A Dark Love (9 page)

After what seemed an eternity, his desktop screen came into view. He clicked on his Internet browser and typed in the address for the Web’s most popular free e-mail account. It was the simplest, most obvious place to start.

His fingers practically shook as he attempted to sign on.

At the prompt for a username he typed “caro-linemoross.” He used “pippin” for a password.

The combination was rejected.

Porter tried using “porter” as password.

It was rejected.

He tried using their wedding date, then Caroline’s birth date.

No luck.

He slumped in his desk chair. But the hairs along the back of his neck were still vibrating with energy, spurring him on. Porter forced himself to slow his thoughts, considering things. He tried again, with a different username.

“Carolinehughes.” Her maiden name.

He entered “pippin” as password.

This time the server’s response was different.

Which meant the username was correct. Of course, he thought dully, she would use her maiden name as an act of defiance.

He ran through the obvious passwords and each was rejected. Her birthday, their wedding anniversary, and their street address. But none of these worked.

Porter sat back, his desk chair creaking like a rifle shot in the dim silence. He drummed his long fingers on the mouse pad, thinking.

On a hunch he crossed the room and unlocked the filing cabinet where he stored his patient records and important documents. Flipping to the P’s, he located the one he wanted. The one labeled “Pippin.”

He carried the folder to his desk and opened it, rifling through the papers until he came to the American Kennel Club Certificate of Registry that listed the dog’s date of birth.

He swung around to the keyboard and entered the date at the password prompt. He watched, unbelieving, as the screen blinked once and a different screen took its place.

He was in.

The icon popped up for mail. The inbox contained a single saved message. The header consisted of one solitary word.

Porter stared. Behind the word was a voice demanding an answer. A masculine voice, Porter was certain. He double-clicked.

Happy Monday? From a man who was providing details about his sex life. Who was this? Without realizing it, Porter tightened his grip on the mouse until it lost contact with the pad, sending the icon careening drunkenly across the screen.

The message was less than three weeks old. It had originated from tf_activewearmodesto at a server in the Western United States. Porter and Caroline did not know anyone in Modesto.

But someone in Modesto knew them.

The message had been sent in response to a message from Caroline. tf_activewearmodesto was familiar with the age of Caroline’s—their—home. Too familiar.
tf_activewearmodesto knew how he, Porter Moross, and his wife spent their time.

The tingling in Porter’s neck grew stronger and slipped down his spine, chilling him to the bone. He shuddered.

There were no other messages in the inbox. Porter clicked on “Addresses,” then “Favorites.”

tf_activewearmodesto was listed in “Favorites.”

Tom Fielding.

Porter frowned, closed his eyes. Tom Fielding had lived on the same floor in Caroline’s dorm at GWU. Tall and gangly. WASPy with reddish blond hair, blue eyes, and a smattering of acne.

That acne that would have cleared up by now.

Porter pointed his mouse at the “Sent Mail” icon and double-clicked. There were several messages, all sent to Tom.

It was the most recent, dated earlier on the same day as Tom’s “Wassup?” Caroline wrote about a movie they’d seen and the fact that he, Porter, hadn’t liked it. She described their visit to Restoration Hardware in search of electrical outlet covers for the new half bath outside Porter’s office.

Porter stared at the screen, his teeth working inside his mouth, shredding the sides of his cheeks until he tasted blood.

His wife had complained about him to another man. While Porter had scoured catalogs of upscale hardware stores so that the new half bath would blend in with the renovation of their historic home, his wife had been sending smile emoticons to a married man.

They had shared a joke at Porter’s expense.

Porter felt a familiar itching along his jaw, as though each hair follicle in his beard was on fire. He raked his fingers through it and rubbed savagely, knowing this would only worsen the hives that were taking root.

He ordered the “Sent Messages” folder by date. There were half a dozen addressed to tf_activewearmodesto dating back almost two years. And these were just the e-mails Caroline had saved. To read and reread.

Porter slumped in his Eames chair, shaking his head. He closed his eyes, slipped his fingers underneath the steel rims of his glasses, and massaged the sore spot on the bridge of his nose. Then he continued reading.

He discovered a series of messages dated the week they returned from their honeymoon.

“Here’s a joke,” tf_activewearmodesto had written in the original e-mail, which had been copied to several other names Porter recognized as GW alum.

Caroline had e-mailed her reply only to Tom.

“I always thought you were hot,” her message began.

Porter felt a slow burn start down low and deep in the pit of his stomach.

Slut, Porter thought. How could she do such a thing?
The heat inside Porter spread, like a fire that has been doused with gasoline.

What sort of man would ask a newly married woman if she remembered his body?

A man who was hell-bent on avoiding his own intimacy issues, that’s who. And Caroline, with her unresolved conflicts about giving and receiving love, was a ready-made target for the attentions of such a man. Caroline would have been titillated by sharing secrets, too naïve to see the fissure she was opening in her own marriage. The thought of Caroline as victim was preferable to thinking of her as a willing adulteress.

But only just.

Porter continued to scroll. Later that year, Caroline had initiated another round of e-mails, asking tf_activewearmodesto how come he hadn’t written. Porter’s gut contracted when he read the text of yet another message that had originated with his wife.

