Torri was hoping for later. She knew none of the nurses wanted to come check on her and Gus the security guard now had the idea that O’Toole had left in the middle of the night. So until somebody looked under the bed, they wouldn’t realize the orderly had been killed.
She was a bit surprised at the total lack of guilt she felt over O’Toole’s death. He had been killed on her behalf, after all. But then again, he had been trying to rape her at the time and who knew how many other helpless women patients he had abused. As far as Torri was concerned, he had gotten what he deserved.
As for the fact that all the dreams she’d been having were real and Vic really was an alien scout, well, that was a little harder to process. But thanks to growing up with Nana—and her own experience with the Seeing Dreams—Torri had plenty of practice in believing in things that couldn’t be easily explained.
So the new man in your life is an alien scout sent to bargain for brides and there really are evil extraterrestrials heading for Earth—so what? You can handle it, she told herself firmly. Everything is going to work out fine.
She hoped, anyway.
They got to her house after taking a rather circuitous route. As expected, Chuck’s car wasn’t in the driveway—he must be out with his bowling league. They had even won a trophy last year—her husband had it proudly displayed on a shelf in the den.
Torri had wanted to come watch him bowl for the big tournament—which lasted all weekend and was out of town at a resort in New Mexico. But Chuck always said it put him off his game to be watched, so she had celebrated his victory with him after he brought the trophy home the following Monday.
“Just park in the driveway next door,” she directed Vic. “That house is for sale, so nobody lives there.”
She was glad she lived in a kind of hidden cul-de-sac with only a few neighbors, who were mostly early risers—the commute to DC was no joke in the mornings. So most everyone had already gone to bed.
She didn’t have her house keys with her, but the spare key was still in the fake stone under a bush. Closing the door behind them, she relocked it by habit and led Vic into her home…but stopped almost as soon as she’d gotten inside.
“This is weird.” She frowned at the living room.
“Is there something wrong?” Vic asked, coming up behind her.
“Chuck must have decided to rearrange the furniture.”
She frowned at the way the brown leather sectional and chairs she and her husband had picked out together had been moved all around. That really wasn’t like Chuck—he always said he didn’t give a damn about how a room was decorated. Then something else caught her eye.
“What’s this?” Walking across to the couch, she picked up an expensive-looking baby-blue women’s sweater. “This isn’t mine,” she said, frowning down at it.
“Maybe your mate bought it to bring to you?” Vic suggested.
Torri shook her head.
“Chuck knows I hate pastels. I usually only wear jewel tones. He would never buy me something like this.”
She put the sweater down and went further into the house she’d called home for the past four years. She and Chuck had bought it together just about a year into their marriage. They had refinanced from a 30 to a 15-year mortgage after Torri got promoted to Bank Manager—their romantic plan was to have the house paid off before they were retired, so they could someday travel the world.
But it was beginning to seem like maybe Chuck had been making romantic plans with someone else.
In the kitchen, she found a coffee mug with a bright pink lipstick stain on the rim. In the downstairs bathroom, she found a tube of lipstick the same shade, as well as a hairbrush with long, blonde hairs in it.
Torri began to get a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Had Chuck been cheating on her while she was locked up in St. Elizabeth’s? How else could she explain these feminine touches she kept finding around the house?
Maybe it’s just a mistake. Maybe a friend from work came over and left a few things by accident. Maybe it was the wife of one of his buddies…
Torri’s brain worked frantically, trying to explain away the lipstick and the sweater and the rearranged furniture. She must be reading too much into things, right?
Then she found something on the dining room table that drove everything else right out of her head. It was a stack of paperwork and the top page said, in bold print, “Petition for the Dissolution of Marriage.”
“What are those?” Vic asked, as she rifled through the thick stack of papers.
“Divorce proceedings,” Torri whispered, through numb lips. She was no lawyer, but she’d seen plenty of legal and official paperwork as a bank manager. She knew what she was looking at.
“Divorce as in…the end of your mating?” Vic sounded surprised. “Do humans do that?”
“Hell yes, we do it—we do it all the time,” Torri said, still feeling numb. She just hadn’t expected that Chuck would do it to her. “He must have been really upset after that last phone call,” she murmured, half to herself. “And decided to file the paperwork.”
But when she looked at the date Chuck had filled in, she saw that it was dated almost three months ago.
“Hey—he filled these out right after I was admitted to St. Elizabeth’s!” she exclaimed. “Like the day after!”
“You think he had been planning to end your mating for some time?” Vic asked quietly.
“It sure looks like that. Look—the reasons he sites for divorce are ‘irreconcilable differences’ and ‘insanity.’ He was already calling me crazy and I had barely been admitted!” Torri exclaimed indignantly. She turned to Vic. “You know, he swore up and down to me that I was only going in for an overnight observation and then it turned into a week and then a month and then three months! I think he might have meant to just leave me there.”
“Torri, I can understand how upsetting this must be, but we need to get your clothing and go,” Vic said gently. “I have killed a human—once his body is found, we will both be wanted in connection with his death.”
“Right—you’re right. That’s true. Sorry.” Torri took a deep breath and blew it out shakily. “Okay, my bedroom is upstairs. Let’s go get some clothes and get out of here.”
They went up to the second floor and into the master bedroom. Torri stopped in the doorway and stared.
There was a brand-new comforter set on the king-sized bed—a lavender purple one she hated on sight. There were pale purple lace throw pillows to go with it as well and a furry pink pillow in the shape of a heart she was certain Chuck would never pick out for himself.
“What is going on here?” she muttered to herself. Going to the walk-in closet, she opened the door and found that her clothes were all gone. Someone else’s clothes were hanging there instead—someone considerably thinner than Torri was who favored short skirts and expensive handbags.
Hanging from the hook where her own serviceable, no-nonsense black purse used to rest, she saw a Louis Vuitton, a Valentino, a Prada, and lastly, a Saint Laurent that couldn’t have cost less than two thousand dollars.
Torri felt sick. There was no explaining this away. Not only was Chuck cheating on her, he had moved his mistress right into their house—into their bedroom!