The Secret He Keeps Page 21

  “I can check with Cassie. She’s responsible for archiving. I would suppose all of the cases Scott had open would have either moved to another associate or been stored away. What in particular are you looking for?” She picked up a pen from her desk and held it by both ends.

  “I’m not sure. I guess any pictures, personal papers, appointment books. Anything like that.”

  She put up a finger for Rachel to hold that thought and pressed a button on the phone. “Cassie?”

  “Yes, Ms. Tyler.”

  “Cassie, come into my office, please.”

  Rachel watched the woman, wondering what she thought of Scott in the end. When he first started, he seemed to be her favorite. The other associates told him that she never threw a party for them when they started. But Scott liked to brown-nose his way into everyone’s hearts. Cashiers, parking lot attendants, waitresses. A couple winks, that killer smile, and his magnetic personality got him many places.

  Cassie was the new girl from out front. She walked in the room, limping. Rachel imagined it was from the three-inch heels she wore. A short girl on stilts. “Yes, Ms. Tyler. What can I do for you?”

  “Scott Miller. Do you recall boxing up his effects? It would have been almost a year ago. I think you had just taken over for Melissa.”

  That was her name—Melissa. The model who sat behind the front desk, getting ogled at by every client who came in the door. Six feet tall, long, brown hair, and skirts above her knees. She was the reason for the rise in cases those years. Rachel wondered where she went to after she left the firm. Scott never said much about her at home. And Rachel made it a point to visit him for lunch at least twice a month to keep the girl in check.

  “Oh, yes. I remember.” She looked at Rachel as if she knew something dark. “I tried calling you. I left several messages, and when you didn’t call back, I filed his things in the storage room. Would you like me to go get them?”

  “Yes, dear,” Ms. Tyler said.

  “You know I tried to get Scott some help, as I’m sure you tried, also. We offer excellent insurance and one of our clients is the owner of a rehab place in Southern California. But Scott wouldn’t go. He said he didn’t have a problem.”

  “What made you think he had one?”

  Ms. Tyler snapped her head back and stared at Rachel as if she were crazy. “You believed he had a problem, didn’t you, Rachel?”

  “After the accident, I lost a year of my long-term memory. I can’t recall how he acted before the accident. All I know is what I hear everyone describing of him, and he wasn’t the guy I knew.”

  “I had no idea. How unfortunate.” She took it back. “Well, maybe not. Maybe you were spared from having a tarnished memory of him.”

  “Still, I’d like to know. Please tell me what made you advise him to get help. Was he ever drunk on the job?” She couldn’t believe she was asking that question. It brought back so many memories of her dad being drunk and getting fired.

  “No—at least, I hope not. It was him getting to work at noon, wearing sunglasses. Bottles of water sitting on his desk with aspirin boxes. Not working on Mondays, then that changing to Fridays. When I saw him at one of the restaurants I frequent, sitting at the bar yelling at the bartender because he was cutting him off, I called a cab for him and told him the next day to go get help.”

  Rachel grabbed her chest. “I had no idea. It makes me wonder where I was. Did I not notice he was gone? Did I know about it and still was unable to change things? You said, yourself, he refused to go get help.”

  “I’m not sure, dear. I guess it doesn’t matter now. Keep the good memories of him with you.”

  Cassie brought in the box. “I pulled out the legal folders and anything that looked like it belonged to the firm. A book, some kind of head, and a picture of you is in here. I recycled things like his office supplies: pens, notebooks, and paper clips.”

  “Thanks.” Rachel took the box from the girl. It was light, despite its size.

  “Ms. Tyler, it was good to see you again.”

  “You too, dear. Take care of yourself.”

  Rachel couldn’t wait. She flung off the top of the box in the backseat and foraged through the things. All of the important stuff was weighted down by the mass of Thomas Jefferson’s head. A black book drew her attention first.

