Page 39 of The Awful Truth

Ted was laying on the bed with his clothes still on, watching the last inning. “Isn’t technology amazing?” he asked. “Here I am, on a yacht in Europe, and I’m getting a live feed of a game happening on the West Coast.”

She offered him a bland smile. “Yes, it’s quite amazing.”

As soon as she climbed into bed, he muttered, “Aww, dammit.”

“What happened?”

“The Padres just scored a run. That’s the ball game.” He let out a big sigh and got up. Setting his phone on the charger, he said, “I better have a shower and get some sleep. Travis is insisting we go fishing again at dawn.” He rolled his eyes as if Antonia wouldn’t know he was secretly thrilled to have bested him at fishing. “I wish I hadn’t caught that stupid jack. We just weighed it and threw it back into the water.”

She gave him a little grin. “Come on, let’s be honest. It must have felt pretty great to beat him.”

A self-satisfied smile erased the false modesty. “Little bit, yeah. But I better not do it again tomorrow, or we’ll never have a yacht of our own.”

Antonia felt a rush of anger. “I hate that a man like him has control over our lives.”

Ted shrugged on his way to the bathroom. “If it wasn’t him, it would be some other sociopathic network head. At least he’s making us rich. Night, Toni.”

“Night,” she answered, wondering when it was that they stopped kissing each other good night and saying I love you.

As soon as he slid the door to the en suite closed, Antonia found herself staring at the ceiling, wide awake. Hmmm, maybe they could reconnect when he got out of the shower. Even if it was just cuddling a little. And maybe that would lead to something. She unbuttoned the top button of her satin pajama shirt, then tried various positions in an attempt to look alluring when he returned. She settled on lying on the bed with her head propped up on her hand, elbow bent, then realized if she stayed like that the entire time he was in the bathroom, she’d have a sore shoulder by the time he got back. So she laid back down and listened as the shower turned on, her mind starting to wander. It went to their kids first, as it always did when she had a few moments to think. She realized she hadn’t talked to either of them in two days. And even worse, she hadn’t even noticed. Grabbing her phone off the nightstand, she checked to see if there were any messages from them. Nothing. Probably they hadn’t noticed either. They were at that age where you forget you even have parents for weeks at a time (unlike her, who had only forgotten she had children for two days).

She sent a quick text to each of them to say they were on the yacht, it was all very luxurious, the Croatian coastline was beautiful, and that she missed them. After waiting for a few seconds to see if the three little dots would appear to indicate that either of them were writing her back, she gave up and put the phone back on the charger. From the other side of the bed, Ted’s phone pinged.

It was probably Quinn, writing Ted back instead of her. Antonia sat up and reached across the massive bed and picked up his phone. The text was from Charlotte.

Is she in her drug-induced coma yet? Hurry up and bring your A-game. I have a lot of energy to burn.

THE DAY AFTER THE INCIDENT

“I can resist everything except temptation.” ~ Oscar Wilde

10:12 A.M. — THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13

PETRA

It was after ten in the morning by the time anything interesting happened. Petra had tried to find the case file on the department’s file management system, but it was not showing. This didn’t mean it didn’t exist however, because there were certain top-secret files that could only be seen by those with the highest security clearance. Petra was not one of those people.

The Director still hadn’t opened his door, even though he’d hung up the phone nearly an hour ago. In a bold move, Petra took it upon herself to go to the lunchroom to get him a coffee, which was something she’d never done before.

She added some cream and sugar, hoping she was guessing the right amounts, then carefully made her way back to his office and rapped gently on the door.

“Come in.”

“Thought you might like a coffee,” she said, holding up the mug to show him.

“Oh, yeah, thank you. I could use one,” he answered, turning his attention back to his computer. “It’s been a busy morning so far.”

“I figured as much. You’ve been in here with your door closed since I got here,” she said, spilling a little of the liquid onto her hand on her way to his desk. Crap. Now her fingers would be sticky from the sugar.

She grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and wiped the mug. Needing to peek at his computer screen, she carried the mug all the way around the desk until she was standing next to him.

The Director looked up at her, an annoyed expression on his face.

Petra gave him a sweet smile maintaining eye contact so he wouldn’t know she was being snoopy. “There you go. Do you need anything else?”

“No.”

She glanced at his screen. It was open to an email that she could only assume was from the coroner’s office in Mali Losinj. All she managed to read before he closed the email was Cause of Death: Pending.