Chapter Seventeen #3
“It doesn’t say who she is,” Nasser answered quietly, soothingly. “But she is the woman who got the house. You’ve never heard of her?”
“No. Never.” Then I realized that wasn’t true. “Wait . . . I may have seen the name before, but I can’t remember where.”
“Maybe it’ll come to you.”
“There’s no mention of Carol Darius in the entire thing?”
“Let me make sure.” He read the document to himself while I tried to compose myself. I didn’t want to cry in front of Nasser and everyone at the Perkins firm who happened to pass by the conference room.
I blinked back tears. “This is unbelievable,” I hissed, reaching into my purse for my phone.
“What are you doing?” Nasser put his large hand on my arm, firmly but gently stopping me from pulling my mobile out.
“What do you think? I’m going to google Samantha Price. Maybe that will jog my memory.”
“Put the phone away.” The words were decisive. Serious. “The terms of the agreement dictate that we not access our phones while we have the document.”
“Oh.” I left the phone where it was. “I forgot.” While Nasser continued to study the contract, I racked my brain, trying to remember where I’d seen Samantha Price’s name before. It was just on the edge of my memory. I’d seen the name in writing. I could picture it. But where? “Oh my God.”
He looked up. “What is it?”
“I know where I’ve seen that name before. It was on one of Ali’s Facebook posts. She left a comment on an old photo of us with the kids saying that he had a lovely family or something like that.”
Nasser set the document down. “I wonder how he knew her.”
“Her Facebook had almost no info on it.”
“What the fuck was Ali doing?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “A secret house. These women that nobody close to him has ever heard of. It’s like I never knew the guy.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” I said bitterly. “Let’s go.” I never got headaches, but I felt one coming on. “I haven’t eaten all day, and I owe you lunch.”
It was a mild late-fall afternoon, so we walked over to get shawarma sandwiches at an eatery in the town center. We sat at one of a dozen tables scattered around a massive fountain. It was a cloudy day, which matched my mood. I texted Lulu the news.
WTF! Who is Samantha Price???? she responded. She was on a school field trip with one of her girls. I’ll call as soon as I can.
“How are you feeling?” Nasser asked.
“Like I got run over by a bus.” I set my phone down. “And you look like a kid who just found out Santa isn’t real.”
“Ali was practically a brother to me. But now with all this weird stuff we’re learning, it’s hard not to wonder who he really was.”
I bit into my sandwich. “Tell me about it,” I said miserably around the tender meat and garlicky white sauce filling my mouth.
Ali had left Cozy Glenn to some strange woman.
The man I thought I knew would never do that.
Who was Ali, really? Did I know him at all?
What else had been going on behind my back? Had he secretly laughed at my naivete?
Nasser reached across with a napkin and wiped the side of my mouth. “White sauce,” he said by way of explanation.
I took the napkin from him to clean up my own lips. “I feel like an idiot. I’m still desperate to believe there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this.”
“Me too.” He paused. “But, to be honest, I don’t know how likely that is anymore.”
My chest felt heavy as I set my sandwich down and reached for my phone.
“OK. Samantha Price,” I said as I searched her name online with clumsy fingers, “tell me who the hell you are.” As much as I wanted—needed—to know the truth, I dreaded finding confirmation that I’d been an idiot, that my entire marriage was a lie.
There were dozens of Samantha Prices online. Frustration rippled through me. “This is going to take forever.”
“I’ll see if the researcher at the firm can turn up anything useful,” Nasser said as he finished up his shawarma.
“Has your researcher looked up Carol Darius?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find anything?”
He shook his head. “Nada.”
“Then I don’t hold out much hope that old Sammy will be any different.”
“Did Ali even have time to cheat?” Nasser asked. “He didn’t travel that much, did he?”
“Not a lot. Once or twice a month for a night or two here and there. Sometimes he stayed overnight if he went to the Baltimore office and the meetings ran late.”
Now I wondered. Had he really been in Baltimore?
Or had he been with Samantha Price? Were they lovers?
Was she The One? For all I knew, she was just the latest in a long list of women my husband slept with during our marriage.
The thought of multiple affairs made the food in my stomach turn rancid.
I pushed the remainder of my meal away, the garlicky smell making me queasy.
