Families are messy - 18

“How dare you!” Casey kept his temper tightly under control, but only barely, as he said those words while pacing the length of the room and back.

“It started out as a job and nothing more. To make contact with you, to make friends with you, to see if you had something going on the side, some floozy as your sister would call them. To find something that could help your wife to get more leverage in the divorce proceedings.”

Casey’s chuckle was bitter. “Well she almost got that didn’t she? Was that the next step if you didn’t find that I was involved in an affair? Were you supposed to seduce me, because I have the feeling that you were working up to that?”

Marcia sighed, shaking her head. “That was not in my game plan, and not what Kathy or rather her lawyer hired me to do. As I just said, I was only supposed to find out if you were playing around.”

“Well you know I’m not so you can go back to her, tell her so, and go on your merry way to wherever you came from.”

“Casey, shut up!”

He looked at her in shock. “Excuse me?”

“Sit down and be quiet for a moment. I need to say something and then you can leave if you want to.”

“I want to do that now,” he growled. But he did sit, tension showing in every line of his body. “Talk.”

It was her turn to pace as she formed her thoughts. “It was just a job at first. I’ve worked for Kathy’s lawyer before, although not in this capacity. He pays well so against my better judgment I took the assignment. It was fairly evident to me right from the start that you’d remained faithful to her but I stuck around just to be certain.”

He remained silent, listening.

“Before you ask, most of what I told you about myself is the truth. I do work for the catering company. It makes a good cover for getting information. And I am an aspiring actress.”

“I’d say you’re well past ‘aspiring’,” he spat out.

“Be that as it may I’ve only lied to you by omission.”

Marcia stopped pacing to look at Casey. “When you told me about the two apparent accidents you’d had I began to worry. My first thought was that Kathy was behind them but if she was then why go to the bother of letting her lawyer hire me.”

“Double blind,” he muttered, not looking at her.

“Possible of course but as you and I talked I began to see there were other... suspects. That worried me.”

“Gee, how nice of you to become concerned.” He finally looked up at her. “Were you ever going to tell me, or were you just going to go on letting me make a fool of myself, thinking we might be moving past being friends to something more.”

“You weren’t the only one who thought that might be happening, Casey.” She ran her hands through her hair, pulling it back off of her face. “Friday night, when you asked if you’d be able to see me any more once rehearsals started I almost told you no, that I’d be too busy. I was going to use that as the excuse actually, the way to get out of your life. You’d hired Ezra, he’d find out who wanted you dead, I thought it was time for me to move on, away, back to my life and let you have yours back before, before I couldn’t.”

“Wait just a minute, you know Fairchild?”

“Yes, of course, we’re both investigators, we both work for ourselves, so sometimes when one of us needs help with some job we’ve taken on we call the other one.”

“So you’re suggesting I go to him had already been set up. Why didn’t he tell me that from the beginning? After all he’s supposed to be working for me.”

“Because it hadn’t been set up. I suggested you get in touch with him because I know he’s good, but...“

“But you didn’t want him letting the cat out of the bag about you.”

“No,” she said, sighing. “I didn’t want you hating me for my subterfuge.”

“You make it sound as if you give a damn whether I do or not.”

Her expression was plaintive as she replied, “Because I do.”

“Tell that to someone who believes you, because I don’t, I can’t. I can’t believe anything you say any more.” He stood abruptly, heading to her apartment’s front door. “Have a good life, Marcia. Maybe the next man you pull this type of con on will be luckier than me and get out before he starts caring.” Without another word he pulled the door open, stepped into the hallway, and carefully closed it behind him.