Infidelity Inlet: A Liars Island Suspense Page 3

  “I promise, you won’t get any of that from me,” he said as he shook his head. “I’d be the last person to pass judgment on anyone.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, really. Catherine and I have definitely had our fair share of infidelity issues.”

  “You or her? If that question is too personal, just ignore it.”

  “No, it’s not too personal. I mean, you’re here opening up to me and trusting me with your secrets. The least I could do is the same.” He seemed deep in thought for a moment. Finally, he slid my phone back across the desk and looked up at me. “It was me at first. Back then, part of me believed that my problem was I wasn’t ready for marriage, but I don’t know. I got around a lot before I met Catherine, and I slept with other women when we were dating, and even while we were engaged.”

  He cleared his throat like he was a little embarrassed, then turned to his computer screen and started typing while he continued to talk. “But I truly believed that once we were married, things would be different, that I would be faithful. That somehow, magically, my wandering eye would stop wandering, and I would stop getting turned on by the girls who walked by in their short skirts and bare legs. There was actually even a time I got mad at them for distracting me so much.”

  As I watched Dave type and click his mouse, I thought about how different we were. I would never in a million years have considered cheating on Annette before we were married, or even afterward. It wasn’t until she started withholding even the slightest bit of affection from me that things changed.

  “The funny thing is,” he said absentmindedly as he read something on the screen, “the one person I never blamed before Catherine caught on was me.”

  “But eventually she did?”

  “Yeah, she did.”

  “How?” I asked.

  He shrugged, still staring at his computer screen while he typed some more and clicked his mouse a couple of times. “I don’t know. A receipt maybe? I don’t remember, to be honest. I wasn’t very careful at all back then. But it’s not that I didn’t care about her.” Dave stopped typing and looked up at me. “You know the crazy thing? I didn’t actually think I was doing anything wrong. Like I said, I didn’t blame myself at all in that first year. I blamed the women around me, like it was their fault for being attractive. I don’t even know where I got that idea. It’s so fucking crazy the stories we make up so we don’t have to actually look at ourselves.”

  “Yeah,” I said, cringing at how much his story was starting to sound like mine. I definitely blamed Annette for our dead bedroom situation, and I was constantly finding myself distracted by attractive girls. Sometimes it was infuriating how hard it was to stop looking. “So when did you change the way you saw things?”

  He laughed. “You mean, when did I stop being a complete jackass? Well, like I said, Catherine found out, and she talked to me about it. There was a very serious conversation where she basically told me if I didn’t stop she would leave me.” Dave turned back to the screen, then froze for a moment. “Actually that’s not what happened first. Initially, she said she would stop having sex with me if I didn’t give up the other women. I told her I would, but I didn’t. But the thing was,” he said, looking back at me again, “I just used that to justify continuing to cheat on her. I figured if she wouldn’t have sex with me, it was my right to find it somewhere else. So even then, I didn’t see how I could be the problem.”

  Dave’s story was starting to become achingly familiar, and I didn’t like it one bit, but I wanted to find out how they got past everything. “Well, obviously she never left you. You guys are still together. What made you stop?”

  He glanced over at me and gave me a half smile. “I didn’t. She started cheating on me. And in our own bed. That’s how I found out. I came home and she and some greasy construction worker were going at it like a couple of rabid dogs. I walked into the house and heard the moaning and the grunting and I knew exactly what was going on. So I walked up the stairs, down the hall, and stood right in the doorway until they were done. I didn’t even walk lightly or try to hide the fact that I was there. They were so loud, the neighbors down the street could probably hear them.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, it was quite a display.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, what I wanted to do was kill them both, but I knew that was a really stupid idea. And the funny thing was, it was in that moment that I realized how fucked up I had been. That if my reaction to seeing my wife fucking another man was so strong that I would entertain the thought of killing them both, I was just as much to blame as she was in that whole mess.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty self-aware of you.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So you worked it out?”

  “Yep. No divorce, no separation, not even much of an argument. We both felt bad about how we had treated each other, and for taking each other for granted. That we had tried to hurt each other, and for no real reason other than we were hurting ourselves. After that night, we vowed to each other that we would talk anytime we were feeling neglected by the other one, or left out, or insignificant. I came to realize that, for me, those were the triggers that made me cheat. Needing validation. Needing to feel special. It sounds pretty lame when I say it out loud, but it’s the truth.”

  I couldn’t believe what Dave was saying. It was like he was telling me about myself, which was partly a relief, but also really annoying because I knew what I had to do. The same thing as Dave. Talk to Annette. Confess what I’d been doing. Actually do something to fix my marriage, instead of slinking off in the night to bed other women. Don’t get me wrong, I had tried. But I’m not really sure I ever tried hard enough.

  “Jackpot!”

  “You got something?” I asked.

  Suddenly, finding the blackmailer took precedence over pouring my guts out to Annette. I knew I would eventually, but this felt much easier for the time being.

