Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
“Yes,” Ian confirmed after agreeing to meet me at a busy lunch place in Arlington. I’d found his number on Ali’s mobile. “I was the guy at Lizzie’s apartment in Maryland. She wanted me to stay out of sight when her estranged husband visited.”
Something inside of me relaxed a little more. For another person to confirm that Ali hadn’t been involved with Lizzie solidified the truth for me. Ali loved me. Whatever else he kept from me, at least he wasn’t unfaithful.
“Is it true that you stalked Lizzie?”
He grimaced. “‘Stalked’ is a little strong. Lizzie has always been a melodramatic girl. I didn’t do half the things that she accused me of. But I am working on my issues with a therapist.”
“Therapist?” I wrapped my hands around my mug, soaking in its warmth. “What made you decide to seek counseling?”
“Lizzie called the police on me. Seeing a counselor was a condition of having any potential charges dropped.” He spoke around a healthy bite of roast beef sandwich. “I did get too caught up. I needed the wake-up call.”
“How did this thing with you and Lizzie start?”
“Lizzie messed with my head.” He crunched on a potato chip. “She was happy to sleep with me when Ali dumped her to marry you.”
Surprise rippled through me. “You and Lizzie hooked up?”
“But, after a couple of weeks, she decided it was a rebound thing. Apparently, I wasn’t good enough. Then she went off and married her professor.”
“She did have a right to marry whoever she wanted.” How many guys slept with girls for a couple of weeks and then dumped them?
“Now you sound like my therapist.” He swiped some crumbs off his mouth with a white paper napkin. “But you’re right. I let it go the first time.”
“The first time? There was a second time?”
He nodded. “After her marriage broke up, we started seeing each other again. So I think to myself, ‘This is finally our time. Lizzie finally sees it.’” His voice rose in anger. “And then she dumps me again? Tells me yet again, ‘Oh, sorry, you’re just a rebound fuck.’”
“I’m sure she didn’t say it that way.”
“She might as well have.”
It took a moment to fully digest the fact that Lizzie and Ian had hooked up repeatedly. “Did Ali know you and Lizzie had gotten involved?”
“Nobody did.” He slurped soda thorough a paper straw. “Lizzie wanted to keep it quiet.”
“Do you know why?”
He shrugged. “No idea, but Lizzie insisted that she never meant to hurt me.” He stuffed several more chips into his mouth. “There I was, ready to marry her like a complete asshole while she was thinking we were just two old friends with occasional benefits.”
“What did you do after Lizzie said she didn’t want anything serious with you?”
“After she dumped me a second time, I started following her.” He held up a hand. “Before you say anything, I know it was wrong. And guess who she met up with? Good old Ali. Mr. Perfect screwing around on his wife.”
It hit me. “You’re the person who left threatening emails for Ali on the Channel Three website, aren’t you?”
He paused. “I’m not going to say anything to incriminate myself.”
“Do I look like a prosecutor to you?”
“You should thank me.” He crunched on another chip. “You didn’t want Ali seeing her, did you?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He flushed. “It wasn’t my finest moment. I was jealous.”
“He wasn’t having an affair with Lizzie,” I told him. “It was business. He just helped her buy the house.”
“Privately, right?” Ian said. “So that I wouldn’t know where she lived. I think she exaggerated her stalking accusations so that Ali would feel sorry for her.”
That wouldn’t surprise me. But I wasn’t about to let Ian off the hook. “You just admitted that you wouldn’t leave her alone.”
Ian’s eyes darkened. “That’s because I believed that Lizzie and I belonged together. Even though she’s a cocktease who’s jerked me around since college. I can’t believe I wasted so many years waiting for that b—for Lizzie . . . to realize I was the one. I’m an idiot.”
Anger radiated off him. I leaned back in my chair. “You found Lizzie because of me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, it worked out great.” He finished off the first half of his sandwich and reached for the second. “I thought Lizzie would come to Ali’s funeral but she didn’t bother to show up. Luckily for me, your lawsuit helped me find the information I needed.”
That didn’t track. “The lawsuit never went to trial, and the settlement was private. That can’t be how you found the address to the Durham house.”
Ian flushed. “Listen, I’m not proud of my behavior—”
“Wait. Wait a minute.” The revelation burst through me. “You’re the person who’s been following me!”
He pressed his lips together. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you sure?” I prodded. “You know, it won’t be hard to find out if you own a vintage orange sports car.”
“It could have been a coincidence that we ended up at the same place at the same time.”
“I was right.” Anger rushed through my veins. “It is your car.”
He gave me a wary look. “I don’t need any more trouble with the cops.”
“You scared the hell out of me! My husband died five minutes ago and you decide it’s a good idea to freak me out even more by following me all over town?”
A sheepish look came over his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I swear. If I followed you, I might have hoped you’d lead me to Lizzie.”
I thought back to the moments when I’d felt someone was watching me. “You were at the cemetery.”
He was silent.
“Have the decency to tell me the truth,” I snapped.
“I happened to be there to pay my respects to Ali.”