“Well, at least I have some good news to share,” Nasser said. “The settlement money should be wired to your bank account soon.” Perkins hadn’t budged on the $100,000 offer. Not that it mattered; any amount of money was a bonus.
I sipped my diet soda, hoping it would settle my stomach. “You should take your share of the settlement.”
He set his jaw. “I’m not taking money away from Ali’s kids.”
I knew before offering that he would refuse. I thought about the logistics. “When will the money show up?”
“It was already wired to your account. The funds should show up in a couple of days. Perkins made a point of saying he hopes that means that our business is concluded. He has a meeting with his client this afternoon. He hopes you are both done with this matter.”
“She would like that, wouldn’t . . . wait.” I sat up straight. “Perkins has an appointment with Samantha Price today? This afternoon?”
A wary expression crossed his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I jumped to my feet. “Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“We’re going to sit outside that office building until we see Samantha Price.”
“How will we know who she is? Do you plan to accost every woman who enters the building?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.” I started back in the direction of Perkins’s office. “All I know is that this is the closest I’ve ever been to either Carol Darius or Samantha Price. I’ll come up with a plan when we get there.”
We took up a position on a knee-high landscaping wall that offered an excellent view of the doors leading into the office building. Several people came and went, some using the circular doors, others walking in the regular entrances flanking the revolving door.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said after keeping watch for about fifteen minutes.
“Agreed.” Nasser stood up. “Let’s go.”
I started walking toward the building’s entrance. “We have to be inside.”
“What?” Nasser changed course to follow me. “Why?”
“I’m going to stand in the hallway outside Perkins’s offices. That way, we’ll be sure not to miss her.”
“You can’t be serious.” He followed me through the revolving doors. “I’m an attorney of some standing in this county. I can’t be stalking the client of a colleague.”
I reached the elevator and pushed the up button. “You don’t have to come.”
“Leaving you alone is an even worse idea.”
The elevator dinged, and the door opened. “Suit yourself.” I stepped inside. He came with me even though I would have gone on my own.
I was fed up with feeling like a dupe. How long had I lived in the dark, completely oblivious to what was really going on in my marriage?
Nasser stood across the elevator from me. “Are you sure you don’t want to rethink this?”
“It’s the best plan I can come up with on short notice.” Anticipation pumped through me. Was I minutes away from meeting Samantha Price? The prospect of finally getting some real answers made me jittery.
He shot me a wary look. “Even if you do somehow recognize her, what will you say to her?”
“I have no idea.” I took in his tense posture. “Relax. It’s not like I’m going to attack her. I just want to talk.”
The elevator pinged. We’d reached our floor. I strode down the corridor and took up a position several feet before the glass double doors leading to the Perkins Law Group offices. I felt surer of myself than I had in a long time. I was taking concrete action to find the answers I needed.
“Now what?” Nasser looked up and down the corridor. “We can’t just stand here in the middle of the hallway.”
“Face me,” I instructed, leaning a shoulder against the wall. Nasser did as I asked. “Good. Now we’re just two people having a conversation.”
“Are you planning to stand here all afternoon?”
“If that’s what it takes. But it’s already two o’clock.
It can’t be too much longer. How late would an afternoon meeting be scheduled?
” I studied my husband’s cousin. He had on a dark suit and wore it well with his wide shoulders and tapered waist. “You look very respectable. No one is going to think we’re up to no good. ”
“Are we up to no good?”
“Of course not.” The elevator dinged. An older couple got out and came down the corridor toward us.
I had a good view of anyone getting off the elevator and going into Perkins’s office.
Every time the elevator sounded, it felt like a small animal leaped inside my chest. Twenty minutes stretched to thirty, then to forty-five.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked Nasser.
“I cleared the day of appointments. Just in case.”
“In case of what? Were you worried that we’d learn something today that would flip me out?”
The side of his mouth quirked up. “Something like that.”
“You know, I never liked you very much.”
He looked insulted. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“Sorry. Being a widow has made me lose my filter. Obviously, I don’t feel that way anymore. You’ve been amazing, and I’m so appreciative of everything you’ve done to help me find out the truth about Cozy Glenn.”
His face softened. “It’s the least I can do.”
“I just meant to say that I always thought you were the kind of guy who didn’t take life seriously. But I now know that’s not true.”