Mixed Messages (A Malone Mystery) (32 page)

Could David be with another woman
?
The image of her husband with someone else sickened
her
.
She pictured a
long
limbed
blonde with silky waist length hair and the slender, yet curvaceous, body of a model
.
David and the blonde
were in bed, entwined in each other’s arms, caressing each other and kissing passionately, the blonde’s long, shapely legs wrapped around David
.
Stop it
!
she
told herself
.
Why are you doing this to yourself
?
You don’t know that he’s with someone else
.
Stop torturing yourself
.
As far as you know, in all the years you’ve been married, David has never cheated on you
.
What makes you think he would start now
?

But a little voice in her head said, “Look how he’s changed lately
.
And how about his lame excuse the other night
?
‘I fell asleep in my car.
’
Honestly, that’s like the old ‘we ran out of gas’ excuse we used when we were teenagers and missed curfew
.
And what about sex
?
You and David used to have a good sex life, didn’t you
?
When was the last time, when he wasn’t drinking, that he wanted to have sex with you
?
Do you honestly believe that a man his age is doing without it
?
And,” the voice persisted, “he was always so sweet and caring, a wonderful husband and father
.
But he hasn’t been that way for a while, has he
?
He’s changed
.
Maybe he’s changed in other ways too
.
Maybe now he is a cheater.”

So
, she thought, what if David
is with
someone else
?
Maybe she means nothing to him; maybe
he considers it
just a harmless affair. But, is there such a thing as a harmless affair? Would I be able to deal with that? Would our marriage have a chance if I knew that he’d slept with someone else?

And what if he does care about her? What if he loves her and w
hat if he decides to leave the kids and me
to be with her
?
What then
?
Although he never wanted to talk about it,
she
knew that, when David was a little boy, his father had left his mother for another woman.
Fear and anxiety gripped her
.
What if he follows in his father’s footsteps?
What would I do
?
How would we make it without him
?
She tried to envision what life would be like without David
.
She couldn’t
.
A tear slid down her cheek
.
More than fear, more than anxiety, she felt sad
.
I love him, she thought
.
I don’t want to lose him
.
I don’t ever want to lose him
.
I just want the old David back.

She flipped over onto her back and pulled the comforter up to her chin
.
She stared at the ceiling for several minutes
.
If David’s not with a woman, then where can he be? she wondered
.

What if he was mugged and beaten? He could be passed out in an alley somewhere and I
wouldn’t even know it
.
Or, what if he was in an accident
?
What if he’s hurt, even unconscious,
and there’s no one there to help him? Oh, my God, what if he dies? Please God, don’t let him
die
.
I don’t want
Dani
and Davey to grow up without their father, like I did
.

She closed her eyes and
saw David in their
car,
careening around a
sharp
bend
in the road
,
misjudging the turn
, his face contorted with fear as he realized he had lost
control
.
She saw the car,
toppling end over end down a steep embankment and flipping upside down as
it
hit the trunk of a huge tree at the bottom of the hill
.
Flames burst from the car
.
She could see David, trapped inside, trying to force the door open but it wouldn’t budge
.
She could hear his screams, “Help me
!
Someone please help me!”

No
!
No
!
No!
s
he told herself
.
You’re doing it again
.
Stop it!
If something were wrong,
the police would notify you
.
You have got to stop this and get to sleep
!
You’re so tired that you’re not thinking straight
.
David’s fine
.
Everything will be fine
.
She opened her eyes and turned to look at the clock
.
It was four a.m.

Just as she’d closed her eyes again, the phone rang
.
She
jumped up
.
“Oh, my God
!
Please let it be
David!” She ran into the living room, terrified that her worst fears were about to come true
.
Her hands were shaking as she turned on the table lamp and picked up the receiver
.

“Ann, ‘s me, David.”
             

“Oh, thank God
!
David
!
You’re all right
.
Are you all right?”

“Mm, okay,” he slurred.

