Her Better Half

Erin looked at me as if I was nuts. Then she snapped her fingers. “Ah. Because of Gary?”

“Well, actually…” I hated to admit it…. “Sort of.” Eliminating red meat from the family’s diet was the one concession I’d made when Gary had started demanding the family eat vegetarian.

Though I had to admit, the steak sandwich looked good. Or it would if I weren’t so darn worried about my job.

“Are you sure I can do this, Erin?”

“You’re talking about the job, right? Not the sandwich?”

“Right.”

Erin put a hand on my arm. “You can do it. The hardest part is going for hours without peeing. You might want to consider bringing an empty plastic ice-cream container, just in case.”

CHAPTER 3

N ine hours later, I met Erin back at Murphy’s Grill. Shelley was spending the night at our place, with Devin and Jamie sharing babysitting responsibilities. Per Erin’s instructions, I had brought a large insulated travel mug, but no ice-cream pail. I was hoping Erin had been joking about that. I placed my cup on the counter next to Erin’s and watched as Murphy emptied the coffeepot into both of them.

Given the lack of washroom facilities, as previously outlined by Erin, I wasn’t sure the super-sized coffees were such a great idea. But Erin seemed to think a person could never get enough of Murphy’s coffee.

Even as I had that thought, Murphy’s dark brown eyes settled on me. “Want room for cream?”

“Oh, yes. Lots of room, please.”

Murphy paused, looked at me intently, then turned to Erin. “She has nice manners.”

Erin seemed oddly proud. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“What’s going on with you two? Is it a crime to say please in this neighborhood?”

Erin ignored my question, just pushed the cream pitcher my way. “Okay, we’re set. Let’s make tracks.”

Although it was dark outside, the temperature was still hot, the early August air oppressively muggy. I slipped into the passenger seat of Erin’s Toyota and had no sooner inserted my mug into one of the cup holders than Erin handed me a package of batteries.

“Put those in the glove compartment, would you? Nothing worse than running out of batteries at just the wrong moment.”

I unlatched the glove compartment. A flashlight rolled out to the floor. I groped in the dark, found it, then jammed everything back into place.

Erin already had the car in motion. She U-turned at the next intersection, now heading east on Dupont. The street was narrow with cars parked solidly on both sides—even at this time of night. I kept expecting us to clip off a few side mirrors, but Erin knew what she was doing.

“Okay, here’s a little background,” Erin said. “Our client, Sherry, is a big-shot VP at one of the downtown banks and travels to New York a lot.”

“She’s there now?” I guessed.

“Yup. Left this morning. She’s been worried for some time that her husband, Martin, has been sneaking around on her.”

“Did she try asking him?”

Erin gave me a pitying look, as if she couldn’t believe anyone could be so naive. “He denied it. Told Sherry he still loves her. But Sherry’s pretty sure it’s her six-figure income he’s really crazy about.”

Erin turned left on Spadina and as we passed Casa Loma, I peered out the window at the grand stone structure. “When the girls were little they used to love visiting this place.”

“Yeah? I’ll have to take Shelley sometime.”

I was surprised Erin hadn’t already done so, especially since the castle was close to where she lived. But then I thought about the admission rates, and the fact that Erin worked two jobs as well as looked after her daughter on her own.

We were now in the Forest Hill neighborhood, driving along winding roads bordered by majestic trees and gracious stone and brick mansions. Devin and Jamie’s school was just up the way on Avenue Road, but Erin kept to the side streets. This was one of the few neighborhoods in Toronto that rivaled Rosedale, and I gazed out the window longingly.

“Nice, huh?” Erin said.

“Oh, yes.” I wondered if Erin would be surprised to find out that until recently my girls and I had lived in a home just as splendid as these. We’d had so much, and now we had…

Enough. We had enough. I had to stop whining, even if it was just to myself.

“Where are we headed?” I checked out a street sign as we cruised slowly through the next intersection.

Erin recited the address.

“Martin’s girlfriend must be well-off to live there.”

“She should be. She’s Sherry’s boss.”

“Her boss?”

Erin grinned, her crooked teeth gleaming in the light from the dash. “Kinky, isn’t it?”

Now I really felt sorry for Sherry. Not only was her husband cheating on her, but so was her boss. Not that it was technically cheating in the boss’s case, but it was certainly a betrayal.

Erin took her foot off the gas. “Here’s the house.”

It was a classic Tudor home, with lovely English-garden-styled landscaping.

“I scoped out the neighborhood earlier. We can park down the block. The people who live there have teens. Cars are always coming and going.”

Erin pulled into a vacant space, opened her window a few inches, then motioned for me to do the same. “I know it’s hot, but we can’t run the air-conditioning. It’ll look too suspicious.”

“And two women sitting in a parked car won’t?”

“You notice I picked a spot between streetlights. We’re in the shadows here. Now, just recline your seat—” as she spoke, Erin demonstrated “—and no one will even see we’re here.”

There were all sorts of tricks to this game, I realized. “Are we sure Martin is going to show up tonight?”

“No.”

That was disappointing. “What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we come back tomorrow. Then the next night and the next.”

“Sounds…boring.”