Page 17 of The Negotiator

She stood up then couldn’t remember why she’d done that and immediately sank back down in her chair again. With her fingers wrapped around the armrests, she waited for the anger to hit. Maryanne had walked away without debt. Even her college loans had been paid off by Carl.

Maryanne also got Carl... though Lauren wasn’t completely sure the other woman had won on that score.

“What are you doing here?” Lauren had a thousand questions but that seemed like a good place to start.

“I’m sorry,” Maryanne blurted out.

Lauren could see Maryanne drag in a long breath. Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away. The woman rubbed her hands together until her skin turned red. Then it hit Lauren... Maryanne might actually have loved Carl. He’d run away with her and come back yesterday professing to be home. Lauren had no idea what happened in between but she guessed it hadn’t been great for Maryanne. It’s not as if Carl changed into a better man while he was gone. His visit to her proved that.

“For what?” Kayla asked the question with a bit of an edge.

Maryanne flinched but didn’t come out fighting or run away. Lauren reluctantly admired that sort of spirit. She’d spent a lot of time hating this woman she only knew in photos. Now that Maryanne stood there, looking like she was held together with little more than rubber bands and spit, looming on the verge of breaking down, Lauren couldn’t muster any anger.

“I didn’t know.” Maryanne swallowed, and when she spoke again her voice was louder. “He told me you were separated. When we started dating, I mean.”

“Did he also tell you he planned to fake his death or did he spring that on you once you were out on the water?” Kayla asked.

Lauren didn’t jump in and fix this for Maryanne. She’d made her decisions, including the one to walk into the office. Tears or not, she’d helped turn Lauren’s life upside down and Lauren was not ready to forgive that.

Maryanne nodded. “I thought we were running away together. Then, once we were out on the water, he talked about the money and how he wanted out from under the debt. He said...”

“What?” Lauren hated to ask but the not knowing would kill her.

“He said you ran up bills he had no ability to pay and... honestly, he never said a good thing about you.”

“To his mistress?” Kayla snorted. “Go figure.”

“I didn’t know he was lying.”

Lauren decided not to remind Maryanne about his big lie, the one about dying. She leaned forward with her elbows on the desk and silently begged the wrenching in her stomach to stop. “What happened once you were away from here, Maryanne?”

“At first it was great.” She blew out a shaky breath. “Then he got... weird. Mean.”

Lauren knew the real answer. “When the money ran out.”

She knew how his mind worked. Money translated to calm for him. When the amount he stole from the business and their accounts was gone, he would have become accusatory and shitty. That described most of her life with him during the last few years of their marriage.

Kayla’s eyes narrowed. “You came back with him. So did you think you were going to tell some wild story about being lost and then start over here?”

Maryanne winced. “He disappeared three weeks ago.”

“Weeks?” Kayla looked at Lauren. “Where has he been for all that time?”

“In hiding? I don’t know but it’s a good question.”

Maryanne’s words came rushing back to Lauren. “You said ‘disappeared.’ You mean he left you behind?”

“In the Bahamas. Without a penny.” Maryanne glanced down before facing Lauren again. “It took me some time to figure out... you know. That he wasn’t coming back. Then I had to get the money together... He took the bit I had saved while waitressing there.”

Kayla whistled. “Man, he was a jackass.”

“What happened to him once he got back here? I read this morning... Then the police came to see me...”

The woman liked to talk in sentence fragments. Lauren chalked it up to Maryanne’s strained emotional state. She got it. She had been the same way when Carl first left. Seeing his body on the floor yesterday had sent a renewed shot of anguish through her but it vanished as soon as it came.

The guilt, the confusion—they would always be with her. The love died long ago, along with the trust.

“Someone killed him.” Despite everything, it still hurt Lauren to say the words.

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