  It was thick. The corner of the first half was stained by coffee, making the pages stiff and curved. Not many appointments to find past July. As though his hand grew lazy of writing them down, if he had any. Surely, he had some. The accident happened in January

  As Rachel flipped through, a little piece of paper airlifted off the page and floated to the floorboard of her car. She hit her head on the gearshift trying to retrieve it. The ink had mostly faded, but she could make out it was a receipt. Tittles Bed and Breakfast, it read. Bed was barely legible. She strained to see the rest. One hundred fifty dollars. There was no signature on the bottom. Perhaps just a courtesy copy. It was dated the week of the accident. Her mind blew up a couple of times, trying to dream up a scenario of what he was doing at Tittles. Maybe he took her there. How could she know?

  She dialed the number to her office. Melinda was still there. It wasn’t four o’clock yet. “Melinda.” Rachel bypassed the whole Medical Arts Practice intro. “Can you access this year’s appointments for me? I need to know if I had any on…” She squinted to see the date and time. “January third, eleven a.m.”

  “Hold on. I’ll check.”

  Rachel bit her nail, waiting. Eleven a.m. That meant it was the night before. “Check the day before, too.”

  “I’ve got it. You had a full day on the third, and some on the second. Why?”

  “Never mind. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Rachel started her car, her nostrils flaring. She was going to get to the bottom of this.

  ***

  Rachel slammed down the receipt on Dane’s desk.

  He looked up in surprise. “Rachel, I didn’t think you were feeling well.” He looked at the piece of paper. “What’s this?”

  “You lied.”

  The bridge of his nose wrinkled. “Excuse me? I lied about what?”

  “You told me Scott wasn’t having an affair.” She pointed to the paper. “There’s the proof.”

  He held it two inches from his face. “I can barely read it. What does it say?”

  She paced. “It’s a receipt from Tittles Bed and Breakfast. I’ve looked it up on my phone. I don’t recognize it in the picture.”

  “And you think it means he was having an affair?” He handed it back to her.

  Someone cleared their throat behind her. It was Melinda.

  “Excuse me, guys. But, it’s four o’clock. Is it all right if I turn the phone to night service and lock the door? Dr. Fisher’s getting ready to leave, too.”

  “Sure, Melinda. Have a good evening.” Dane stood up from his chair.

  “Come on, Rachel. Let’s talk about this somewhere else.”

  “I don’t want to. I want to know what you know right now.” She prodded the desk with her index finger.

  “Okay, this is what I know. To the best of my knowledge, Scott was not seeing anyone else.”

  There was a loophole in there somewhere. “Come on—he didn’t light a cigar without calling you first to gloat about it.”

  She hated when he smoked. He stunk for days. It got in his clothes, on his breath. She made him do it out by the shed. And she hated that Dane was the one who always told him about stores that sold the good ones.

  “Rachel, what are you trying to do?” He placed his hand on top of her shoulder.

  She fell into the chair, suddenly feeling as if the bolts that were holding her together were slipping out of the holes. She covered her head with her hands.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m trying to understand why I can’t remember. Why I don’t remember my husband as an alcoholic. I’ve racked my brain trying to see when the moment was that he turned into someone he hated.”

/>   He cried with her the night she told him about losing Ruthie. He confessed that alcoholism was what killed the relationship between his parents. It was a common bond they shared. His mother raised him by living with his grandparents. His dad had very little to do with him, growing up. Rachel didn’t even know whether he was still alive.

  Dane bent down on his knees. She heard them crack. “What’s important for you to remember about Scott was that he loved you.”

  “Then why did he drive drunk with me in the car? Why would I have gotten in it the first place?” Why did Ruthie run and jump in the car with their dad?

  “Damn it, Rachel, I don’t know. Why can’t you just focus on today? What’s right in front of you? Your thriving practice.” He had nothing else.

  Or maybe he did and refrained from saying it.

