Page 107 of The Accomplice
I got a call on Thursday evening, around six-thirty. At first, I let my cell phone ring, and it was only at the last second I checked the caller ID and noticed it wasn’t Danny – it was Otto. He told me his investigator called him to say Danny was exhibiting some strange behavior. Otto wanted me to come take a look for myself.
I asked him if he wanted me to get a plane to Seattle. He said Danny wasn’t in Seattle. He’d never left New York.
I met Otto in the parking lot of a new apartment development in Queens. More and more people were looking for somewhere decent to live outside of Manhattan and these condos were being bought up by investors hoping to flip them for a healthy profit. Otto said Danny and a woman had gone into that building, up to the third floor second apartment. I asked him where his investigator had gone, and he said he had left to find out who was living in that apartment. Otto hadn’t told the investigator what to look for. At that moment I started to panic.
I told Otto Danny might be going up there to kill that woman. I could tell by the way he looked he’d had the same thought. Otto said I shouldn’t call the police. I wanted to, there’s someone’s life in danger, but he said it would take too long for them to get here and we should go up and take a look first.
I felt sick climbing those stairs, Otto behind me. We reached the third floor. A bright hallway freshly painted white. We counted along two doors and stopped. Listened.
I could hear something. A woman. It sounded like she was in pain. And then.
A scream.
Otto heard it too.
‘He’s killing her !’ I said.
Otto pushed me out of the way, stood back, and leapt forward kicking at the door. It took three kicks to bring it down. This time we heard the woman screaming for her life.
I ran inside, Otto behind me. I was expecting to see the walls covered with blood. And Daniel standing over the corpse of another victim.
There, in the bedroom.
Daniel and the woman in bed. Both were breathless.
Both were naked.
He wasn’t killing her.
He was having an affair.
Danny looked at me with a mix of embarrassment and shock.
The woman got up and pulled on her underwear. She had bone white skin, apart from something black and shiny around her neck – a black pearl necklace. She flipped a top over her head and stepped into her jeans. She took care to flop the necklace over her white shirt.
She said this was so embarrassing for her, but she didn’t apologize, I remember that.
I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t think.
I had made a complete fool of myself. Danny wasn’t a killer. The lies and the late nights, the clothes in the laundry machine … He was sleeping with someone else.
He wasn’t killing anyone.
Now that I got a good look at the woman, she didn’t appear embarrassed in the least. She just looked pissed that I’d interrupted them. She asked no questions when I came in. Daniel had called me by my name, and she wasn’t curious …
She knew who I was. She knew he was married.
I was standing in the doorway, shaking.
‘Out my way,’ she said.
I had been going quietly crazy for weeks. Afraid to be around my husband. Questioning myself over and over as to why he chose me, and then went out and killed innocent people, and I would think this for hours and then tell myself I was being stupid – that Daniel was a good man. I was utterly lost. Doubting my husband and my own mind.
And now I was betrayed and hurt.
And she wanted me to move out ofherway ?
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand lashed out smacking her in the face. I lost it and I hit her again. In the mouth this time.