“To my forever Valentine,” she had written. There was no text. It had been intended as a simple greeting so Tom would know he hadn’t been forgotten.

She had e-mailed him on the first Valentine’s Day of her marriage to Porter. How hateful. His gut churned with hot jealousy as he remembered the strings he pulled to get a reservation at the hottest restaurant in town that night, how much he had paid Akua to come to the condo in Dupont Circle while they were out to sprinkle rose petals on their bed and leave his gift on the pillow, a pair of sapphire earrings from Tiffany. Porter took a slow breath and tried to calm himself.

He clicked into Caroline’s “Deleted Messages” folder and found Tom’s reply.

That son of a bitch. Poor, tired Lisa should know how her husband spent his time at work.

A heavy weight descended on Porter, as though he were a thousand feet below sea level, as he considered the implications of this e-mail. Tom Fielding felt comfortable telling Caroline that her husband didn’t appreciate her.

Which meant she had invited his criticism of her marriage.

Porter’s shoulders slumped. He heard a buzzing. It took him a moment to realize it was the sound of his own blood pumping in his ears. “Why?” Porter moaned softly. “Caroline, why?”

But he knew the answer. The human ego was the most elaborate defense mechanism ever mapped by man, capable of weaving a web of deception to protect itself. Such was the work of an undisciplined mind.

Porter clicked back to “Sent Messages.” There it was. Caroline’s reply.

Porter shook his head in disbelief. Could Caroline have written this? Porter had cleaved unto his wife, revealing to her the most intimate aspects of his innermost self, laying bare his innermost feelings. All he had asked in return was that she do the same.

And instead she had mocked him in e-mails to this man.

Porter scrolled through the remaining exchanges with a sinking heart.

They spoke in familiar tones, asking about each other’s lives and exchanging news about people they had gone to college with. Tom confided details of his lack of sexual intimacy with his wife. He had asked Caroline about hers.

Porter hardly dared to breathe.

Caroline’s response was simple.

But she had. The winking icon said it all. She even went on to tell Tom she wasn’t sure she was cut out for marriage.

Porter let out a long breath and felt everything in his gut liquefy. He was glad when he reached the bottom and only one e-mail remained. He couldn’t take much more.

In the end, he was very glad he had read them all.

That was it. The trail ended. The e-mail was less than two weeks old.

The buzzing in Porter’s ears grew louder. The pieces of the puzzle had been there all along. He just hadn’t put them together. Beginning with Caroline’s fascination with modernist American landscape artists, some
thing Porter had written off as childish, simply one more aspect of her personality that revealed her lack of maturity. She had removed their passports as a ruse, to throw him off the trail. He’d realized the implications of that when the policemen left that morning, seen of course that Caroline had not traveled overseas, although she would have been wise to do so.

But of course she’d had no interest in Europe.

She’d gone West.

Porter saw that now. She’d sought refuge in a small town, something of a size that would have presented a manageable counterpoint to the chaos that was raging inside her.

Another thought followed quickly, snaking through him and laying waste to everything in its wake. What if she had arranged to meet Tom Fielding?

Porter checked his watch. Not yet ten P.M.

Early enough to find someone in his office on the West Coast if he was working late, if he wanted to avoid going home.

Porter directed his browser to Google and within seconds located the phone number and address of a sportswear manufacturer in Modesto. He dialed, expecting to get an after-hours voice mail greeting.

He was shocked when a woman answered on the second ring. “Hello?” As an afterthought, she stated the name of the company.

Porter tightened his grip on the receiver. “Uh, hello,” he said, his mind racing. “I, ah, didn’t expect anybody to be there at this hour.”

“We’re officially closed.”

“I was trying to get in touch with Tom Fielding. Voice mail’s fine,” Porter said, trying to sound bright.

“He’s here. I’m his wife.”

So it was a family business. Which meant, according to California law regarding community property, Tom Fielding was in no position to file for divorce.

There was another pause. “Can I help you?”

Her voice had acquired an edge. As though she was practiced in snooping.

No wonder. Porter cleared his throat, grasping wildly. When he spoke, he forced his words out fast so they tumbled free and easy. “Well, uh, actually I haven’t met him. One of my, uh, sales guys must have met him at some point. My guy just came back from a trade show just, what? This past week in Vegas.”

“My husband wasn’t in Las Vegas this past week.”

My husband.

Mrs. Tom Fielding’s tone was sharper now, so each syllable dug in and hung on. She was losing patience.

“Hold on a sec, lemme see. I got chicken scratch here.” Porter gave a smooth, throaty chuckle. “I can barely read this guy’s handwriting. Hey, maybe I was supposed to look your husband up next week in Phoenix. I’ve got a kind of a mini-trade show thing there.” He let it hang in the air like a question, hardly daring to breathe.

“Sorry.” Mrs. Tom Fielding allowed the irritation to show in her voice. “Tom’s in the office all month. I can put you through to leave a message but it’s after hours so he won’t pick up. Do you want his voice mail?”

Relief flooded through Porter. He felt a loosening in his shoulders and the buzzing in his ears dimmed. Caroline still belonged to him. She had not yet acted out her fantasy of betrayal. Which meant there was still hope. He smiled, giddy, even though she could not see him through the receiver. “That’d be great.”