Upon A Pale Horse

TWENTY Suspicions

“Europe! Take me with you!” said Monica, as she pushed her Chinese dinner around her plate at Jeffrey’s dining room table.

“I wish I could. It’s not like that. It’s a conference. I’m going to be in meetings all day, and knowing how these go, probably side meetings after. It’s work, not pleasure, unfortunately.”

“That’s what they all say,” she pouted.

“Except this time it’s true. With what happened in Cyprus, the rules are changing really fast, and I need to be up on what the current thinking is. It’s what I do. My job. Besides which, I’m just getting on a plane, landing and going to the meeting, spending the night, and then flying back after the conference on Friday night. It’s actually sort of hellish.”

“Put that way, it doesn’t sound like that much fun,” Monica conceded. “Hey, maybe you can get me some chocolate while you’re there!”

“One order of Swiss chocolate, coming up,” Jeffrey assured her in his most serious tone.

“Do you have to do many of these?”

“No. Thank God. There’s nothing more boring than a symposium with five hundred other attorneys. Usually I’d figure out how to weasel out of it and send someone else, but this is kind of the Super Bowl of Euro Zone structuring, so it’s best that I go. Anyway, it’s a done deal, and it’s only for two days, so I’ll be back before you know it.”

“What am I going to do to keep myself occupied when you’re gone? I’ve gotten used to having you as my boy toy…”

“Hold that thought,” he said, moving his plate aside and standing.

She gave him a flirtatious look. “Our food will get cold.”

“That’s why man invented microwaves. Or at least one of the reasons, I’m pretty sure.”

Jeffrey lay staring at the ceiling as Monica nuzzled his chest, basking in the lingering afterglow of passion, their lovemaking as enthusiastic as always. His heart was torn at not being able to confide in her, but he didn’t want to endanger her in any way — and he kept revisiting Becky’s death, perhaps an accident, but more likely not. As much as he would have liked to share his internal drama, he wouldn’t put Monica in harm’s way. It was better that she knew nothing.

He disengaged and went out into the front room, then got online and checked his email, hoping to see something from the brokerage firm or the banks he’d contacted after receiving Keith’s death certificate. He had no idea what he was going to discover when he opened the Swiss box, but having a boatload of ready cash wouldn’t be a bad idea, and his brother’s accounts were just sitting there, engorged with dollars. Only the usual work-related messages had come in, though, and he put off reading them until he was on the clock and could bill for his time. It was company policy to bill for every second spent on a client’s behalf, and Jeffrey could see the wisdom in that — otherwise half the day could be eaten up with uncompensated queries that would “just take a second” from clients who didn’t comprehend how attorneys earned their keep.

A part of him itched to go on the web and do some research, but he knew better, and had resigned himself to behaving as though every move was being tracked. Which had made his private life difficult, to say the least. Now that he suspected that the condo was compromised, he’d had issues with making love, knowing that someone might be listening in, but it would have seemed strange if he’d suddenly lost interest, and truthfully one look at Monica generally solved that problem. Any reticence he attributed to thoughts about his brother, and she’d seemed sympathetic. It had to be a little weird living in your dead brother’s condo, after all.

He pushed the thought from his mind and instead focused on his errands for tomorrow — to stop in at the office supply store and research the best way to get to Virginia without a tail, and to see what else he could glean about the cattle mutilations. He wished he could spend his evenings out somewhere he could get online, but it was foolhardy, and it would have seemed odd if he’d suddenly become uninterested in spending his free time with Monica. For all he knew, that was what had tipped them off about Keith. Again, he couldn’t take the chance, so he had to keep to his normal habits, seeming dumb and happy.

There was only one niggling problem, and it had come to him as he’d grown increasingly paranoid since his discovery. Monica. His good fortune with the woman of his dreams had begun at the same time his career had taken off. And she had cinched the deal on him moving to Washington. But how much did he really know about her, other than what she’d told him? He hated the feeling of suspicion that had colored his feelings, but Keith’s revelation had changed everything, and he was now no longer unquestioning.

Which brought him to his next agenda item, which he felt rotten about. He needed to know whether Monica was what she seemed.

He’d agonized over it for the last few days, and the only plan he’d been able to come up with had been to hire a private investigator to verify her story. But that was harder than it sounded, given the constraints. It wasn’t like he could just call one on his cell or office phone. Even something as simple as that required planning and subterfuge, and he’d mapped out his lunch time and the few evenings of the week that Monica wasn’t with him to deal with hiring a PI and making his way to Virginia.

“Honey? Are you coming to bed?” Monica called sleepily from the bedroom, and a pang of guilt stabbed through his heart at the sound of her voice. How low had he sunk to suspect everyone around him — even a woman he was crazy about?

“Yeah. Be there in a second.”

He closed his mental list of pseudo-errands and shook his head. It would be a long week. Tomorrow would be the first day he “forgot” his phone at home for the day, continuing to establish the pattern of absent-mindedness he was cultivating for his watchers. Part of him felt like he was going slowly mad, seeing ghosts everywhere, but the rational part of his mind told him that he was being prudent in light of the evidence.

Whatever the case, he felt like a complete shit sneaking around behind Monica’s back and going so far as to hire someone to spy on her.

But there was no other way.

And he had to know.