The Other Man

  I wasn’t bitter about any of it, I swear.

  Not then at least. Later, I’d find my bitter (with some help), but it was not my first inclination.

  I went through stages after he left. Which was surely bizarre when I thought about what a short time we’d actually been together.

  I mean, what did we have, really? We’d spent mere days together, mere hours. And it was a fact that most of that time we were in bed, and some part of him was inside some part of me.

  That did not a love story make.

  But no matter what I told myself, he’d made an impact, left an imprint, on every part of me he’d touched. When I took inventory of just what that meant, there was very little he’d left of me unscathed.

  Even so, I found myself trying, more than anything, to just make peace with his leaving.

  I was good at making peace with things I couldn’t control or change. I always had been. It was what made me a great photographer, and hell, even a good dental patient. I could hold still, without complaint, as long as it took until the job was done.

  I had a bit of a temper, but it usually burned out fast, and in its wake, I always found peace. Heath had been right. I was an inherently peaceful woman.

  The peaceful stage didn’t last long, but then, it had help in its exit as it was forcibly removed.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was ten p.m. when my doorbell rang.

  Of course I assumed it was Heath. I wasn’t expecting anyone else, and though he’d said he wouldn’t be back, it was a strange hour for a random drop in from someone who was not my mysterious lover.

  I guess it was excitement that had me not so much as glancing in the peephole or bothering to put on more than the thin tank and tiny panties I’d been about to wear to bed.

  I’d had what felt like endless hours after to regret the things I hadn’t said to him, hadn’t tried to get him to say to me, and so even if this was just another goodbye from him, I wanted it, if only to get a few things off my chest.

  I flung my front door open without a thought toward caution.

  I was just so sure it was him.

  It was not.

  It was a woman, a stranger. She was very young and staring at me with wintry eyes and a bitter twist to her mouth.

  I was about to learn that that bitter was contagious.

  She had short, dark hair, and a lean muscular build that was apparent under her tight navy shirt and tighter jeans.

  She was very pretty, but I doubted she was called that often. There were too many other things about her that stood out. The pretty was far from one of her dominant features.

  She looked hard. Not in an unflattering way. Not hard as in brittle, but hard as in carved stone. Soft just wasn’t an option for this woman. I knew that at once.

  “Hello, Lourdes,” she said. She had a husky voice, the kind of raspy tone men talked about.

  Sexy. Another word she’d be called long before you ever got to pretty.

  “I work with Heath,” she added when I just kept staring at her. “May I come in? I’d like to speak to you. It won’t take a minute.”

  The way she spoke had me reassessing her age, because I’d had her pegged as very young, but with a few words I was guessing closer to twenty-five than, say, eighteen.

  “Um, sure, okay,” I said, stepping back.

  She came inside briskly, and I noted with surprise that she was actually shorter than I was when she swept by. She wasn’t short, more like average height, but something about her had made me assume, at first impression, that she was tall.

  She struck me as a badass, I decided, and in my head badasses were just always tall.

  “Let me go put on a robe,” I said, feeling awkward in just my minuscule top and lacy panties.

  She’d been headed into my living room, but at that she stopped and snapped around. Her eyes raked me, top to bottom. “Whatever you prefer, but don’t cover up on my account. I’ve seen it all.”

  It felt like a dare, or an insult, an insinuation that if I did cover up, it was because I was self-conscious or maybe even ashamed of my body.

  I was not, and by now I could tell this woman was not here for a friendly visit, so I stayed how I was.

  Let her see that I was proud of my body. I was forty-one, a mother of two grown men, but my skin was smooth and flawless and not one thing on me sagged. I was toned, but still shapely in all the right places. Due to countless hours of hard work, my body was as killer as it’d ever been, and this seemed like a situation where it suited me to use it.

  She pursed her lips and strode into my living room. She didn’t sit, but faced me, arms crossed over her chest, eyes level on my face.

  There was another quiet spell while we just studied each other.

  She was very attractive, in a tough girl kind of way, a way that women perhaps appreciated more than a lot of men. Girl crush material would have been a good way to describe it, if she’d been more pleasant.

  “I’m not sure what Heath has shared with you,” she began. “But he and I are close. We’re partners, but I see he didn’t tell you about me. No matter. Doesn’t change why I came here. I have some things to share with you, about Heath that I think you need to hear. He and I are very similar, so I can give you some good insight into why he acted the way he did with you. He shouldn’t have left you hanging like that, and I’m here to correct it.”

  I did not like the sound of that. Not at all.

  She continued, “Our backgrounds are nearly identical. We were both recruited for a very small unit in the CIA before either of us were old enough to vote.”

  Wow. And she was still young. So young. God, how did the government recruit these kids so young? I kept thinking; my mind stuck on that.

  It seemed wrong and sad.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did they recruit you so young?”

  She smiled unpleasantly. “It wasn’t random. There’s only one reason for the choices of recruits in our particular program. They found something, a talent, a skill, a specialization in each of us that made us valuable to them.” The way she spoke was inherently sharp, every word very pointed, shaped to cut, though I didn’t understand why.