“Where are you?”
she
asked, relief flooding through her.

“Jail
.
In-di-an-a.”

“Jail
!
Indiana
?
Why?”

“D-U-I.”

“Oh, no
.
David, how could you
?
We can’t afford
… .
What are you doing in Indiana?”

“Boat
.
Make some money
…
for us.”

“Oh, dear God!”

“Ann, can you come get me?”

“Come get you
?
How can I come get you
?
You have
our car, remember
?
You
do
still have our car, don’t you?”

“Don’t yell
.
Please, don’t yell
.
My head hurts.”

“I’ll bet your head hurts
.
It ought to hurt
.
What were you thinking
?
You deserve it
.
I hope it
really
hurts!”

“Fine
.
Call my mother
.
She’ll
come get me.”

“I am not calling your mother at four o’clock in the morning
.
No way
!
You’re just going to have to stay
where you are for now
.
I’m tired and I can’t deal with this right now.”

“
Only get one call.
Should a called my mother in the first place,”
he
said.

“Yeah, maybe you should have.”

“Ann, please
… .
”

“No
!
I’m hanging up now
.
Call me
later
when you’re sober and we’ll figure something out.”

“Ann
… .
”

She
slammed the receiver down
.
She looked up and saw Davey standing in the doorway, rubbing his eyes
.
“Mommy, who were you talking to?”

“Davey, go back to bed, honey
.
Don’t worry
.
Everything’s fine
.”

“But, Mommy
… .
”

“Now, young man
!”
She reached over to turn off the lamp and, when she looked up, her
son was gone
.

She
stomped down the hallway to her bedroom, threw back the
comforter
and
got
into bed
.
She reached over and punched David’s pillow over and over again
.
“How could you do this?” she asked
.
“How could you be so irresponsible
?
Don’t we have enough problems already
?
What are we going to do now
?”

I don’t have any money to bail him out, she thought
.
I don’t even know how to go about doing that
.
Well, she decided, I have no choice but to tell David’s mother
.
She’ll just have to take care of this
.
She does her best to keep David tied to her apron strings anyway
.
She’ll probably be thrilled that her baby boy needs her help
.
Well, that’s it then
.
There’s really nothing else I can do.

You have to sleep now, she told herself
.
You’ve got to go to work
in a few hours
and take the kids out trick-or-treating
after dinner
.
You need to relax. She breathed in deeply through her nose, held her breath and counted to three, and then she exhaled
through her mouth
to the count of six. She could feel her body beginning to respond.
Her eyes felt heavy and began to droop
.
At least David’s safe and I know where he is,
she
thought, as she finally dropped off to a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter
3
2

LOUISE HAD TOSSED AND TURNED
all night long
.
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table
:
4:58 a.m
.
The alarm would go off in two minutes
.
She reached over and turned it off
.
I don’t know why I bother to set it, she thought
.
No matter what time she went to bed, every morning for more years than she cared to remember,
she
had awakened at exactly the same time
.
Intuitively, her brain knew that it was time to get up.

She sat up in bed, covering her face with her hands
, struggling to hold back the tears
.
The dream she’d had was so fresh in her mind, so vivid
.
It was a dream of happy times, when both of her sons were young, when both of her sons were alive and well
.
She wanted to stay in the dream
.
Sometimes it was hard to separate her dreams from reality
.
More often than not these days, she would wake up expecting her two little boys to come running in and jump on her bed, “Mommy, Mommy
.
Time to get up
.”

This was the most difficult part of her day, the moment, early in the morning when it was
still dark outside and she realized that her young sons weren’t really there; that Daniel had gone to be with the Lord and David, a grown man, was living with a family of his own, that he had his
own life
.
She was alone and, for the time that it took her to collect herself and face the truth, she was filled with a devastating sense of loneliness and loss.
She
grimaced as she forced herself to get up
.
Her whole body was stiff and her muscles and joints ached
.
It was a toss up as to which hurt the most
:
her body or her heart
.