The Perfect Marriage(24)
A man quickly approached, placing his hand on James’s shoulder. It took a moment before Haley realized that it was Reid Warwick. He wasn’t wearing a tie, but his wolfish grin suggested that money was on his mind.
James had always said that Reid was fun to have a drink with, but he’d never do business with him because he didn’t trust him. Then again, he’d also told her that he’d love her until death parted them, forsaking all others, so James was hardly the gold standard of reliability. Still, she couldn’t help but connect Reid’s phone call from the other night—the deal he said was going to net him “a few mill”—with his sudden presence at James’s place of business this morning.
So that’s the call that made you smile, huh?
Quickly, another thought hit her: What if they’re planning something criminal? And what if she could find evidence that led to James being locked up?
That was another fantasy of hers. Most often, she imagined killing James. Sometimes it was an elaborate, Rube Goldberg kind of torture device. Or she played the part of Goldfinger, with James strapped to a table and a laser slowly moving up between his legs while he begged for his life.
“Do you want me to say I love you, Haley? That I love you more than Jessica?” he’d scream out.
“No, James,” she’d respond. “I want you to die.”
But other times the fantasy was far simpler. Just a gun, a short speech about how she was evening the score, and then James’s shocked expression. She even had one that involved sex, like in that Sharon Stone movie when she plunged an ice pick into a man’s back as he climaxed.
But putting James behind bars was the best. In that fantasy, she’d come to visit him in the pen. He’d be expecting Jessica when the guards shouted, “Sommers! Visitor!” But as he approached the glass divider separating inmates from their visitors, he’d see her face behind the glass partition.
“Surprised?” she’d say on her end of the phone.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” he’d respond.
“I came to see how prison’s treating you. I figured it was the least I could do, seeing that you’re in here because of me.”
Then she’d stand and, like a badass, turn her back on him, and walk away. She wouldn’t look back while he screamed silently from behind the partition.
During the divorce, she’d told her lawyer to look into tax issues or anything else that might put James in criminal jeopardy. “That’s not in your interest, Haley,” David had told her. “In fact, it’s the last thing you want. James will spend all of your joint assets on lawyers. Or he’ll settle by paying the IRS money that otherwise would be marital property.”
She didn’t care. At the time, she hadn’t needed James’s money; she only wanted him to suffer. In the end, her lawyer and his battery of forensic accountants never found anything shady about James’s business dealings.
Dr. Rubenstein knew about her stalking . . . kind of. After a few months of therapy, Haley mentioned that she sometimes sat at the bar at Sant Ambroeus in the hope of catching a glimpse of James but was quick to add that she also liked their coffee, and besides, she and James often had gone to that restaurant when they were married, so it had sentimental appeal for her too.
“Tell me what it feels like before, during, and after,” Dr. Rubenstein had asked.
“When I know I’m going to do it, it’s something I’m looking forward to, and there isn’t much of that in my life nowadays. But I’m also afraid he’ll see me. When he appears, it’s like this huge wave comes over me. Almost as if I feel invincible or something, because I can see him, but he can’t see me. And then, when he walks away, I feel stupid for being there. I vow that I won’t do it again, but that never holds. Within a day or two, I’m there again.”
“Does that remind you of anything else you do?”
“What?”
“The sequence you just described. Does it fit any other activity you engage in?”
She thought for a moment. “No, not really.”
“It’s actually not such an uncommon pattern. It is the progression that often is described by people suffering from addiction, be it drugs or alcohol or something else. They all share a commonality regarding the anticipation, combined with the fear of getting caught, the thrill of the act in the moment, followed by guilt, then a powerful need for more. Which, of course, is what makes it such a vicious cycle.”
It had now been nearly two years since James had left her, and her hope that time would heal the wound was becoming more tenuous every day. She had experienced some obsessive behavior in the past over failed relationships, sometimes lasting long enough that her friends expressed concern, but it had always eventually passed. By now, she knew the fallout from her divorce was not going in that direction. If anything, things were getting worse. Her need to crash the anniversary party was prime evidence of that.
As was the fact that, as she left Sant Ambroeus that morning, she was already planning her return later that evening. She wanted—no, needed—to know what Reid and James were doing together.
“Tell me about this guy,” Reid said.
Reid sometimes got this feeling. It wasn’t quite a tingling of the hairs on the back of his neck, but it was a sixth sense of sorts that something wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure he was experiencing that feeling now, but he might be. Maybe it had nothing to do with the deal. Maybe it was a sign he had chosen the wrong business partner.