  I thought at first that it was just the way of her and not a personal attack on me.

  I was wrong, but I wouldn’t realize that until much later.

  “What was it?”

  “That made them recruit me?”

  I nodded.

  “The same reason they went after Heath.” She paused, brows raised, as though waiting for my response.

  I just stared back. I wasn’t going to ask. I didn’t know exactly where this was headed, but I knew I would’t like it.

  “You know his story, right?” The question was whittled into a very sharp, stabbing point.

  I shook my head, hating the way that made her look at me, like I was less significant than she’d assumed.

  “Oh,” she said, putting worlds of meaning into the word. “Well, to oversimplify it, we were both very good at killing people from an early age. By sixteen I was a hardened criminal, working for the same organization as Heath, one that employed individuals like us to do their dirty work.”

  Well, hell, part of me had guessed that. Something about him had always struck me as part military/part criminal, so this added up.

  “The law caught up with Heath first,” she continued, “found him in the middle of a particularly gory killing. Care to hear the details?”

  I didn’t have time to answer or even figure out the ramifications of what she was asking.

  “He was rather vigorously eviscerating this piece of work named Tony G., who was the top goon of a rival crime family. Have you ever seen a human eviscerated? It takes skill not to kill them quickly like that. The poor bastard was still alive, what was left of him, but Heath wasn’t done. He was determined to get some information out of the guy before he put him out of his misery. You
see, Heath was always quite talented at getting information out of people.”

  By then I was shaking so hard that I knew she could see it, but she just kept talking.

  “But back to the story. Tony G. had a rap sheet a mile long. That’s why the feds happened upon the crime Heath was committing. They were actually going after the other guy.

  Her eyes were on my shaking hands, clasped in front of me, and I knew I was giving her exactly the reaction she had hoped for.

  Her smile turned more vicious as she continued, “Tony didn’t live long. He bled out while Heath was arrested. So they had him on murder one and a slew of other awful things. Caught in the act. Life in prison, easy.”

  I felt faint. I’d known, absolutely known, that Heath had a violent past, and being that violence had never been a part of my life, I’d known that past was something I could not fully comprehend or relate to, but I’d never imagined anything like this.

  “Want to know how old Heath was when this happened?”

  I nodded.

  “Fifteen. He was fifteen and a cold-blooded killer. For a crime like that, with the proof they had that not only was he a killer, but that he had talent with a blade, the kind of talent that you only get with a lot of practice. It was a given he’d be tried as an adult. The feds that found him were shaken up by what they’d seen. He was always big for his age, but he was still fucking fifteen. It freaked them out, seeing a kid doing a thing like that. Freaked them out, and got their attention.”

  “I think it was the control he displayed, the utter calmness of the way he operated, that made them realize he was not just your average mobster psychopath. I heard one of the agent’s version of the story later. To hear him tell it, it was like they’d walked in on Heath reading a newspaper. That was how calm he was in the middle of the act.

  “Long story short, he got a full pardon, well, more like a new life, a new identity, but of course it wasn’t free. He just had to serve his time in a different way, though it wasn’t all that different for him than what he was used to. Murder and torture for a more honorable cause, I think is what Heath would call it.”

  “What about you?” I asked her, when I could find my voice again.

  “Heath got me in, told them about me, that I was like him, that we worked well together. It was all true, and he knew I wanted out of that life. The way they treat women in there who aren’t family, even ones working for them, well, let’s just say I was more than happy to defect. I’m sure he saved my life. I wouldn’t have lasted long.”

  “I’m not sure why you’re telling me all of this.”

  Her unpleasant smile came back in full force, and her voice sharpened until each word was a piercing nail. “Heath is the only person in this world that means anything to me. Anything at all. He’s more than my partner.”

  “You’re sleeping with him,” I told her, trying and failing not to make it an accusation.

  Her mouth twisted until I couldn’t tell if she was trying to grin or scowl. “You’ve met him. You see how he operates. Did you imagine that you were the only one?”

  I hadn’t imagined that.

  I’d hoped for it.

  Wished for it, but clearly that had been foolish.

  “Would you like to know why he slept with you in the first place? I mean, a woman twice his age? He can take his pick. Haven’t you ever wondered why he picked you?”

  I badly wanted to correct that. The twice his age part. It was an exaggeration when the actual truth was bad enough.

  And that entire train of thought was just a distraction for myself and the way that I felt in that moment, which was awful.

  “Why are you here? What do you want?” I was done, and I wanted her to leave before she told me another awful thing.

  “I want you to know what’s been going on. How in the dark you’ve been from the moment you met him.”

  “Why? Why are you so worried about me?” I asked this knowing the answer, but hoping she’d give me another option.

  She was involved with him. It was obvious. Sleeping with him. She’d as much as admitted it. The only question was, how heavily involved? How deep did his betrayal run?