  He picked the folded note up off of the desk and scribbled something on one side. “Here he is. Right there on that cozy little island of yours.”

  I picked up the piece of paper and looked at the name and address. “I know this road. It goes around White Lie Lake. I used to have a client out there. It was a really isolated estate in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You gonna head out there and check it out?”

  “I don’t think so. Not right now, anyway. I’m going to talk to my friend first.”

  “The friend in the video?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I want to see if she knows who this is. It might be a jealous ex or something.”

  “Or a jealous not ex.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dave shrugged. “How do you know she’s not with someone else, just like you?”

  Chapter 4

  Casey

  “Who’s the sweetest little girl in the world?”

  “Me!”

  “That’s right!” I yelled, picking two-year-old Grace up by the waist and lifting her higher in the air until she squealed. “And who’s the happiest little girl in the world?”

  “Me!” she yelled again with another squeal.

  “Right again! You’re also the smartest little girl in the world, too!”

  I set her down on the grass and she rolled onto her back, signaling to me that it was time to be tickled. I’d been taking care of her every weekday for the last few months, so I knew her like the back of my hand. When she whined, she was usually tired. When she cried, she was usually hungry. And when she gave me the silent treatment that usually meant she wanted one of her special friends, so I would go through each of her stuffed animals and dolls to figure out which one brought a smile to her face.

  Stacy knelt down on the grass next to us. She had the afternoon off, which happened every once in a while. She had been working as a private assistant to a music producer for a few years. Some days, she was up at the crack of dawn buying him his meticulously ordered breakf
ast and coffee, or she was off doing his grocery shopping. But there were other days she worked with him in his home studio until well past midnight. The hours were pretty predictable, but she made a lot of money, and a boat-load of industry connections, so she said it was worth it.

  I would never admit it to her, but I was pretty jealous of my sister. She always seemed to have everything so much easier than I did. She was five years older, so all while we were growing up, our parents always put her in charge when they left us alone, and she always had to have things her way. And now that we were both adults, she had her dream job and was always networking to get her own music career off the ground, while I felt like I was still floundering.

  Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching Grace. Fixing her breakfast and lunch, bringing her to the park, and putting her down for afternoon nap were some of my favorites things to do. I just hated that Stacy always seemed to get exactly what she wanted, which was pretty much the opposite for me.

  “You’re also such a pretty little girl, Grace,” Stacy said as she ruffled her. “Your mommy and daddy must tell you how beautiful you are all the time.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said, frowning at her.

  Stacy looked surprised. “Why not?”

  I sat back on my heels and looked down at Grace. “You want to go play in the sandbox? Tristan and his mom just got here. He’s over there building something. Why don’t you go see what it is?” I asked.

  Grace sat up quickly and turned around. “Yes! I want to play with Tristan!”

  “Well, go ahead, sweetie. I’ll be right here keeping an eye on you.”

  “Okay!” Grace jumped up and ran over to the sandbox. I watched as she started working on a moat while her friend Tristan continued to stack piles of sand from a bucket into a house or castle of some sort. I glanced over and waved at Tristan’s mom, then turned back to my sister.

  “I just don’t think little girls should be made to feel like their worth is all in their looks.”

  “I didn’t say that at all. I mean, you already said she was smart and sweet. I was adding another compliment. What’s wrong with that?”

  I could tell Stacy was offended, and I hated disagreeing with her. We had always been close, but there is this unspoken rule. I was the youngest, so I always went along with what she said. But lately I had been working on expressing myself more. Speaking out about my opinions and standing up for myself, and that sort of thing. It made me uncomfortable, and I was never able to do it around people I didn’t know very well, but I thought it might be easier with someone I had known my whole life. It was proving to be more challenging than I expected, but I pushed myself.

  “Yeah, I know. I get that. It’s just … once girls get it into their head, that their worth is in their looks, you can’t take it back. I mean, people aren’t always telling boys how handsome they are.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You don’t hear that too often.”

  “And the thing is,” I continued as my attention drifted over to Grace “when you get compliments on your looks, how pretty you are or even how pretty your smile is, you start to expect them. Then, if you don’t get those compliments you start to wonder if you’re not pretty anymore, or your smile stopped being good enough.”

  “Wow, is that really how you feel?” Stacy asked.

  I turned back to her and shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess so.”

  “But why? You’re so pretty, Casey. I don’t understand how you could possibly feel that way?”

  For a moment I felt like screaming. I was baring my soul to my sister and she was making me feel like I was being ridiculous. Like I had no right to my own feelings. This was how it always went. Whenever I expressed my opinion, I was shot down.

  “You know I’ve always been jealous of you,” she said finally. “Everyone I know thinks you’re so mysterious.”

  I laughed. “What? Are you kidding? Who’s everyone?”

  “Everyone. My friends, every guy I’ve ever gone out with. Even Jackson asks me about you.”

  “Your boss? Seriously? I find that hard to believe. Every time I’ve met him, he seems like he’s only thinking about himself and how amazing he is.”

