It took everything I had to get the words out. I watched Dave’s face twitch in surprise at first, as he realized what I was telling him, then go blank, maybe waiting for the part when I said I was joking, which never came. Then it simply slackened with the most confused, heartbreaking look.
“Dave, I swear to you, nothing really happened between us up there.” I reached out and took his hand. “I give you my word. I stopped it before it really got anywhere. I was just so angry, David—”
“You went up to this guy’s room?” He stared at me shell-shocked, and pulled his hand away. “To do what? To screw someone, Wendy?”
“Sweetheart, I never meant to hurt you.” I latched back onto him, my heart almost falling off a cliff. “My relationship with you means more to me than anything in the world, and I realize what I’ve done. But that’s not it! That’s not all I’m trying to tell you, David. Something else happened up there. Something even more important.”
“You shot someone?” His face screwed up in confusion. “What the hell did he do to you, Wendy?” His concern was mixed with anger and accusation. He searched my face and arms as if looking for signs of a struggle.
“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me, Dave. The guy’s dead. He was shot. By someone else. Someone else came into the room—as I was in the bathroom. Freshening up.”
“Freshening up?” This time the edge of accusation in his voice was clear.
“Dave, just listen to me! The guy was killed. Thank God I was in there, or I’d be dead too.” I took him through what happened. Hearing the killer’s voice. Curtis pushing the gun off the bed. Watching him be killed.
Picking up the gun and having no other choice than to do what I did.
My tears cleared and now there was only the deepest urgency in my eyes. “The guy was going to shoot me, David. I identified myself. I told him I was an ex-cop. I gave him every chance to put his weapon down. He didn’t. What he did do was raise it up to me. I shot him, David. I had no choice. He would have shot me!”
I drew myself close to him. I needed to feel his support so badly. Stiffly, he put his arm around me as my heart pattered against him. Then I finally felt him draw me close. Hesitantly. His arms seemed remote and strange.
“I don’t even know how to react to this, Wendy. What did the police say?”
I shook my head against him. “I never went to the police, Dave. I couldn’t.”
“You shot a murderer in self-defense. You’d just watched him kill someone, right? No one would question it.”
“That’s not all that happened, Dave. I was scared. I realized my life was about to fall apart. Because of where I was. I just wanted to get home to you.” I lifted my face. “But that’s not all … The guy I shot wasn’t just a murderer. I checked him out and saw his ID after. He was a government agent, Dave. He was from Homeland Security.”
The rest I told him as if in one long, rambling sentence. How I ran from the hotel room, straight into the killer’s partner. How he shot at me, and I had to run. “I fled down the fire stairs, David. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Oh God, Wendy …” I sensed both sympathy and disbelief in his voice. I didn’t know if I would believe it if he was telling it to me.
“I don’t know what I stumbled into, Dave. But whatever it was, it was a murder. And something these people wanted to cover up. If I went to the police, they would have brought me back to the hotel, to the very people who were trying to kill me. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. All I could think of was getting back here to you.” I cupped his face. “I knew whatever we had to do, we could do it together. Honey, I’m so sorry for what I did. I never meant for this to happen.”
“But it did. It did happen.” I could see he didn’t know how to react.
“Yes, it did.” I nodded guiltily.
“Does anyone know who you are?”
“I don’t think so. But it’s going to come out. There may be security cameras. And Pam knows I was there. I texted her about this guy. Besides, I killed someone…”
He blew out his cheeks and nodded somberly. “We don’t have any choice but to go to the police.”
“I know.” Though the thought of it filled me with dread. A married woman up in a strange hotel room—to screw some guy she’d only met an hour earlier. Then shooting a government agent and fleeing … Would it be seen as just trying to cover up what I had done? I thought of my family and stepkids. It was all going to come out. “I’m scared, Dave.” I kind of fell against him.
Again he wrapped his arms around me with a lukewarm squeeze. “I know you’re scared. We can let someone intercede. A lawyer. There’s Harvey Baum from the club.” He’d handled Dave’s divorce. “Or Hal …”
“Who the hell is Hal?”
“Hal Pritchard. He’s been advising us on the deal.”
My mind suddenly flashed to it. Given the sordid publicity, who the hell would want to merge with them now? “Dave, I’m so sorry I got you into this. I know how important everything was tonight.” I hugged him. “I can’t believe this has happened.”
“We’ll get through this,” he said. “They’ll have to understand. The rest … ” He looked at me measuredly. It was clear what he meant. “The rest we’ll have to deal with later. There are gonna be some things we have to talk over. Okay …”
“Okay.” I nodded against his chest. I shut my eyes, as if I could wish this whole nightmare away.
“This other guy,” Dave said. He pulled himself away from me. “The one who you …”
I knew perfectly who he meant. The one I went up there with. “Curtis.”
He shrugged. “What do you know about him? Who is he? What did he do?”
“I don’t know anything about him, Dave. I just met him at the bar.” I winced, hearing just how that sounded. “He just sat down, while I was waiting for Pam. I don’t even know if Curtis is his real name. Wait a second, I took his phone …”
“You took his phone?”
“From the room. I thought I might need it. To help me prove what happened.”
I ran up to the bedroom and came back with my bag. Dave had turned on the television. It was almost 11:00 P.M. “This had to have made the news …”
I dug around in my bag, searching for his BlackBerry, and found it, at the bottom next to my iPhone.
I put the bag down and a weird feeling came over me. Something didn’t seem right.
Like something was missing.
I sifted through my purse, finding my makeup kit, my e-reader, trying to figure out what it was. Then it hit me.
My tote bag. With my program and some materials from the conference. It wasn’t with my bag or on the kitchen island, where I put things down when I come in.
A feeling of dread came over me.
“What’s wrong?” Dave asked.
“Something’s not here.” I went out the kitchen door to the garage and searched around my Audi. It wasn’t there either. I recalled I’d had it at the bar. I’d even joked to Curtis about it. And I remembered taking it up to the room. I’d thrown it on the floor along with my bag and coat. We weren’t exactly focused on that then. But in my haste, I must’ve left it.
For the third time that night my insides turned