  “Do you know that he’s spied on you? Extensively.”

  My eyes narrowed on her, studying her face as though it would tell me what this new angle of hers was. It did not. “He already told me that he did a background check on me,” I explained, begrudgingly. “He said he had to do that with anyone he was seeing because of his job, and I believed him.”

  She laughed. It was much too bitter for her years. “Do you want to know just how much he’s spied on you and the real reason for it?”

  I didn’t answer, just folded my arms across my chest and watched her. I figured she was going to tell me, regardless of how I responded.

  “He swept this place, top to bottom. I guarantee it. Went through everything, from your filing cabinets to your underwear drawer.”

  My mind shot immediately to the time we’d cooked a meal together, to how he’d known every inch of my kitchen, every ingredient in my spice cupboard.

  Then it shot to the first time I’d had him over. He’d known exactly where I kept my vibrator, but I’d been too distracted by him to wonder or care at the time.

  Considering all of that, I was certain then that she wasn’t lying.

  Still, it confused the hell out of me. “Why? Why on earth would he do that?”

  “It was all for Iris. All of it. The reason he spied on you, approached you, seduced you. It was all done only to protect her.”

  And that confused me even more. “His sister? You’re saying he seduced me for his sister?”

  She laughed, and it gave me the chills. She was a scary woman, and she was clearly enjoying herself at my expense.

  “It all goes back to your friend Alasdair Masters.”

  What the fuck? Why did it keep coming back to Dair?

  I was more lost than ever. “Dair?”

  “Yes, Dair. Dair and Iris.”

  “Dair and Iris?” I repeated back dumbly.

  “Yes. Iris is obsessed with Dair, and she was worried that he was interested in you. Heath knew she was worried, and Heath would do anything for his sister. What his sister wants, Heath makes sure she gets. First, he needed to check you out because that’s what he does. And then he needed to eliminate you as a threat to his sister.”

  “How would I be a threat to his sister?”

  “A threat to her not getting what she wanted.”

  I just stared at her.

  “Dair. She wanted Dair, so Heath made sure, firsthand, that you wouldn’t be in her way.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I don’t believe you.”

  Only that was a lie. What I meant was, I don’t want to believe you.

  But I did. She had a confidence about her that left so little room for personal insecurity that I just believed her. Why would this woman come here and lie to me about a man that had already declared himself out of my life? I couldn’t find a good reason, and so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

  Because it all made sense somehow. With what I’d known, and what she’d told me, things started to connect about the way he was, the way he operated.

  I saw it so clearly now. How everything about him was a weapon.

  Engineered to get what he wanted.

  Calculated to yield the proper results.

  And he’d wanted something from me. Pushed all of my buttons to be sure he’d gotten it.

  And he had. Above and beyond.

  “And where do you fit into this?” I asked her, but again, I knew. She had the scorned lover role down pat.

  Only I was wrong. It was worse even than that.

  “That night you went out on a date with Dair, and you came home to find Heath waiting for you. I was sent to follow Dair, to track him down with orders to interfere if he so much as touched you.

  “This is sick. He had you spying on me?” I asked slowly.

  “Yes. And even n
ow, he’s got me keeping an eye on you, making sure no one traced him to your place.”

  “He still has you spying on me?” I was disgusted and appalled. At him, at her.

  At myself.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I began, my rare but memorable temper coming to the surface. “Your lover tells you to spy on the other woman he’s been sleeping with, and you do it? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I’d scored a hit; it was clear by her flashing eyes and the malevolent twist to her mouth.

  I got the distinct impression that her temper was even more memorable than mine, and I had a brief feeling of regret that I’d provoked it on purpose. This was not some normal woman. If I pushed just the wrong button, she’d have no qualms about taking my life. I knew it instinctively.

  Luckily, I hadn’t pushed her quite that far.

  “I’m his partner,” she said through gritted teeth. “He and I have a history you couldn’t understand. You’re nothing to him. Part of a job. I just thought you should know that’s all you ever were. He never broke character with you. Not for a second. I just wanted you to know that.”

  And then she left, because she’d accomplished what she came for.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  And so began the next stage of my Heath withdrawals. This one was much less pretty than the first and lasted quite a bit longer.

  I’ll confess, I had a few bitter moments there, a few man-hating days, where I cursed him as a bastard, and vented, ad nauseam, about what a deceitful son of a bitch he was to my girlfriends.

  A brief moment in time where I swore off men for good.

  I felt so foolish. How had I fallen so easily for his act?

  How had I made him out to be something that he wasn’t?

  Had I always been a chronic romanticizer?

  It was a serious question I asked myself, and the answer was not long in coming.

  Yes, of course I was. How else had I stayed married for so long, in ignorance, to a man whose main characteristic had to be, above all things, narcissism?

  I put things, ideas, people on pedestals. I made little poems in my mind about my loved ones, and though they didn’t rhyme, they were beautiful poetry, poetry that shaped the better things in my life.