PERFECT VICTIM: A Nadia Stafford Novella by Armstrong Kelley

Author:Armstrong, Kelley [Armstrong, Kelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781622741649
Publisher: Traverse Press
Published: 2017-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Nadia

Iescorted Angela to work. Then I met up with Sheila. I’d called earlier this morning, and she’d agreed to see me.

“I start at seven,” she’d said. “I’m an early bird. That means I take my break at nine, and it’s a mile to the coffee shop. You seemed to be fine with walking while talking yesterday . . .”

“I am. I’ll meet you at nine, then.”

It turned out that the nearest coffee shop wasn’t a mile from her office. She worked downtown, at a biochemical engineering firm, surrounded by coffee shops.

“I don’t like those ones,” she said when I commented. “And I need the exercise. That’s how I’m staying off the meds.”

I nodded. “Exercise can help with pain.”

“It might. But exercise works for me because I hate every goddamn minute of it, so that’s thirty minutes a day I’m bitching about something other than my shoulder.”

She walked fast, long strides that had me half jogging to keep up. Those strides also kept her path clear, people making way for the grim-faced juggernaut. As we walked, we talked about Cherise. I didn’t have to beat around the bush. One mention of the name, and Sheila knew what I wanted to chat about, and she was happy to do it.

She didn’t defend herself again. She just answered my questions as I got a better sense of her relationship with her husband’s new girlfriend.

Sheila had known Cherise before that. She’d been the children’s babysitter at one time.

“World’s oldest cliché, huh? But it wasn’t quite like that. I don’t think Victor was shtupping the eighteen-year-old sitter. She left for college, and I didn’t see her for years. Next thing I knew, they were together. She was twenty-five by then. Right in that sweet spot. Young enough for a guy in a mid-life crisis, but not so young it’s creepy.”

She laughed, and there was no animosity in it, no bitterness.

“So he was having a mid-life crisis?” I asked. “You figured his relationship with Cherise was temporary?”

“She didn’t seem like his type, long term. He seemed like hers, though. I have no idea how it would have worked out.” She smiled. “I get the feeling Cherise might have prevailed. She had tenacity. Gumption, too, as my gran would have said.”

“How did you feel about that?”

She shrugged. “Like I said, I wouldn’t have been thrilled with Cherise as stepmommy, but honestly, I won’t be happy to see anyone taking that role in my kids’ life. Someone will, though. Victor is the marrying type.”

We picked up coffees. As we started back, at the same pace, I waited a few minutes before I resumed the conversation exactly where we’d left off.

“Any chance you two will get back together?”

“Hell, no. I love Victor dearly, but I love him as a co-parent. A friend. I’m hoping we’ll get back to that once they find out who killed Cherise. The sad thing, hon, is that we were exactly that—friends and co-parents—for most of our marriage. That’s how I got hooked on the meds.

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