The next morning, when Brad called goodbye from the bottom of the stairs, Nicole was waiting in the bathroom, already dressed. As soon as the front door slammed, she hurried down the stairs. She reached the front window in time to catch a glimpse of his departing figure heading in the direction of the subway.
She was wearing the pink poplin raincoat she’d found in the Lowrys’ closet. It had a fake fur collar and matching rain hat. To give herself a slightly different shape, she’d padded her middle with an old sweater from the same source. Completing the ensemble were her white Reebok running shoes with cuffed white socks.
She’d also done some work on her face, using pancake makeup she’d found in the medicine cabinet. Pale pink lipstick created a monotone that helped blend her face into the shadow of her hat. The clunky-looking sunglasses from the Lowrys’ night table provided another good touch, although the lenses slightly distorted her vision.
Opening the hall closet, she glanced in the full-length mirror and gave a laugh of surprise when she saw the stranger looking back at her — short, pudgy, and rather dim. She looked like a woman of limited intelligence who, at thirty-two, would still be living with her parents. She’d be employed as a box girl at the market and have a hopeless crush on one of the checkers.
Taking stock of her appearance, she decided the disguise was convincing enough to fool Brad, which was the point. If she was going to find out what he was up to, she couldn’t risk being recognized.
She made a face at herself in the mirror and then, after closing the closet door, cut through the kitchen and left by the back door. She cracked the gate and peered into the front yard. No one in sight. On reaching the sidewalk, she ran for the subway.
At the station, she was relieved to find Brad still on the platform, waiting for the train. She kept her distance, stationing herself behind a wide, freestanding column covered with advertising posters. From here, she watched him pace up and down the platform. Once in a while, he would stop and peer into the distance for the train. He seemed oblivious to her presence.
Just then a young woman entered the station, and Brad turned to look. At the sight of her, his eyes widened, and his mouth went slack. Even Nicole had to admit the woman was stunning. Dressed in a black stretch minidress, she had a tiny waist, narrow hips, and a bosom that was out of proportion to her body. As her high heels clicked down the stairs, her breasts bounced. She didn’t look in Brad’s direction. But her lips were parted in a smile that indicated she was completely aware of the effect she was having on him.
Brad edged toward the woman and murmured something to her that Nicole was too far away to hear. In response, the woman smiled up at him. She had full, pouty lips, the sort achieved with the help of a dermatologist and repeated injections of collagen. Still, Nicole had to admit, they did the job, endowing her with an expression of smoldering sensuality. When Brad leaned forward to hear the woman’s reply, the expression on his face was something to behold.
Nicole’s throat constricted. Despite all the anger she’d been feeling toward Brad these last few days, her eyes now stung with the threat of tears. He’d never looked at her that way — not when they met, not on their wedding day, not ever.
The disguise she was wearing no longer seemed quite so outlandish. It was almost as if the persona she’d assumed that morning had become the real Nicole — unloved, unlovely, and completely pathetic.
At last a train rolled into the station, pulled to a stop. and opened its doors. The three of them boarded the same car. The woman was first. Her body seemed to glide along, the narrow pelvis thrust forward, leading the way. Brad was next. Nicole plodded along behind, unnoticed in her bubble-gum coat and white tennis shoes.
The woman found an unoccupied pair of seats. When Brad slid in beside her and resumed the conversation, she smiled up from under her eyelashes, as if surprised to find him sitting next to her.
As she watched, Nicole couldn’t help remembering the Brad she’d first met. Outgoing and sunny, he possessed a certain charisma, and yet he was completely unconscious of his own attractiveness. Although Nicole sensed his interest, she had to make the first moves. Now, to her disgust, she saw that he was very smooth at picking up women. When and where had he acquired this skill? Another question presented itself: How many had there been besides Brenda?
After a few stops, the woman disembarked. As she walked toward the exit, she turned and waved at Brad. He nodded and raised his hand in a little salute. Gripped between his fingers was a business card.
As the train hurtled on, Nicole had an overwhelming urge to get off at the next stop, go back to the house, and book the next flight back to L.A. Not yet, she told herself; she was going to see this thing through.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute before they pulled into another station, and Brad got up. She stood up and followed him off the train.
He led her on a brisk walk five or six blocks, while attractive window displays gave way to open bins of cut-rate goods. Here, the side streets were occupied by lofts for clothing manufacturers. As they walked—Nicole half running to keep up—the area grew shabbier. Debris littered the gutters. Occasionally, a cluster of raggedy men stood smoking on the sidewalk. They appeared to be at that phase of economic decline where they’d given up any pretense of looking for work.
