The Night of the Murder Vanessa Vanderpool
THE NIGHT OF THE MURDER
Vanessa Vanderpool
She had been parked in the back of this lot for at least a couple of hours now. She couldn’t risk the heater. The engine coming to life in her Mercedes would automatically turn on the lights, illuminating her face.
She didn’t want anyone to know she was here.
Didn’t want anyone to see the cold tears that had streaked her face.
She pulled down the sun visor, opened the vanity mirror. Instantly, a small light flicked on.
Shit.
The fleeting glance she caught of her reflection was enough to know her tears had ruined her make-up. The mascara had run over her cheeks like warpaint. She flipped the mirror closed and slammed the visor back into the roof.
Shit.
She definitely didn’t want anyone to see her, but least of all the man who exited through the rear emergency door of the building straight ahead.
He was maybe a hundred yards away, but the light above the door just caught enough of him to notice that he wore a dark navy suit and thick wool coat, his tie strung loosely around his neck like a scarf.
Vanessa thought he looked well in that coat.
She had bought it for him for Christmas.
A lousy gift for a husband who had everything.
He hurried across the lot and Vanessa slunk down into the driver’s seat, fearful that Patrick might catch a glimpse of her in the moonlight, or worse still, maybe he had noticed the light from the vanity mirror.
He glanced in her direction, and she shuffled down further into the driver’s seat.
She thought, for just a moment, he might have seen her, but he never broke stride and got into his Mercedes, parked fifty feet to her left beside an old Ford and a brand-new Hyundai.
Patrick switched on the engine, then drove out of the lot.
Vanessa replayed the scene in her mind – Patrick striding across the dark parking lot, the look in her direction.
Had he seen her?
She thought not.
She waited.
Sat up straight in the driver’s seat.
And thought about her husband’s tie hanging loose around his neck. When he was getting dressed in a hurry, he would leave their home with his tie loose, slung through his collar, top button open. Just like tonight.
There was no doubting the situation any longer. He was sleeping with Molly.
The affair wasn’t in her imagination. It was real. It was happening.
It was still happening.
She had warned Molly.
Vanessa was only thirty years old, but she had been betrayed many times before.
Thinking back on it, each time had been unique.
The pain was the only constant. It felt hot, like a burning coal in her stomach.
The level of anger varied from partner to partner.
For the worst of them, the men who she knew she should never have been with in the first place, the anger was less potent, as if their cheating was an inevitability – just part of who they were.
For the better men who had passed through her life, the anger was more profound and targeted inwards toward herself.
What had she done to make these men cheat?
Tonight, the pain was a ten-foot-high inferno and the anger was just as white hot.
She had warned Molly to stay away. She had trusted her to do the right thing.
And Molly had betrayed her.
She had to end this, one way or another.
Molly had to leave. She had to disappear out of her life. Out of Patrick’s life. Forever.
And it had to be tonight.
She reached over to the glovebox. Opened it.
Inside was a small red leather Valentino purse. It was expensive, and secret, and the perfect size to snugly hold its contents. No one knew about this purse. Not Patrick, not Molly, not anyone.
She put the purse in her pocket. Felt the weight. It sank deep into her coat.
Tonight could be dangerous. She had learned to recognize those high points of peril. She might need what was in that purse.
She checked her watch, and after a few minutes she got out of the car and made her away across the jagged stones that filled the lot until she reached the steel door.
She pulled the handle on the door, found it open.
Like last night.
She went through the dark hallway, and then up two flights of stairs.
She stood in front of Molly’s apartment door for what felt like a long time, burning in the agony of his lies. Of Molly’s lies.
I warned you.
Those three words echoed in her mind, swirling like smoke from the fire of her anger.
I warned you.
She knocked on the door, waited.
Nothing.
She knocked again, harder this time, but to her surprise the increased force on the door opened it an inch. The door had not been fully closed.
She pushed inside, found the apartment in darkness.
Another few steps, in the dark. An arc of light at her back from the hallway. She didn’t want to put on lights in the apartment.
She took another step and felt her open-toe shoe sink into the carpet and then something cold and wet swill over her toes.
The carpet was wet. But she couldn’t see what was on the floor. Just a dark wet patch.
Maybe water from a leak in the ceiling. Or a spillage.
Or something else.
It was too dark to tell.
She suddenly felt afraid. A creeping dread crawled over her back, making the hairs on her neck stand up.
Even in the faint light, something on the table beside her glinted.
She picked it up, and felt the weight, solid and reassuring. A jewelry box, studded with colored stones.
Vanessa took a breath and went deeper into the dark, the box in her hand.
As she moved, she felt the weight of the red Valentino purse in her coat.
Someone once told her that life can be measured not by what you have gained, but by what you have kept. Most of her life had been loss.
She knew then she couldn’t lose Patrick. Not now.
Not now.
She moved further into the apartment.
Her entire body shook with adrenaline.
I warned you and you betrayed me.
Fear and anger coursed through her like a thousand volts of electricity.
The perfect mix for a murder.