Chapter 11
I sleep like the dead. I always sleep like the dead in this house.
Last night we made love and Roy was sweet and loving. It made me think maybe the note I found didn’t mean what I thought it meant. Roy loves me, and he does not want to divorce me. It’s just Marie putting silly ideas into my head, that’s all. I shouldn’t listen to Marie.
The next morning, I’m in the bathroom about to start my routine when I notice a strange swelling under my right eye.
I bring my face close to the mirror and study it.
It’s like a blob, pulling my bottom eyelid down and giving my eye a slightly droopy look.
I pat it with my fingers, gently pushing it back upward, then dab on a drop of my incredibly expensive regenerating serum.
Maybe I got bitten by something. Maybe it’s the seam from the edge of the pillow that irritated my skin.
I apply my makeup carefully: foundation, setting powder, bronzer and blush, highlighter, eye shadow primer, eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, and I’ve got the setting spray in my hand when Roy walks in.
He wraps his arms around my waist. “Good morning, beautiful.”
“How did you sleep?” I ask in the mirror.
“Like a baby.”
I remember reading somewhere that people who say they slept like a baby obviously never had one.
“Me too,” I say.
He releases me, then runs his fingers through his hair, bending his head slightly and checking himself out in the mirror. “What are you up to today?”
“I’ve got Pilates this morning, then an appointment at the hairdresser’s. There’s a recipe from Better Homes I want it to be a surprise.”
“Lovely,” he says. He is still rearranging his hair, this way and that. “Will you pick up my blue suit from the dry cleaners?”
“Certainly.”
I glance at my own reflection, check the swelling under my eye, but with all the makeup I can’t see it anymore.
I’m sure it’s nothing.
When I return from the hairdresser’s, Marie is elbow deep in the refrigerator cleaning out the shelves.
I go upstairs and hang up Roy’s blue suit, then I slide Deborah’s appointment book out from under the mattress. I open it on my lap and turn the page to that one weird entry, the day before she died.
ITS HIM DOING IT.
“Doing what?” I whisper. “What did he do, Deb?”
I’m about to close the appointment book when I notice something else on the next spread. On the day she died, she penciled something. It’s so faint, it looks like a smudge, and a vague one at that. And it’s probably why I hadn’t seen it yesterday.
I bring the appointment book to the window, tilt it into the light.
It’s an address.
2210 Horizon Oak Circle 305. Thousand Oaks
I tell Marie that I have an errand to run, grab my car keys, and take off. I punch the address into my GPS. I have no idea what this place is. All I know is that it’s in Thousand Oaks, and it was important enough to Deb that she wrote it down one day before Roy killed her.
I haven’t been in LA long enough to judge distances, and I don’t even notice until I’m well on my way that Thousand Oaks is an hour from here.
It’s now 2:00 p.m., which means I won’t be making that special dish from Better Homes it’s not just a building on the street, and I miss the turnoff.
It takes me twenty minutes to figure out how to turn back without blocking traffic, and finally I turn into the parking lot.
There are two large white buildings at right angles to each other.
I ask a woman getting into her car if she knows where Number 305 is.
“Yes, right there.” She points at the main building, the main entrance. I thank her and walk toward it. The sign above the entrance says “Laurel-Westlake Institute of Plastic Surgery.”
That can’t be right. I mean, Deb didn’t need plastic surgery, and even if she did want a touch-up, would that really be on her mind a day before she died?
But that’s what it is. Number 305.
I walk up to the front desk. The receptionist is on the phone and she signals for me to wait. I look around, drumming my fingers on the counter. I keep thinking of how Deb wrote the address so faintly, like she was unwell, like she could barely hold up the pencil.
“How can I help you?” the receptionist says.
“Yes. I’m Mrs. Davies. Dr. Roy Davies’s wife?”
I wait to see if that rings any bells.
“Mmm?” she says.
No bells. “Well, I’ve been before, and I was wondering if I could make an appointment with the same doctor I saw last time, but I can’t remember his name.”
“I can look that up for you, Mrs. Davies. Let me see…” She types on her keyboard. “When was your last appointment?”
I pretend to think. “Early September last year, I believe.”
“Mmm…I can’t seem to find you here. What’s your first name, Mrs. Davies?”
“It’s Deborah.”
“Deborah Davies…” she says softly. “No…I can’t find you among our client files. What kind of procedure did you have?”
“Maybe I booked it under my maiden name,” I say. “Deborah Adams?”
She looks up then, with a barely, barely visible frown on her smooth face. “Perhaps if you have some ID, I can check against…”
“Never mind,” I say, tapping the counter. “I think I have the wrong place.”
I walk out, check the suite number by the door. Number 305.
So Deb wrote down this address, but she didn’t have anything done here. I sit in my car for a moment, staring at the front of the building.
I start the car and go home.