  She wasn’t getting anywhere with Dane, so she chose to leave while he thought she was giving up on it. He watched as she waved and drove away from the office.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Setting the Stage

  December 29. Rachel had taken Gus across the road to Debbie’s and was finished packing for the trip home. A two nights’ stay called for one nightgown and four outfit changes. Depending on how fat her mother’s mirrors made her look in things, she would have an option to wear something different. Her mind strayed to her new baby-blue sweater. It was new. A gift to herself. It was marked down at that store in the mall that had the gigantic chandelier hanging in the middle of it. After New Year’s Day, it would probably be fifty percent off, but Rachel couldn’t wait. It had been a long time since she bought anything for herself.

  She pulled out her phone from her back pocket as it rang the second ring.

  “Hey, Rachel. It’s Dane.”

  “Calling to back out, huh?” She kind of hoped he was. Their new relationship after the necklace and kiss was too uncomfortable at times. She wasn’t ready for any more complications. Maybe after the holidays, like resolutions, their awkwardness around each other would slowly dissipate.

  “No way. I was calling to ask if you wanted to go to Edie and Shawn’s? They’re having a pre-New Year’s Eve party. The whole gang will be there. What do you say? Will you come and wow me with your talented skills at Bullshit?”

  Bullshit was a drinking game that she’d dominated in their formative years. Dane always accused her of cheating and not taking the right amount of shots. She used to think he was a bully, but perhaps he was just flirting with her.

  “You’d like to think you could beat me at that sorry ass game, but not in your lifetime, Dr. Stone.”

  “Prove it. Come over to my house. We can walk there. They’re only three houses down from mine.”

  “I can’t.” She sat on her bed, surrounded by medical journals. She had pushed off most of them, with her feet.

  “Why? Are you too busy crocheting another blanket for your bed?”

  “Excuse me? Are you insinuating I’m old, or I have talent to do such a thing? Because I am neither, my dear, former gigolo turned bike rider in the park on Saturdays.”

  “How do you know what I do on Saturdays?”

  “Melinda said she almost ran over you, two weeks ago. She said you were in the middle of the road. Dane, have you taken the proper safety classes involved with cycling? You stay on the side, and the cars still ride back and forth in the middle.”

  “Shit, I knew that was her. I recognized the back of her head in that little beat-up Honda. She nearly killed me. I hurt my wrist when I fell into the curb.”

  “Good grief, Dane. What were you doing in the middle of the road? I thought she was exaggerating when she told me.”

  “I wasn’t in the middle, Rachel. She swerved onto the bicycle side. I should dock her vacation leave for that bullshit.”

  “Dane, calm down. I’m sure it was an accident. My point was, you’ve stopped your partying ways, too. I remember many a Saturday that I was waking you up, passed out on your floor. Dragging you into work before Dr. Wallace wrote you up for being late. Again.”

  “You were kind, in that regard.”

  “In that regard? I’m mean, in other regards?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I just never saw you as anyone I could go out and have fun with until it was too late.”

  “Too late for what?” She switched ears. Her right one was getting hot from the cell phone.

  “I didn’t see you different until Scott started dating you. I guess it was him who made you act different. I seemed to only bring out the bitchy side of you.”

  “Bitchy?” Her tone caught attitude.

  “Oh, shit. That came out wrong. I mean, you were so cold to me. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right for you.”

  “Dane, I was intimidated by you. You were this gorgeous hunk, who could get any girl he wanted, and usually did. And I always felt like I needed to constantly find an excuse why you’d never consider asking me out.”

  Crickets. She heard nothing on the other end of the phone.

  She continued. “So, I focused on your shortcomings and tried to act like my brain was more powerful than my skirt size. It was a defense mechanism. Treat you like a little, dumb boy and stop feeling bad about you only seeing me as a giant nerd.”

  “You thought I was a hunk?”

  Is that really all he got out of that? Nothing about her feeling rejected, dejected, and a nerd? Of course he wouldn’t. Maybe she did have him pegged right from the start.

  “Yes, Dane.”

