The Silent Widow

Damn you, Doug, for the happy memories! Damn you for lying, and cheating on me! Damn you for being dead! I hope you burn in hell, with your Russian witch and her child beside you!

Nikki had told Anne Bateman last night that she loved her but she could no longer be her therapist.

‘It’s not personal,’ she insisted. ‘I’m in no fit state to practice, and you need a therapist who is and who can help you move forward.’ She still hadn’t broached the subject of Luis Rodriguez and Derek Williams’ wild accusations about his secret life as a drug lord. And she knew now that she never would. Without evidence, Williams’ theories would have to die with him. If Luis really intended to hurt Anne, Nikki reasoned, he would have done it by now. Either way, there was nothing that Nikki could save her from. And if Williams was right about Luis Rodriguez, she needed to save herself.

Numb with her own pain, Anne had agreed to part ways, and the two women had said warm goodbyes to one another when dawn broke this morning, both of them knowing that they wouldn’t see one another again.

Anne had seen the gun in Nikki’s hand last night. She’d said nothing, but that shared moment of what should have been private anguish had changed everything. Nikki couldn’t be Anne’s rock. She couldn’t be anybody’s rock, not until she’d laid her own demons to rest.

Once Anne had gone, Nikki composed an email to Goodman. She then sent four others. Two to her remaining patients, Carter Berkeley and Lana Grey, terminating her role as their therapist and asking their forgiveness. One to her new secretary and ill-fated office manager, Kim Choy, to whom she also transferred three months’ wages in lieu of notice. And a fourth and final note to Gretchen. That had been the hardest to write. Because Nikki wanted to believe so badly that this wasn’t goodbye. That one day, when all this was over, maybe she really could move to New York and start again. And Gretchen could come and stay with her, and they’d have Thanksgiving together and go to shows and exhibitions and restaurants and Nikki would build a new practice and life would have meaning again.

She knew it was a pipe dream. But writing that note to her oldest friend, it was a pipe dream she didn’t have the strength to let go, not completely.

Once the email was sent, she ate a quick breakfast and got on the road, putting fifty miles between herself and the city before LA’s morning rush hour began in earnest. In the past, Nikki had always found the drive out to the desert liberating. Palm Springs itself might be a bizarre throwback to the long-gone glamour days of its Rat Pack past, but the vast open spaces that surrounded it, the mile upon mile of nothing, of rock and sky, that led one there – that landscape had a magic to it, for anyone willing to appreciate it.

This morning, however, Nikki felt no freedom, no elation on the long, empty roads. Next to her on the passenger seat was her cell phone, which she’d been forced to switch off after the third call from Goodman, and a letter, handwritten, from Derek Williams. She hadn’t opened the letter yet. She would do that at the Hacienda, where she felt safe, and alone. But its mere presence was enough to suck any joy out of the car and replace it with fear, the sort of brooding dread that came with knowing a sleeping rattlesnake was coiled up beside you.

The letter had arrived at Nikki’s offices, roughly four hours before Williams’ murder. Kim had had the forethought to drive it up to the house and deliver it to Nikki personally, rather than wait for the police to seize it in their regular trawls of Nikki’s business mail.

Now the letter sat propped up against the pillow on Nikki’s bed. She’d been about to open it when Señora Marchesa walked in. Once the señora was gone, she had to screw up her courage all over again.

Tequila, Nikki thought. Tequila will help.

Slipping on her bikini, she grabbed two miniatures of Jose Cuervo from the fridge in her room, along with Williams’ letter, and marched defiantly out to the pool, stretching out her slender limbs on a sun lounger. I’ll open it when I’m ready, she decided, letting the hot dry air warm her skin and the cold tequila warm her throat and calm her jangled nerves. Whatever Williams had chosen to put in his final letter to her had been his decision. But Nikki got to decide when she opened Pandora’s Box, and she clung to that tiny shred of control like a life raft in a stormy ocean.

She fell asleep quickly and without even realizing it. When she woke her skin was burning, her mouth dry and her head throbbing with an awful, insistent ringing noise that went on and on and on …

‘Are you gonna get that?’ An angry woman in an ugly printed one-piece and a large straw hat loomed over Nikki’s lounger. ‘Because if you aren’t, maybe you could turn your cell phone off? Some of us are trying to relax here.’

Groggily realizing what was happening, Nikki reached for her phone.

‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded hideously raspy, as if she’d been gargling with sand.

‘Nikki? Oh my God, thank God. Thank God! Where were you? I’ve been calling and calling …’ Anne was hysterical, speaking so fast and so loudly that Nikki had to hold her cell away from her ear.

‘Anne. I told you this morning. I can’t help you any more,’ she said patiently. ‘Whatever’s happened, you need—’

‘NO!’ Anne cut her off, screaming wildly. ‘Please! You don’t understand. I found out something terrible … about Luis.’

A shiver ran down Nikki’s spine. She knows. So Williams was right all along?

‘I can’t talk on the phone,’ Anne babbled. ‘It’s not safe. You have to meet me!’

‘I don’t have to do anything,’ said Nikki bluntly.

Anne burst into tears.

‘I am begging you, Nikki. Please!’ she sobbed. ‘If I ever meant anything to you. It’s for your sake as much as mine.’

‘How is it for my sake?’ asked Nikki.

‘It just is, OK? I have evidence, something I need to show you in person. I swear to God, after this I will never contact you again.’

‘Can’t you go to the police?’ Nikki asked wearily.

‘No!’ It was almost a shriek. ‘I need you.’

Nikki put a hand to her burning cheek.