Brad turned down an alley, walked quickly up the steps of a run-down brick office building, and disappeared inside. After a moment’s hesitation, Nicole followed him in. A man was already waiting for the elevator. He and Brad exchanged nods; they stood two abreast in companionable silence while Nicole hovered behind them in the shadow of the entry hall.
At last the elevator arrived, and all three of them crowded into its narrow constraints. Although Nicole had a certain amount of faith in her disguise, she didn’t want to risk allowing Brad a close look at her face. So she stationed herself in the rear of the car, staring intently at her shoes.
Under the thick coat of makeup, she’d begun to sweat, and it seemed an eternity before the elevator stopped on the second floor. When Brad and the other man filed out, Nicole punched the button for the next floor. She figured it would be prudent to ride up the extra floor, then reverse the elevator and come back. In such a small building, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out where Brad had gone.
When the door opened on three, she could see the floor was unoccupied. The windows were covered with tattered brown paper that admitted little light. The hallway was clogged with debris — old packing boxes, wads of paper, and a thick layer of dust littered with nails, paper clips, and wood shavings. Panes in the doors of nearby offices were dark.
She took all this in before pushing the button for the second floor. The door remained open, but the humming of the elevator stopped. She stabbed the button again and again to no avail. She reached out and tried to pull the door shut, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally she decided to find the stairs and walk down.
In the hallway, she pulled off the dark glasses and, after sticking them in her pocket, began to maneuver her way through the clutter, jumping over cartons and dismantled light fixtures. She’d worked her way almost to the rear of the building, where the corridor turned at a right angle, when she heard a noise and looked around. Behind her, the door of the elevator had shut. The mechanism began to hum, and the floor indicator shivered into movement as the car started down.
She stumbled back through the debris and punched the button to summon it back. After a moment or so, the asthmatic rattle of the elevator stopped; there was a loud thud, then silence. According to the indicator, the car was stuck between the first and second floor.
The place was unimaginably hot; rivulets of sweat trickled down her face. She gave the call button another stab. Was it broken? Disabled by a power outage? She hit the button again and waited. Nothing.
At last, she turned and gingerly began working her way along the hallway again. Just as she turned the corner at the rear of the passage, she heard movement up ahead and something that sounded like a small animal skittering away. In a panic, she wheeled around and bolted back to the elevator.
She’d just reached it and was about to try the button again when the door flew open. She got in and punched the button for her floor. The car slowly lumbered downward. When the door opened on the well-lit hallway of the second floor, she could hear the reassuring sound of voices and the distant ringing of a phone.
The first office door bore the sign, APEX JEWELRY. She kept walking. Another company, Levinson & Levinson, occupied two suites but gave no clue to the nature of its business. Around the corner was a door that said SITVACK HOME MORTGAGES.
The lettering on the next door read, FINANCIAL VENTURES NETWORK. After studying the name, Nicole tuned in on a low murmur of conversation, in which she could distinguish Brad’s voice. He and several others seemed to be discussing a system crash. This was the place, all right.
She forced herself to pause just long enough to note down the name of the company and the suite number. Outside the building, she stopped and wrote down the address. This done, she quickly walked a few blocks, stepped into a doorway, and pulled out her cell. She searched the web for the company and found the phone number.
“I’m calling from ABC Credit Company,” she told the man who answered the phone. “I need some programming done, and I’d like to have your company bid on the job.”
“Sorry, miss,” the man said. “We don’t do programming.”
“Oh,” Nicole said. “What do you do?”
“That’s a bit difficult to explain. We work in electronic trading of — uh — equities. But we don’t work for other companies.”
“Are you a subsidiary of SoftPac?”
“Never heard of it.” He sounded puzzled.
“It’s a software firm owned by an American named Bill Cooper.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Never heard of him either.”
“Who does own your company?” As she said this, she could hear Brad’s voice in the background. “Who is it?” he was saying. “Here, give me the phone.”
She hung up. As she made her way back to the tube, she thought about the tiny bit of information the man had revealed. He’d confirmed at least part of Brad’s story: This business dealt in electronic trading. But if Bill Cooper wasn’t involved, did that mean Brad was the sole proprietor? Where had he found the money?
It was true that they had some savings — about $20,000, mostly in mutual funds, plus a somewhat larger amount in Brad’s 401k. But even if he cashed it all in, that wasn’t enough to sustain a business that needed capital to rent an office, pay employees, and buy equipment.
By the time she arrived home, her growing sense of outrage had strengthened her determination to find out the truth. Never mind about his messing around. Today had revealed a much greater betrayal. He’d been living a lie, leading a double life: as the hard-working, married computer executive and as the smooth operator who picked up beautiful women and managed some kind of dubious financial scheme on the web.