Page 53 of The Wife

I didn’t want to connect emotionally to any other woman but you.That’s how he had felt when he picked up that hooker, but that’s not how he felt after he met Kerry.

“So itismy fault,” I said, trying to maintain my composure. “I’m the reason this is happening.”

“Of course not. I’m just trying to explain what went on in my head, from my perspective.”

“You had an affair, Jason. You cheated. It was more than three months, wasn’t it?” He said nothing. “Please stop lying. I wish you would trust me that the worst part of this has been the lying.”

Now, he didn’t bother to hide the tears. He just shook his head.

“How long?”

“Longer than three months, okay?”

“The date they listed in court was in April, not that day you met her at her house. Was she planning this for two months?”

“I have no idea. Olivia thinks she picked a previous date so she could claim she only came forward after reading the news about Rachel. It might seem hard to believe that I’d do something even worse right after someone else filed a complaint.”

“So were you with her that night? At the hotel?”

“Jesus, Angela, I don’t know, okay? I didn’t keep a log of every time I saw her. Right now, I’m worn out.”

I imagined him going through his calendar, trying to reconstruct all of the nights he had lied to me to find time for her. Well, I had already beat him to it, studied all the possibilities. That night, he said a client was freaking out about quarterly financial reports. Now I had so many suspicions. The weekend he was supposed to be at Stanford. The trip to London last month. How much of it was bullshit?

“Did you love her?”

He closed his eyes, and I could feel his shame across the room. He slept in Spencer’s bed that night.

When I woke up the next morning, he was already gone. So was his phone. So were his earbuds and running shoes.

When he got home an hour later, he was covered in sweat and had a yellow mailing envelope in his hand. “We need to call Olivia. I got served with papers. Kerry and Rachel are suing me.”

34

The lawyer who sued Jason was even more famous than he was. Her name was Janice Martinez, and according to Wikipedia, she graduated from University of Michigan Law School, started out as a prosecutor in Brooklyn, and then opened a private practice specializing in “seeking justice for crime victims in civil court.”Glamourhad featured her as a “Fighter for Feminism” four years earlier. Airbrushed photos of her in Escada dresses and Louboutin heels accompanied summaries of her best-known sexual harassment and assault lawsuits.

She was the kind of lawyer who was known more for her work in front of a camera than in court, and she was milking her case against Jason for every bit of attention. Two hours after the process server stopped Jason on the sidewalk, Martinez held a press conference, which was carried live by the major cable news stations. She stood at a lectern at the head of a conference room filled with reporters and cameras, flanked by Rachel Sutton and Kerry Lynch.

Martinez explained that Kerry had come forward with her case only after seeing Rachel demonized on social media. “This is an example of women standing up for other women. Only because Rachel braved the storm did Kerry step into the light. We believe there may be other victims out there. I want them to know we are here for them. There is power in numbers.”

The most serious claims were related to Kerry: battery and false imprisonment, which Olivia said was holding someone against their will, no matter how short the amount of time. Rachel was suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

I clicked off the television, thinking that I had more cause for emotional distress than either of these women.

I remembered that detective telling me that Olivia Randall was Jason’s lawyer, not mine. It seemed like everyone had a lawyer looking out for them except for me.

I found the detective’s business card, zipped in the smallest side pocket of my purse. She had written her cell number in cute, round digits along the bottom, followed by “24/7!”

I made a call, but not to Detective Duncan.

Susanna picked up immediately, in a hushed voice. “Hey.”

“Did you see it?”

There was a pause, followed by “I was there. I just walked out of the room. Angela, I’m so sorry. Janice Martinez doesn’t take a case unless she expects major media attention and a huge payout.”

35

Ginny was using the hose of a Dyson vacuum to suck up Cheerios beneath the Colemans’ sofa cushions when Lucy walked into the den, a mop in one hand, her cell phone in the other. “Sorry, Gin, but Kayla texted from the salon. Your son-in-law’s in the news again.”

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