What an obvious liar. “How lucky for you that Lizzie happened to be there when I got to the cemetery. You followed her after that, didn’t you?”
“I might have lost her in traffic when she drove away.”
“Did you follow me to Durham when I went to see Lizzie?”
“Maybe,” he said, still being cagey. “But then she vanished again.”
“Did you tail me to the eldercare facility? And eventually from there to Lizzie’s hotel?”
“Again, I’m sure you appreciate that I can’t say anything that might incriminate me.”
“You’re a creep.” I spat the words.
His expression softened. “I never meant to hurt or scare you. I’m truly sorry.”
I was quiet for a moment, processing this new information. “Did you break into my garage and my house?”
“What?” He frowned while he chewed. “Why would I? Someone broke into your house? What were they after?”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t think of a good reason for Ian to want to get into my house. I wanted nothing more to do with this lowlife, but I still had questions that needed answering.
“So,” I continued, “after you followed me to Lizzie’s hotel, what happened?”
“She called the police on me. I have to stay away from her now.”
“And will you?”
“I’m definitely not going to jail for that”—his lips twitched—“person. Did you know that Ali and Nasser always got all the girls at school? They used to come in and out of the apartment at all hours. Lizzie wasn’t Ali’s first, but I wanted her the minute I saw her.
I knew it wouldn’t last between her and Ali. I just had to wait.”
“What made you think Ali and Lizzie wouldn’t go the distance?”
“Ali said once that the only reason he slept with Lizzie was because he got hammered out of his mind at some fraternity party. He didn’t feel like he could break up with her after he slept with her. He laid off the sauce permanently after that night.”
My world tilted. Lizzie was the reason Ali stopped drinking? “Are you sure that’s how they got together? They did know each other in high school.”
“They went on a couple of casual dates his senior year, from what I heard. That was it.”
“But I was always under the impression that he really cared about Lizzie.”
“Maybe he did, but it was more like he felt responsible for her.” He swallowed the last of his soda. “You were a totally different case. From the beginning, it was obvious to all of us how crazy Ali was about you.”
“But he stayed with Lizzie for a few years before he met me.”
“Marrying you was Ali’s escape,” he told me. “You were basically his get-out-of-jail card. You freed him from Lizzie.”
“I have to ask you a question,” I said when Lizzie opened her hotel room door shortly after my meeting with Ian.
“Another one?” She shot me an exasperated look. “I thought I answered all your questions. No, your husband didn’t buy me a house. No, I was not having an affair with your husband. What else could you want to know?”
“I just saw Ian. He pretty much confirmed that he was stalking you.”
“You reached out to Ian?” She opened the door wider. “Why? You didn’t believe me?”
“I don’t know you that well. Let’s just say I wanted to hear it from a second source.”
She threw up her hands. “OK, then . . . If Ian confirmed what I told you, then why are you here? What else do you need to know?”
“One question has really been nagging at me. I still don’t know why Ali visited your mother on the day he died.”
“Neither do I.” She exhaled loudly. “You might as well come in. I’m making a salad.”
I followed her into the kitchen area, where a cutting board and vegetables for salad were laid out on the counter.
Leaning against the wall, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Your mother said it was a shame what happened to Ali.”
“What’s wrong with that?” She diced a carrot, making sharp thwacking noises each time the knife hit the wooden cutting board. “It is a shame that he died in the car accident.”
“Yes, but the thing is that your mother said that before I told her that Ali was dead.”
“Amira,” Lizzie said in a way that suggested I was testing her patience but she was still trying to be nice about it.
“My mother is very ill. She is easily confused and very forgetful. The meds she takes for her illness don’t exactly promote mental clarity.
I can’t tell you what she meant by that. I honestly have no idea.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that Ali suddenly decided to visit your mother after, what . . . twenty-three years of not being in touch with her?”
She scooped the carrots into a metal mixing bowl. “Maybe he visited her regularly. He had a bond with my mother. They were very fond of each other.”
I watched her movements. “Your mom said he’d never visited before.”
“Like I said, Mother is forgetful.” She paused to look at me. “Why is this so important?”
“My husband died suddenly and had Xanax in his system.” My throat clogged with emotion. “The man never took anxiety meds. I would have known if he was anxious. Maybe if I visit your mother again, she’ll be able to tell me why Ali went to visit her.”
Lizzie went very still. “I wish you would let it go. If Ali wanted you to know why he was anxious, he would have told you.”
“Wanted me to know what?” I straightened. “What do you know?”
Her eyes slid away. “I don’t know if Ali was hiding something.” She started cutting a cucumber. A methodical chop, chop, chop. “I’m just saying that, if he was, maybe he had a good reason for it.”
There was something she wasn’t saying. As usual. But what was different this time was that I sensed that Lizzie actually seemed on the verge of telling me the truth.
“Please just tell me. There are too many unanswered questions,” I pleaded. “I can’t rest until I know everything.”
Lizzie paused, staring down at the round slices of cucumber. “I won’t allow you to visit my mother because your presence will upset her.”
“Why? She barely knows me.”
She set the knife down. “Because she associates you with Ali, and he was responsible for the biggest tragedy in her life.”