  “Well, you sure know how to use that defense mechanism, because I misread it as bitchy. I thought you did it because you couldn’t stand the sight of me. Then you’d go and do something completely out of character and cover my ass with Dr. Wallace. Or find me after a night of partying and pick me up with coffee in the car, reciting our patient cases until I came around and could tell you more about them myself.”

  “I probably had a crush on you.”

  “No shitting way.”

  She felt hot. Her throat was swelling shut. What did she just admit to? She never even admitted it to Collette. She never labeled it before now. After she met Scott, she never thought more about Dane. He continued his bachelor ways and she settled down with his best friend.

  “You’re right. No shitting way.” She would take it back. It never happened. There were no witnesses to the call. She could do that.

  “Rachel, you just said—”

  “You think I said that. I didn’t. Now, I’m going to get off the phone and—”

  “Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

  “Umm, hello? Mr. Poster Child for Communicable Disease? You were too wild. Too commitment challenged. Too out of my league.”

  “Go to the party with me tonight, Rachel? Please?”

  “Dane, I shouldn’t. We have to be at the airport at twelve o’clock.” She angrily kicked the other magazines off her bed. She hated being the one who always went by the book. There was fun to be had, if she’d get out of her bedroom and do it. She was a nerd.

  “Twelve o’clock? Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I better go to sleep right now.”

  She smiled at his ode to sarcasm. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”

  “Great. I’ll see you in ten or fifteen.”

  Rachel put down the phone. Did she realize that getting burned was the number-one result of playing with matches?

  Rachel pulled back the sleeves on her coat. Was her perfume too strong? It was if it was nine o’clock at night and you just sprayed it on. By that hour, most of the sting from the alcohol would’ve been worn off and everyone smelled like nothing. She rubbed her wrists on her jeans until they burned. She couldn’t seem as if it were a date. It wasn’t. In fact, she was going to address the point, first thing when she got to Dane’s house. She was going to give back the necklace and explain they couldn’t be more than friends. It was spitting on Scott’s grave if she did anything less. He had even asked her once whether she was attracted to Dane. She vehemently denied i
t. Plus, they were business associates.

  Her car slightly jumped the curb in front of his house while she was parking. A good, stiff drink would calm her nerves. It didn’t matter the fence her thoughts were riding on the way to his house; it was going to be clearly stated tonight. Friends. Friends. Friends.

  She knocked on his door with her cashmere glove. Two weeks and still keeping in the warmth. He spared no expense when he bought those. She stared at the handrail on his porch. She had a flashback of getting a splinter from it. Her finger rubbed along the chipping paint.

  Dane opened the door. Warm air from inside escaped to his porch. He invited her in.

  “Okay, but only for a minute. I want to talk to you about something.”

  He escorted her over to the sofa. The room had a vaulted ceiling; a stoned fireplace stretched to the ceiling. His couches were gray and matched the square, black ottoman in the middle of the seating. He sat down on the long sofa; she noticed the first two buttons were undone on his striped shirt. His sleeves were folded up three-quarters high on his arm. He looked very handsome.

  “So, to clear up a few points about tonight’s discussion.”

  “Rachel,” he interrupted. “Please don’t. Don’t analyze it. It’s one of the first honest things you’ve said in a while.”

  “I’m not honest?” She grabbed her chest.

  “It’s not that you’re dishonest. I never get to hear your feelings about things, about people. About me.”

  “I wanted to expand on my thoughts, if I may.” She waited for him to concur with a head shake. “What happened before I met Scott had nothing to do with while I was with him. I don’t want you to confuse that.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I loved Scott. I married him, for goodness’ sakes. And now that he’s not here anymore, I could never have the same feelings for you as I did before Scott and I met. Hell, I’m not even sure I did have a crush on you or not.” She pulled at the neckline of her coat. It was getting hot in there.

  He seemed confused. “Why?”

  “Why what?” She needed to get to the party where there was liquor. This shit was too much to handle sober.