Until then, I’d never given his family history a second thought. His parents were lovely people and had used the services of a surrogate, since his mother couldn’t carry to term. He’d had a normal childhood and maintained close ties with his parents. Not for one moment had I ever associated him with what I’d heard during my mid-day break.
What the man had said made no sense whatsoever.
I’d gone home for lunch and found a stranger sitting as calmly as could be in the living room of my restored bungalow. Immediately, I’d turned around, thinking to grab my cellphone from my purse and call the police, but two more men had materialized from near the door. How had I not noticed them? That terrified me as much as the man sitting on my sofa.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mrs. Malone,” he said. A nod to one of his overdressed goons had me relieved of my purse. The second escorted me to a chair across from where the boss sat.
“I’m Patrick Shaughnessy. No relation as far as I can tell,” he added at my startled hum. “Of course it’s always possible, but I’m not interested enough to dig that deep.”
All right. Not long lost family. “What do you want?”
“Your husband.”
I stared at him. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking. The–” A flash of anger darkened his blue eyes before he cleared his expression in an obvious effort appear cool and unruffled. Though meant to appear friendly, his smile fell far short as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, big hands loosely clasped between his widespread knees, and started again. “Your husband took my money, but hasn’t delivered the goods. I merely want to see what the delay is.” He made it sound so reasonable, sitting there on my doily-covered furniture as if he’d come for tea. I didn’t buy it for a minute. Probably the malicious glint in his eye, and the way he pointedly looked at my lap and breasts, had something to do with it.
I couldn’t stop the recoil that pressed my back into the chair. “That’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible.”
Sickness roiled in my stomach, but I did my best to hide it. In other words, not all that well. “I don’t know who put you up to this, but it’s cruel and sick. Stop this prank, or punk, or whatever it is you’re trying to do, this instant.” I tried to use the Mom-Voice I’d cultivated with my younger brothers, but a quaver stole most of my authority.
“I assure you, madam, this is no prank. Ryan Malone took a briefcase full of my hard earned cash, a down payment, and promised to return a week later with the goods in exchange for the rest of the money. That was two weeks ago.”
“No.” I gasped for air through a dry throat. “Impossible!”
Shaughnessy spread his hands wide, imploring me to come clean. “Tell me where to find him, Mrs. Malone, and I’ll go away and never cross your shadow again. It’s that simple.” Straightening, he leaned back on my loveseat, arms draped across the back. As if he had nothing to hide and I could trust him completely.
Simple, my ass, but if there was a chance of making him go away, I’d take it. “I’ll tell you exactly where he is.” I gave him an address. A number. Glared at him, daring him to verify it.
Which, of course they could do without ever leaving my house. Goon One whipped out his iPhone, input the address and zoomed in for the benefit of his boss. Patrick took the device, stared at the screen, then scowled at me, all pretense of genial civility forgotten. “Not funny, Mrs. Malone.”
“As I said earlier.”
“This is the address for Oak Knoll Cemetery.”
“That, Mr. Shaughnessy, is the final resting place of my husband, Ryan Malone, who died September eighteenth, two years ago. He’s been buried for twenty-two months, to be precise. I don’t know who you were doing business with, but I can assure you it wasn’t my husband.”
In return, he rattled off a few numbers himself. Birth date, parents, social security number, schools, dates attended and degrees earned. Our wedding date and the location. All of which were accurate. Hell, he even had my birth date and the names of my father, mother, and all my brothers, and an accurate description of Ryan before he became ill.
What he knew absolutely petrified me.
“How do you know all this?”
“I do background checks on everyone I do business with, Mrs. Malone. If I wanted, I could find out what they ate for dinner and exactly when they crapped it out.”
I flinched at the crudeness, which I knew was designed specifically to frighten me. It worked. The fingers clasped in my lap were attached to a body that trembled.
“Then you can find the specifics of his death. All of which were witnessed, as he spent his last days in the hospital.”
The meeting went downhill from there. Shaughnessy showed me a photo of a man who looked identical to my Ryan. Held side-by-side with the wedding photo one of the goons had found in my home office, I might have been fooled, if I could forget holding Ryan through the wasting from his disease. I countered Shaughnessy’s belief that we’d faked Ryan’s illness by showing photos of the month-by-month erosion of the lovely man I’d married. That might have convinced him, though he didn’t admit it.
Shaughnessy threatened to hurt my family if I called the authorities, who wouldn’t help me anyway since Ryan’s promise to him involved defense secrets amounting to treason. I’d only find myself in jail or tied up in lawsuits that would make me wish I’d died alongside my husband. I was also put on notice he’d be watching me. Very, very closely. Just in case we’d cooked up this scheme complete with a faked death. And another note for the record, he added, keeping my handgun in the bottom desk drawer wouldn’t be of much help if someone broke in during the night. A threat, or a dare?
He left, and I made an attempt to slap a sandwich together. Which I couldn’t do, and wouldn’t have been able to eat if I had. I moved the gun to my bedside table and stashed it at the bottom of a box of tissues.
I returned to work where I sat, trying to ease the petrifying panic from my head. Think. Okay, I had it–safety measures. The man had jimmied the locks on my house, in my safe, quiet neighborhood, in the middle of the day. Obviously I needed better protection. I looked up the number for the security company Jacob used and placed the call. Fifteen minutes later, I had an appointment to meet the owner, a man named Russ Steigart, at the house at five.
Thinking I might be set until I figured out something else, I turned the problem over to my subconscious and focused on work, tuning out the phones and the slow, steady stream of foot traffic. I was good at that. Denial. If I didn’t want to see it, I put my nose to the grindstone and, poof, my problem went away. I owed Jacob a good day’s work. Lord knew he’d been the perfect boss, the epitome of patience throughout Ryan’s illness and the aftermath.
To show my appreciation for all he’d done for me, I did my best to put on a happy face each day. Barring that, I did my work with as much efficiency as possible, keeping my mien as neutral as possible. If not cheerful, at least I avoided doing an Eeyore impression. Minimal drama, maximum production. I’d been slowly making progress the last eighteen months and now made it through most of my days without wanting to crawl into Ryan’s grave and join him.
Postman, office supply delivery, a package from Fed Ex, a tall dark man in a suit, all these events passed with little notice