“He’s rich,” she all but whispered to her tablet as she clicked around to learn more about him.
“Ah, yeah! Daddy’s worked with the Fairchilds for years.”
Monica glanced at Katie. “You know them?”
“Never met ’em.” Katie retrieved Monica’s glass and set it in front of her. “My dad knew their dad.”
“Before he died?”
“Yeah.”
Another link took her to island tours. There she found a more recent picture of Trent wearing the clothes she associated with him. Shorts, a company pullover short-sleeved shirt, and flip-flops. “How come he didn’t tell me he was all this?”
Katie leaned against the counter and set the bowl of popcorn between them. “Guys brag about stuff like that to get laid.”
Monica stared at the picture of Trent. “He didn’t need to brag to get laid.”
The room grew quiet and when she glanced at Katie, her friend studied her with sad eyes. “Was it great?”
“Trent?”
“Yeah, Trent.” The bless your heart was implied.
She allowed the silly grin to spread. “I didn’t know sex could be like that. Where you feel it from head to toe and so many ricochets in the middle you know it can’t be real. Then you open your eyes and he’s still there, smiling… feeling it too.”
“Sounds perfect.”
If it was so perfect then why did he run off? “Then the walls collapse, you almost die, and he runs off at the first hurdle. Must not have been so perfect for him.” She tipped her glass again.
“Asshole!” Katie yelled.
“Fucktard!”
Katie giggled. “Fucktard is such a funny word.”
Monica drove the melancholy away with alternating sugary and salty bites. Katie cursed Trent with one breath, then poked a little more and sighed into the warm parts of their story, until Monica was certain Katie could write a book on the romance that wasn’t.
They polished off nearly three bottles of wine by the time Monica made it to bed. She had no problem falling asleep with her fuzzy brain.
Seeing Trent again led to dreams so real Monica could smell them in her sleep. When she revisited the moment the rocks fell on her, she looked over and saw Trent lying lifeless under the rubble. She woke screaming his name. Her heart raced from too much wine and too many memories. She flipped over, desperate to chase away the dark.
Katie ran into her room and Monica lost it.
The tears she’d been pushing back all night fell.
Jessie no sooner met Monica’s doorstep than Katie whisked her away after leaving a note on Monica’s fridge saying she went for a walk.
“She’s asleep?”
“Finally fell off a couple of hours ago. Oh, Jessie, it’s worse than I thought.”
They’d only gone a few blocks and Jessie wanted to turn around. “Then we need to be with her.”
“You need to hear this first.”
Katie almost never left home without polish, and here Jessie looked into the eyes of her millionaire sister-in-law with hair that had barely been tied back in a ponytail and not a stitch of makeup and knew it had to be bad. “Don’t stop now.”
“She loves him. I mean really loves him.”
“C’mon, she knew him for two weeks. Monica falls in bed with guys, but not love.”
Katie stuck out her hand. “Five bucks?”
Jessie shook her head and shook Katie’s hand. “Sucker’s bet. Tell me what you know.”
“Yesterday was awful. Those punk lawyers should be horsewhipped for what they put her through.” Katie recapped the deposition for Jessie, leaving her angry.
“She wasn’t expecting Trent.”
“Did he say why he ran off?”
“Remember a guy named John?”
Jessie hesitated as they turned a corner in her old neighborhood. “Yeah. Oh, wait, Trent saw John and got the wrong idea?”
“Worse. John told Trent they were engaged.”
Jessie stopped that time. “Shut up!”
Katie nodded slowly. “So Trent, feeling like a third wheel, runs off.”
Jessie started marching again. “Monica doesn’t need a man who’s going to run off at the first sign of trouble.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I looked up old stories about the Fairchilds. Trent’s parents were killed in a plane crash a few years ago along with a woman.”
“OK?”
“I haven’t confirmed it, but this married woman was listed as a friend of the Fairchilds’ only her husband didn’t know them.” Katie looked as if she was sitting on a pile of answers but Jessie was a little lost.
“Help me connect the dots, Katie.”
“I need Jack to talk to Trent’s brothers. I think there is more to the story about who else was on the plane when it went down. Right after the accident Trent moved to Jamaica.”
“You think Trent loved the woman?”
Katie shrugged.
“And she was married to someone else?”
“Happily, according, to the papers. But the whole thing stinks. Like there’s a story there not being told.”
Jessie turned the block and headed back to Monica’s. “OK, so let’s say Trent loved this woman. If he knew she was married then why was he troubled to think Monica was hooked up with someone else? A guy who helps a wife cheat…” she shivered. Again, all lines drawn said this Trent guy wasn’t the one for Monica.