Chapter 11 #3
“No idea,” she said. “It sounded like he’d been taking it for years. I just figured he’d gotten it from his doctor.”
“When did the relationship change?” I asked.
“It didn’t take long for the curtain to be pulled back,” she said.
“As hot and heavy as it started, it cooled off just as quickly. He wasn’t able to maintain a level of attention on anyone but himself.
As far as he was concerned, the world revolved around him.
His clothes had to be perfect, his body, his hair.
There wasn’t a mirror he didn’t stop to look at.
He had mirrors in his bedroom. He was even focused on himself during sex.
He was never watching me. Just himself, like he was grading his performance.
“And then all of a sudden he lost interest. The challenge was gone, I guess. Not like I gave him much of one. You start to know something is going on when you go from having sex multiple times a day to twice a week. Then even less. It pissed me off. It felt deliberately cruel. Like he’d cultivated this relationship and spent all this time investing in it at the beginning.
And I’m not talking about just his time.
He took me on weekend trips. And Wade didn’t travel coach.
He talked about having a family and kids.
He bought me a ring, not an engagement ring but this intricate diamond band.
It made me think he’d eventually get to the engagement ring, but it had only been a couple of months.
“But the sudden disinterest in me and sex was a red flag,” she continued.
“You get this feeling in your gut. This heaviness. As a woman, you know when a man isn’t fully committed or if his interests are veering elsewhere.
Women always know, even if they don’t admit it to themselves.
I’ve been cheated on before, so I recognized the signs.
Missed dates. Always on his phone. He always made sure to hide the screen from me.
When we were at work he became overly professional, as if he didn’t want the clients to see that we were together.
“Then one night he took me for dinner and brought me back here. We made love for hours. It was insane. Very intense. Like seriously the best sex of my life. When we were done I caught sight of his phone on the nightstand and there was a text from a woman. And it wasn’t a just being friendly kind of text. I confronted him.”
“How’d that go?” I asked.
“Wade has this thing he does when someone confronts him or is too aggressive. He just smiles and becomes very agreeable, like he’s doing you a favor listening to your complaints.
I’d seen him do it a couple of times with dissatisfied clients, but had never been on the receiving end.
So he rolled out of bed and told me it was time to end things, and that he’d prefer if I act like an adult and keep things amicable because I was a good coach at the studio. ”
“Wow,” I said.
“Exactly.” I could tell by the anger on her face she still wasn’t over it.
“I was completely caught off guard. I’m not one to hold on to my temper so I let him have it.
Threw a couple of things at him off my dresser while he was trying to get dressed.
You know, all the usual stuff. I hurled several well-placed insults that hopefully bruised his ego, and then I threw one of the small dumbbells at him as he was walking out the door. I hit his shoulder.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at your dumbbells?” Jack said.
“Sure, I guess. They’re right over there against the wall. This place isn’t big enough for a workout room.” Jack got up and went over to the weight set. They were all there, and there were no extras that matched Wade’s set.
“Any contact with him after that day?” Jack asked.
“No, I blocked him on my phone, and had another instructor get my things from my locker at the studio. I realized afterward how much being with him had messed with my head in such a short period of time. It was a weird form of control. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I don’t even know if you can put a label on it. ”
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt him? Jack asked.
Sheri rolled her eyes. “If he treated every woman he was with like he did me, then I’d think the line would be pretty long. But I can’t think of anyone specific.”
“You didn’t know the woman who texted him?”
“It was just initials,” she said. “I don’t remember. It’s been too long.”
“Can you tell us where you were on July first after 10 p.m.?”
If she was surprised by the question, she didn’t act like it. “I was here. Dean stayed over that night. He stays over most nights. You can check with him.”
“We appreciate your time,” Jack said, and stood.
We made our way back down the stairs and through the courtyard, winding our way across cracked sidewalks back to the square.
“Let’s go talk to Zoe Brown,” Jack said. “I want to see if her story is like Sheri’s.”
“Good thing we’re walking right in front of Lady Jane’s to get a coffee refuel.”
“You need to drink water,” he said.
“I’ll get an iced tea. That has water in it.”