Killer Move

I stopped before I stepped out onto the sand. There was still no reply to any of my earlier SMS messages to Steph. I decided to call her instead. I got transferred to voice mail, however. I didn’t know what message to leave, so I ended the call. It was almost three o’clock. That was a long meeting. A very long time for the two of us to be completely out of contact, too. I thought about it, and then selected Steph’s office number.

Her assistant, Jake, answered.

“Oh, Billiam,” he sang. “How wonderful. And how are you on this so beautiful day?”

“Peachy,” I said, knowing Jake wasn’t on drugs or anything but just always talked this way. “I wanted to check what time Steph’s meeting ends.”

“Meeting? Oh, the biggie with Maxwinn Saunders.”

“Right,” I said. “She going to be done soon? Seems kind of an epic.”

“Done? Honey, that was dusted hours ago.”

“It was?”

“Lord, yes. They rolled out of there at eleven thirty. Happy smiling faces all around.”

“And then?”

“And then what, my love?”

“Where did she go? Stephanie. Is she in another meeting now?”

“Oh, no. Not one I know about anyway. She left the office straight afterward, and . . . da-da-da . . . let me check . . . nope, Miss Stephanie got white space in the diary. Nothing the whole rest of day, lucky thing. You want me to take a message, case she returns?”

“Just tell her I rang, would you?”

“No.”

“What?”

He laughed. “Yes, of course I will, silly. You have a gorgeous afternoon.”

Two text messages sent, and by the sound of it I’d sent the second one after the meeting had finished. No response. She wasn’t picking up her phone, either—at least not to me. I wasn’t liking the look of this.

Steph and I love each other. A lot. She is, if I’m honest, the only person whose company I genuinely prefer to being on my own. In addition to this, we’re on the same team and facing in the same direction. She even started working at the magazine in the first place because she knew it would get us access to an upper circle of locals—the art and gallery crowd, and those with the money to be their patrons—who it would have been hard to tap into otherwise. We send the occasional shot across each other’s bows if someone’s getting excessively cranky, but there’s never been anything anywhere near as blunt as ignoring the other’s attempts to communicate for half a day. It was like having half of my mind lopped off. I hadn’t worked out how I was going to spin Warner’s role in the photographs, but I had a strong sense it would be a good idea to get Steph and me around the same table as soon as possible.

I called her cell again. This time I left a message, cheery, saying I’d gotten to the bottom of something and would like a chat at her earliest convenience. I should have asked Jake if Sukey, Steph’s key ally on the magazine, was out of the office, too. If so, I could have sold myself on the idea that they were off somewhere sinking glasses of celebratory Pinot, having successfully achieved . . . whatever the damned meeting had been about.

I couldn’t face talking to him again, though, not least because I knew it would look weird that I couldn’t geolocate my own wife.

I called the house instead. It rang several times, and I was about to give up when I heard it pick up.

“Oh, hon, there you are,” I said, trying to sound confident and upbeat instead of just terribly relieved. “You’re a hard lady to pin down today. Didn’t you get my text messages?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” I said. “I know, I know. Last night was weird. But I promise I was telling the truth. And more stuff’s happened today. I think I’ve worked out what’s going on.”

She still said nothing, though I could hear her breathing. “Come on, Steph,” I said, now merely trying not to sound like I was pleading. “Let’s talk about this properly, ’kay? I’ll come home. Or we could meet. Get a coffee or something, grab a beer. Sounds like your meeting went well, right? Let’s celebrate.”

Silence. I fought the urge to fill the gap with more words, knowing that I needed her to speak next, to commit to dealing with me, to reopening lines of communication that I hadn’t realized had become so fragile. But after what must have been a full thirty seconds, I couldn’t keep it up. “Steph? Come on, honey. Talk to me.”

There was silence for another few seconds, and then a female voice said a single word, very clearly.

“Modified.”

The voice was not my wife’s. There was a soft laugh, and then I heard the phone being put down.

PART II

PRESENT TENSE

There are heroes in evil as well as in good.

—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Réflexions

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It’s the afternoons that drag.