  “Oh, come on, he’s not that bad. It’s just the music industry. Everyone is like that. But, yes, I’m being serious, Casey. I can’t believe you don’t realize how pretty you are, except when you’re doing what you’re doing right now. You’re all hunched over like you’re hiding a bowling ball under your sweater. Why do you do that?”

  I looked down and saw that my arms were crossed in front of my chest and immediately set up straight. I felt like I couldn’t do a single thing right, and that thought made me nauseous. Or maybe it was this whole conversation. When I thought about it, I’d had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach from the moment I woke up. “Sorry, I had no idea … I just …”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Casey. I want you to feel good about yourself, that’s all. I thought you were doing better. You seemed so happy after you got out of—”

  “I am doing better. I feel good, Stacy. Really.”

  “Then what is it? Is it that guy you’ve been seeing? Fred?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. I wasn’t going to talk about him, but then I changed my mind and my shoulders slumped forward again. “I mean, yeah, I guess so.”

  “What happened?”

  My attention wandered over to Grace again. She looked so happy digging in the sandbox and I wished more than anything in that moment that I could be her. Or that I could go back in time and be a little girl again. Before anything bad happened. Before my own mom turned against me and said I was making things up when I told her about what was happening to me late at night, after it was dark and I was alone in my bed. I was so tired of my life. Of being taken for granted and ignored and forgotten. I just wanted everything to go away.

  “Nothing,” I said. “We just … stopped talking, I guess.”

  I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth. That I had spent hours sitting on that filthy floor crying into cheap, industrial, single-ply toilet paper that kept disintegrating in my hands. That I had been lying to her for this last month when I told her we were seeing each other.

  I didn’t want Stacy to know that I’d been ghosted again. And not even days or weeks later. It happened right after he fucked me in the stall. I was so humiliated. He didn’t even have the decency to text me a couple times before disappearing either. He ruined that whole amazing experience we had by turning it into a lie.

  But I didn’t want to tell her any of that. I didn’t want any more sympathy or a pep talks or suggestions of how I should do things differently. I wanted the conversation to end and I wanted to be alone.

  “I knew it. What an asshole. I’m so sorry, Casey. But, you know, he’s just one guy. We’ll find you a good one. Let’s go out tonight, somewhere mellow, and see what happens.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Come on, Casey. Don’t be like that. You’re starting to worry me. Have you been talking to Dr. Zeeland?”

  I stood up abruptly. I just couldn’t deal with my sister anymore. Her penetrating stare and fake sympathy. It was about enough to make me throw up for real. “Grace! It’s time to go home!”

  “Don’t be like that. I’m sorry. We can talk about anything you want. I just want to hang out.”

  “I’m tired. I need to get Grace home and then I think I’m gonna take a bath and get to bed early.”

  “You want me to come over? I could bring a pizza and we could watch a movie.”

  I shook my head and walked toward the sandbox. “Grace! I said we’re leaving! Say goodbye to Tristan!”

  “But I don’t want to go yet!”

  “Don’t be like that,” I said, putting my hand out and waiting for her to take it. “I’m the adult and I say were leaving. Say goodbye to Tristan. Now.”

  I could hear Stacy saying something behind me, but I didn’t give a shit.
I just wanted to get away from her as quickly as possible. I knew what she was thinking about me, and I just couldn’t deal. So once Grace stood up, I quickly put her into her stroller and took off. I barely looked at Stacy when I said goodbye, and practically ran the stroller back to Grace’s house.

  The thing was, I didn’t want to stay in. I didn’t want to take a bath or a nap or watch a movie or eat a pizza or any of that crap. I wanted to find Fred. I’d been out every single night this last month, club and bar hopping from one place to another, hitting every establishment that served alcohol in a twenty-mile radius of where we met. I just wanted to find him and ask him why. What had I done? Why didn’t he want to see me again? Why didn’t he even want to talk to me?

  So when I got home, I put on the slinky black dress I’d borrowed from Stacy that night, and a pair of her strappy, stiletto heels, then went into the bathroom to put on my makeup. I applied black liner to my upper and lower lids, then mascara that promised volume and really long lashes. After that I did my cheeks and my lips, but when it was time to check out my overall look, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at my face in the mirror.

  I didn’t understand why Stacy said what she did about me being mysterious. She had to have been lying. There was no way her boyfriends would say something like that to her. Or Jackson. He hung out with rock stars and models. She just felt sorry for me and was making shit up, as usual. It probably made her feel superior to think her lies helped her poor little sister feel better about herself. That she might have temporarily helped me escape my pathetic life.

  But I knew there was only one thing that was going to help. I needed to find Fred. I needed to talk to him. If I could do that, if I could just ask him to explain everything to me, I knew I’d feel better. I wasn’t always the best at letting things go. Dr. Zeeland told me that. He said that was one of the things I should work on, letting things from the past go. Also allowing myself to experience some sort of separation between myself and the guys I fell in love with. He said I identified with them too much.