive with my windows rolled down and waited for dark. A strong breeze blew off the ocean, and the palm trees at the end of the block bent toward the hills. The neighborhood was solid and established. I liked the stable, old-money feel of the place. So many Orange County homes are like much of the state's fruit—over-sized and absolutely tasteless.

There was a picture of Gwen on the house flier. She really was a lovely woman. I've always been attracted to redheads. Fiona is a redhead.

I bumped into my sister by accident one day. I knew it was she even though I'd only seen her from a distance. Her photo was in the local society section of the paper when her engagement was announced. She, of course, didn't notice me.

She was coming out of a department store in Fashion Island loaded down with bags—probably shopping for her upcoming nuptials. The date was drawing close. I had the reaction most people have when they see a celebrity. I stopped and stared, then doubted my eyes. It was difficult to believe we were occupying the same few feet of space. We lived in such different worlds.