Depressed and exhausted suddenly, he sank down into his chair. Outside, the rain was still beating down relentlessly. The splatter of droplets on the tiny single window above his desk sounded like a hail of bullets.
What’s happened to my life? Jeff thought miserably. I feel like I’m under attack.
Switching on his computer, he slipped the disk inside.
Within ten minutes, he’d watched the footage five times. Then he read Rebecca’s letter.
He stood up, his feet unsteady beneath him, and opened the office door. He started walking down the corridor. After a few seconds he broke into a jog, then a run. The elevators took forever, so he bounded down the south stairs, two at a time.
“Did you see Rebecca Mortimer?”
The girl at the front desk looked startled.
“Hello, Mr. Stevens. Is everything all right? You look—”
“Rebecca!” Jeff panted. “Did you see her leave the building?”
“Yes. She was saying good-bye to some of the staff in the café, but she just left. I think she was heading toward the tube on . . .”
Jeff was already sprinting out of the double doors.
TRACY WALKED DOWN MARYLEBONE High Street with only a flimsy umbrella to protect her from the torrential rain, but nothing could dampen her spirits. It had been a long day but a wonderful one. She looked around for a cab.
It had been so long since she’d felt this happy, so long since she’d felt happy at all, that she almost didn’t know what to do with herself. There was a part of her that felt guilty about Jeff. Poor Jeff. He’d tried so hard to understand her grief over losing their baby. Tracy could see the effort he was making, but somehow that made everything twenty times worse. None of this was Jeff’s fault.
But it isn’t my fault either. I can’t help who I am. And I can’t stop needing what I need.
Alan understood. Alan got it, got her, in ways that Jeff never could.
Tracy had seen him again today. It had reached the point where simply being in the room with him had the capacity to make her happy, and hopeful for the future. Perhaps that was the key. Hope. Tracy had tried, she really had, but she’d felt so trapped in her married life with Jeff since they got back to London, so hopeless. Forty-five Eaton Square, the home that used to be her sanctuary, had become a prison.
No more.
Tracy was on her way home now to talk to Jeff. She was nervous, but at the same time she wanted to tell him. Needed to tell him, to unburden herself at last. Just the thought of peeling off her wet clothes, climbing into the shower and washing away the pain of the past year filled her with a profound sense of relief.
No more secrets.
It was time for the next chapter to begin.
THE LIGHTS WERE OFF when she got back to the house. Jeff didn’t usually get home till seven or eight and would probably be later tonight since he wasn’t expecting her back. Tracy hadn’t known what time she would leave Alan’s, so had made up a story about dinner with a girlfriend.
That will be the last lie I tell him, she resolved, climbing the stairs. From now on it would be honesty all the way.
She pushed open the door to the master bedroom and froze. For a moment, quite a long moment actually, time stood completely still. Tracy’s eyes were sending one message to her brain, but something—her heart, perhaps—kept intercepting the signal and sending it back. This is what I am seeing, her brain seemed to be telling her, but it cannot be true.
She was so silent and still, barely even breathing, that it took Jeff a few moments to realize she was standing there. When he did, and their eyes finally met, he was standing by the window, locked in a passionate embrace with an utterly oblivious Rebecca Mortimer.
They were both still dressed, but Rebecca’s shirt was half unbuttoned, and Jeff’s hands were on her back as they kissed passionately. When Jeff saw Tracy and tried to pull away, Rebecca grabbed him like a drowning woman clinging to a life raft.
Stupidly, Tracy’s first thought was She has an amazing figure. Rebecca was wearing spray-on jeans that she was clearly itching for Jeff to help her out of. It was as if the whole thing was a scene in an erotic play. Some sort of fiction, from which Tracy could detach herself. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
The real Jeff, my Jeff, would never do that to me.
It was only when Rebecca turned, saw Tracy and screamed that the illusion shattered.
“How could you?” Tracy looked witheringly at Jeff.
“How could I? How could you?”
Straightening his hair, Jeff walked toward his wife looking as aggrieved as it was possible for someone to look with lipstick smeared all over his face and neck.
“You started it!”
“I-I . . . what?” Tracy stammered. “You’re in our bedroom with another woman!”
“Only because you’ve been having an affair with your fertility doctor!”
Tracy looked at him first with bafflement, then with disgust.
“Don’t try to deny it!” Jeff shouted at her.
“You make me sick,” said Tracy. As if seducing his intern wasn’t bad enough, now Jeff was trying to turn this around onto her? “How long has this been going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Tracy laughed, a loud, brittle, ugly laugh with no joy in it. This can’t be happening. She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at Rebecca. But out of the corner of her eye she could have sworn she saw a distinct gleam of triumph in the younger woman’s eyes. Wrapping her anger around her like a cloak, Tracy turned on her heel and fled.
“Tracy! Wait!”
Pulling on a pair of shoes, Jeff ran after her. He heard the front door slam as he raced downstairs and chased her out into the street. It was still raining, and the pavement felt slippery and slick beneath his bare feet.
“For God’s sake, Tracy!” He grabbed her arm. Tracy struggled but couldn’t break his grip. “Why can’t you admit it? I know I was wrong to kiss Rebecca—”
“Kiss her? You were about to do a lot more than kiss her, Jeff! You were in our bedroom, all over that girl like a rash! If I hadn’t walked in . . .”
“What? If you hadn’t walked in, what? I’d have slept with her? Like you did with Dr. Alan McBride?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re a liar!” There were tears in Jeff’s eyes. “I saw the footage, Tracy. Saw it with my own eyes.”
“What footage? What are you talking about?”
“YOU, coming out of the Berkeley Hotel with that man. That bastard! The two of you, kissing in the street at two in the morning. The same day you claimed to be in Yorkshire. You lied to me. And then you have the gall to accuse me of having an affair!”
Tracy closed her eyes. She felt as if she were going mad. But then she remembered that this was Jeff’s signature, the way he always used to work, back in the old days. Baffling and bamboozling his victims till they couldn’t tell up from down or right from wrong.
I’m no victim, Tracy thought. I’m not one of your dumb “marks.” This is about you, not me. You and that damn girl.
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” she said. “But the only man I’ve slept with in the last four years is you, Jeff.”
“That’s a lie, Tracy, and you know it. You and McBride . . .”
Tracy lost her temper. “Don’t say his name! Don’t you dare. Alan’s a decent man. An honest man. Unlike you. Go back to your girlfriend, Jeff.”
With a sharp tug, she pulled her arm free and ran.
HOURS PASSED AND THE rain kept falling. Tracy had no idea where she was going, or why. Soon it was completely dark. Eventually she found herself on Gunther Hartog’s street, staring up at his splendid, redbrick house. Just around the corner from his Mount Street antiques shop, Gunther Hartog’s Mayfair home was one of Tracy’s safe places, her happy places. She and Jeff had spent many long, drunken, convivial evenings there, discussing jobs they’d done or planning new capers.
Me and Jeff.
The ground-floor lights were all on. Gunther would be in his study, no doubt, reading books on politics and art late into the night. Jeff used to call him the best-educated crook in London.
Jeff. Damn old Jeff. He’s everywhere.
For the first time all evening, Tracy gave way to tears. The image of Jeff with that awful girl in his arms would never leave her. They were in our bedroom. He was about to make love to her, I know he was. For all I know he’s done it hundreds of times before. Her natural instinct was to want to claw Rebecca’s eyes out, but she checked herself. I refuse to be one of those women who blame the other woman. Why should a young girl like that respect Jeff’s wedding vows if he doesn’t? No, Jeff’s the bad guy here. He’s the liar.