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“Yeah, I won’t say anything.” That was more concrete but still didn’t answer my questions.
“Did you know she doesn’t even work under her real name? Sounds sort of slippery to me, but what do I know? Stepsister—we don’t have the same parents. Did I tell you that?”
“Yes, Grace. I know. So what’s going on with her and this Kevin guy?”
“Oh, right, him. Here’s the deal. You know how guys can sorta shoot themselves in the foot with a girl?”
I nodded but didn’t add any words.
“Well, Kevin admitted he’d spent too much time with this neighbor girl—I didn’t catch her name. Anyway, you know how girls can get sorta jealous over something like that? Well, Angela went off the deep end on him, he says. And she just took off. Didn’t say where she was going. Nothing.”
“And?” I asked.
“Don’t ya sees? She’s like teaching him a lesson. You know, like if you don’t value me enough when I’m around, maybe you will after I leave?”
“This is the last one,” Dirk said.
He probably should have said that about two drinks ago.
“Yous know what I mean?” Grace asked. Her speech was still slurred, but her logic hadn’t suffered.
“Yeah,” I answered. I wasn’t sure Angela had never intended to go to her mother’s. Grace seemed sure this was all a twisted, jealous lover’s spat, which meant Angela was as vindictive as she’d always been. “And what about Devlin?”
“If she’s carrying on with Devlin, maybe that’s part of her revenge plan. Yous know, something like send Kevin a couple selfies of them together, that kind of thing.”
I took in the viciousness of a woman who would resort to that instead of talking out their differences.
“Guaranteed to drive a man fuckin’ insane,” she added. “Right, babe?”
“Yup,” Dirk answered in the background. “You wouldn’t do that to me would you, honeybunch?”
“Never, babe,” she answered.
I had what I needed for now—a basic understanding of Angela’s game. “Thanks, Grace. You guys enjoy yourselves now.”
“Since you insist.” She laughed.
After we hung up, all I could see was red.
CHAPTER18
Angela
Back at thecottage after work, I took the dogs out. Julie settled in for a few pets and her dinner, which she ate daintily.
King scarfed his food down and came over to nuzzle me before returning to his bed. That was a big effort on his part, and he somehow seemed to know I needed all the support I could get.
Shifting to the table, I opened my laptop and checked my Lord Sauron email for any responses—a job is what I needed, something that fit my capabilities better than hotel maid. These fingers were better suited to a keyboard than a cleaning sponge, to say nothing of a toilet scrubber.
The first three messages followed a perfunctory we’ll-get-back-to-you-after-reviewing-your-submission format, which meant waiting for a follow-up that might not ever come.
The fourth was worse: a check-back-with-us-next-year message.
The fifth came from Harlan Davis, a consulting firm I’d done work for once. It was a site-selection-and-justification project, which had been the way I’d started out in the business. The proposal form was in an attachment.
These didn’t require much expertise, only lots of complicated simulations, which I’d mastered long ago, and lots of spreadsheet work.
Then came the surprise.
