Chapter Seven
Maggie sits on her bedfor the better part of twenty minutes, unable to move. Gradually, she feels the numbness that had overtaken her body start to recede. The soft buzz of the central air-conditioning system gradually worms its way into her ears; sensation returns to her fingertips; she feels the weight of the gun in her pocket pressing against her hip.
I almost shot my husband,she realizes, extricating the gun and burying it beneath the myriad assortment of scarves inside the top drawer of the nightstand.My husband doesn’t love me,she thinks with her next exhale.
He has a date.
He isn’t coming back.
Dear God.
He’s moving on. Without her.
How is that even possible?
Somehow, despite everything that’s happened, the unbelievable strain the past few years have put on their marriage, she always assumed that theirs was an unbreakable bond. Even when Craig announced he was leaving, told her that she was “losing her spark,” and that he couldn’t take it anymore, she thought that they’d somehow find their way back to each other in time.
They’d met at a party during their last year at UCLA. It was the quintessential case of opposites attracting. Maggie loved Craig’s laid-back manner and easygoing charm. Craig loved Maggie’s spunk, her intensity and high ideals. They got married; Maggie got a job teaching high school English; Craig settled into a job selling luxury cars; they had two children.
They were happy.
Sure, they had their share of arguments. Craig sometimes complained that Maggie wastoointense, her standardstoohigh,tooexacting, while Maggie occasionally accused her husband of beingtootolerant,toolaid-back.
“Sometimes you have to take a stand,”she told him.
“Sometimes you have to back off,”he countered.
Still, he was happy. She was happy.
She might have been losing her spark, but she never thought she’d lose him.
She walks to the bedroom window overlooking the street, checking the small cul-de-sac for anything out of the ordinary. Anything to stop the memories that are now flooding into her brain.
Because Maggie knows exactly the day everything changed, the precise moment two years ago that altered their lives forever.
It was a Saturday. Craig had taken the kids to the beach and Maggie was enjoying the spa day he’d gifted her for her fortieth birthday. It started with a relaxing sauna, then an even more relaxing massage, followed by a glorious facial and a much-needed mani-pedi. She’d left the salon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world.
The world, in turn, was preparing to come crashing down on her head.
She was stopped at a red light when she heard a commotion beside her. A Lincoln Town Car had apparently cut off a motorcycle, and the two drivers—one a middle-aged, well-dressed businessman, the other a rough-looking, leather-vested biker—had leapt from their vehicles and were now flailing at each other in the middle of the road, the sun flashing like a strobe light across the tattoos covering the biker’s bare arms. And then another flash—my God, was that a knife?—as the weapon sliced through the smog-filled air to pierce the driver’s jugular.
“No!” Maggie screamed as the biker calmly replaced the helmet he’d tossed to the ground only seconds before, instantly hiding his scraggly brown hair and angry black eyes. He shook his head in Maggie’s direction, as if issuing a silent warning, then mounted his bike and sped away.
The police arrived minutes later.
“I saw the whole thing,” Maggie told them, describing the altercation and giving as detailed a description as she could of the biker—the unkempt hair, the dark, menacing eyes, and the jungle of tattoos covering his arms.
“You told the police you could identify the killer?” Craig demanded when she recounted the events to him later.
“I saw a man murdered,” Maggie argued. “And I saw the person who did it. You’re telling me I should just keep quiet?”
“I’m sure you weren’t the only witness.”
“I’m the only one who saw his face.”
“No, you’re the only one foolish enough to admit it.”
The argument extended into the night and continued over the next days and weeks. They intensified after a man fitting the description Maggie had given the police was arrested, and she identified him in a lineup.