The Silent Widow

‘No,’ said Nikki.

‘Not even in college?’

‘You’d know if I had.’

‘I guess that’s true,’ Gretchen shrugged. ‘So these “feelings” you’re having for this woman. I take it you haven’t acted on them?’

‘No. And I never will. I’m not that stupid.’ Nikki ran a dripping hand through her wet hair. ‘I honestly think I’m having a mid-life crisis, Gretch. Or I’m depressed or … something. Forget I said anything.’

The dark cloud was back, so Gretchen let it drop, changing the conversation to her kids and their latest dramas, before dragging Nikki into another room for a body scrub. The old Korean women who attacked them with hoses and loofas were so rough, turning them over and pummeling them like two slabs of meat on an abattoir table, that Nikki and Gretchen always ended up in fits of laughter.

Afterwards, feeling red-raw but energized and changed back into their clothes, the two women went to their usual sushi bar across the street for a late lunch. Only then, tentatively, did Gretchen return to the subject of Nikki’s personal life.

‘So you mentioned before about hiring a private detective?’

‘Derek Williams,’ Nikki nodded, deftly spearing some stray tendrils of seaweed salad with her chopsticks. ‘He’s good.’

‘How did you find him?’ asked Gretchen.

‘I looked at reviews,’ Nikki said casually. ‘I don’t really have any experience of this stuff. Although randomly,’ she pointed a chopstick at Gretchen, ‘guess what case he worked on ten years ago.’

Gretchen laughed. ‘How am I supposed to guess that?’

‘Charlotte Clancy’s disappearance,’ Nikki told her, grinning. ‘Remember you were the one who brought that up, the last time I saw you? How Willie Baden’s wife Valentina took up that case when Charlotte first went missing, got a whole load of media attention?’

‘For the firefighter dad. Right.’ Gretchen leaned in, fascinated.

‘Tucker Clancy. He was the one who hired Williams to search for his missing daughter. I mean, how much of a coincidence is that?’

‘Crazy,’ Gretchen agreed. ‘So what happened?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Nikki.

‘What happened with that case?’

‘Oh, nothing, really. Williams got fired.’

‘Because he couldn’t find her?’

‘He says it was because he found out she had a married lover and the dad didn’t want to know about it. But maybe, I guess. Derek has some theory about an American banker and Anne’s ex-husband and drug wars here in LA …’

She trailed off vaguely, and Gretchen watched her eat her California roll with growing concern. This all sounded like gobbledygook to her. Like people making connections where there couldn’t possibly be any, trying to find meaning in a string of unrelated, awful, random events. In short, Derek Williams’ wild theories sounded like the very last thing Nikki needed.

‘Anyway, I wouldn’t shed too many tears for Charlotte Clancy,’ Nikki rambled on, oblivious to Gretchen’s worried look, and to her silence. ‘According to Williams, she wasn’t the sweet, innocent everyone believed her to be. She was running around Mexico City, wrecking lives, breaking up families. I’d say she deserved what was coming to her.’

Gretchen sat up, shocked. ‘You don’t mean that, Nik. You don’t really believe people deserve to die for having an affair.’

‘Don’t I?’ Nikki sat up too, her eyes blazing in a blood-chilling flash of anger. ‘Can you imagine turning on your iPad one night and seeing naked pictures of some slut Adam was seeing pop up on your screen?’

‘That would be terrible,’ admitted Gretchen. ‘But I wouldn’t—’

‘And what if the slut was pregnant?!’ Nikki demanded, her voice gett

ing faster and louder by the second to the point where other customers were turning to stare. ‘What if you’d been having fertility treatment, painful, exhausting, hopeless treatment for five YEARS,’ Nikki’s eyes welled with tears. ‘And then you discover your husband’s gone behind your back and got some other woman pregnant. And she sends the picture to his email, and you come home one night and BOOM, there it is. BOOM! Your entire life. GONE!’ she was shouting now and shaking, like a woman possessed, her entire face contorted in absolute hatred.

Gretchen felt her stomach flip over and the bile rise up in her throat. When she spoke again, there was genuine fear in her voice.

‘Lenka was pregnant?’