Read Online Next Time You See Me by Katia Lief - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Katia Lief
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layered, and if you had the patience to slowly peel back his layers he only got better and better . . . and more complicated . . . depression . . . why hadn’t I learned about it before it led him off a cliff . . . not off a cliff but into the water . . . a drowning death . . . how horrible .
How had I not known?
I put the book down and removed the last thing from the cardboard box: a slip of white paper, clearly a receipt. I unfolded it, expecting it to be for the flowers Mac had sent me the last day I saw him (he always used the florist in the lobby of his office building, and he always paid in cash), but I was wrong. The receipt was from a jewelry store in midtown Manhattan for a necklace described in neat script as Diamond and ruby cluster pendant on 18k gold chain , costing twelve hundred dollars and dated three weeks ago. It must have been a receipt for a gift Mac planned to give me for our anniversary. Its price stunned me; we had never had the money for extravagant presents. But his promotion had come with a substantial raise. I looked again at the date on the receipt: four days after his promotion, and three days before his parents were killed. I wondered where he had put the necklace. It would have been imprudent to hide something of this value at work, but at home I might have found it. Where would he have decided was the safest place to squirrel it away? Had he planned to give it to me at our dinner on Friday night, or on our actual anniversary on Saturday? What would he have done? How would he have thought? As I considered it, nothing seemed clear or obvious—yet one more thing to feel distressed about since I had never second-guessed Mac before he vanished.
I picked up Ben, hoisted him onto my hip, and carried him downstairs to his bedroom, where I changed his diaper and took his favorite cuddly, a floppy brown bunny, out of his crib. He grabbed it to him and squealed. Then, in my room, I set him down on the floor and started searching through my husband’s things: dresser drawers, closet, jacket pockets, small secretary desk where I paid our bills, two-drawer file cabinet. I looked under the bed and even between the frame and mattress. Then the spare room, especially the closet where we kept our small locked safe that was crammed with our few things that were too valuable or dangerous to leave out: I removed the envelopes containing our birth certificates, our wills, our life insurance policies, and finally picked up the licensed gun we kept mostly out of habit—a Ruger P85 9mm handgun Mac had chosen with my blessing—and stared into the empty safe. Next I checked through Ben’s room. Upstairs, I looked everywhere in the coat closet, including inside shoes and boots. and went through every kitchen cabinet. The more I looked, the more agitated I became. Where was it? And then I remembered that there was a safe at Quest for expensive electronics sometimes used on security assignments.
I picked up the phone and dialed Mac’s office number from memory. His secretary, Tina, answered on the second ring.
“Sigrid Albert’s office.”
Good , I thought: They gave the promotion to a woman. I had never met Sigrid Albert but Mac had spoken highly of her. She had been at Quest about as long as he had and had been Deidre Stein’s other protégé.
“Tina, it’s Karin.”
“Oh! Hi!”
“Thanks for sending over the box of Mac’s stuff.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But I have a question about something. Do you have a minute?”
“Shoot.”
“There was a receipt at the bottom.”
“The folded-up little paper? I didn’t look at it; it was in his personal drawer.”
“It was a receipt for a necklace—our anniversary was coming up—but I can’t find it anywhere.”
“I went through the whole office and I didn’t see any necklace.”
A note of tension had entered her tone but it was unnecessary; I didn’t suspect her of having taken the necklace. Her fiancé was a wealthy young
How had I not known?
I put the book down and removed the last thing from the cardboard box: a slip of white paper, clearly a receipt. I unfolded it, expecting it to be for the flowers Mac had sent me the last day I saw him (he always used the florist in the lobby of his office building, and he always paid in cash), but I was wrong. The receipt was from a jewelry store in midtown Manhattan for a necklace described in neat script as Diamond and ruby cluster pendant on 18k gold chain , costing twelve hundred dollars and dated three weeks ago. It must have been a receipt for a gift Mac planned to give me for our anniversary. Its price stunned me; we had never had the money for extravagant presents. But his promotion had come with a substantial raise. I looked again at the date on the receipt: four days after his promotion, and three days before his parents were killed. I wondered where he had put the necklace. It would have been imprudent to hide something of this value at work, but at home I might have found it. Where would he have decided was the safest place to squirrel it away? Had he planned to give it to me at our dinner on Friday night, or on our actual anniversary on Saturday? What would he have done? How would he have thought? As I considered it, nothing seemed clear or obvious—yet one more thing to feel distressed about since I had never second-guessed Mac before he vanished.
I picked up Ben, hoisted him onto my hip, and carried him downstairs to his bedroom, where I changed his diaper and took his favorite cuddly, a floppy brown bunny, out of his crib. He grabbed it to him and squealed. Then, in my room, I set him down on the floor and started searching through my husband’s things: dresser drawers, closet, jacket pockets, small secretary desk where I paid our bills, two-drawer file cabinet. I looked under the bed and even between the frame and mattress. Then the spare room, especially the closet where we kept our small locked safe that was crammed with our few things that were too valuable or dangerous to leave out: I removed the envelopes containing our birth certificates, our wills, our life insurance policies, and finally picked up the licensed gun we kept mostly out of habit—a Ruger P85 9mm handgun Mac had chosen with my blessing—and stared into the empty safe. Next I checked through Ben’s room. Upstairs, I looked everywhere in the coat closet, including inside shoes and boots. and went through every kitchen cabinet. The more I looked, the more agitated I became. Where was it? And then I remembered that there was a safe at Quest for expensive electronics sometimes used on security assignments.
I picked up the phone and dialed Mac’s office number from memory. His secretary, Tina, answered on the second ring.
“Sigrid Albert’s office.”
Good , I thought: They gave the promotion to a woman. I had never met Sigrid Albert but Mac had spoken highly of her. She had been at Quest about as long as he had and had been Deidre Stein’s other protégé.
“Tina, it’s Karin.”
“Oh! Hi!”
“Thanks for sending over the box of Mac’s stuff.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But I have a question about something. Do you have a minute?”
“Shoot.”
“There was a receipt at the bottom.”
“The folded-up little paper? I didn’t look at it; it was in his personal drawer.”
“It was a receipt for a necklace—our anniversary was coming up—but I can’t find it anywhere.”
“I went through the whole office and I didn’t see any necklace.”
A note of tension had entered her tone but it was unnecessary; I didn’t suspect her of having taken the necklace. Her fiancé was a wealthy young
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