But then that was the whole idea of changing her appearance. Her usual makeup and elegant clothing had had to go.
Still, she would have preferred to show up at Simmons’s house looking more put together, but it didn’t really matter. His widow would welcome her anyway because she was under compulsion to do so.
The house was only a forty-minute drive away, but since she wanted to take a look around to make sure that the place was clear of surveillance cameras, she had to get there earlier.
Technically, there was no reason for anyone to watch Simmons’s house. The guy was dead, the funeral was over, and she doubted that his widow was suspected of doing anything even remotely interesting. But Eleanor didn’t want to bet her life on it.
What if Roberts guessed her intentions and was monitoring the house?
Or worse, what if he had beat her to it and had already collected whatever journals or other work-related documents that Simmons had kept at home?
His widow had said that no one had searched her husband’s home office, but it could have been done during the night when she’d slept.
Paranoia?
Not really.
Roberts was afraid that his and Simmons’s shenanigans would be discovered. As far as he was concerned, the two biggest threats were her and whatever documents could be found in Simmons’s home. She could be easily discredited as a disgruntled former employee who was seeking revenge for getting fired, but written documentation would be more difficult to disprove.
As she drove by the house, Eleanor scanned the vehicles parked along the street. There were only two, a gardener’s truck and a minivan, and both had clear windows that she could see the interior through.
No one was sitting inside.
After turning around at the next intersection, she made another pass, slowing down this time and searching the nearby power poles for cameras.
It seemed that the coast was clear. Still, there could be cameras inside the house, but there was nothing she could do about that. Her plan was to start with idle chitchat while scanning the interior for bugs.
As soon as Eleanor parked and got out of the car, Simmons’s widow opened the door. “Good morning, Marisol.” She smiled. “I’m so glad that you came to visit.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Simmons. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“Of course, dear. And please call me Bella. Now that Edgar is gone, I cringe every time someone calls me Mrs. Simmons.”
Eleanor wondered whether it was because Bella mourned her husband or was glad to be free of him.
“As you wish. Bella is a lovely name. My favorite aunt is named Bella.”
She didn’t have an aunt by that name or any other, but getting the woman to like her would reinforce the effectiveness of her compulsion.
Simmons’s widow smiled and motioned for her to come inside. “When Edgar and I were young, we used to joke that he was the beast, and I was the beauty.” She closed the door. “It was a long time ago.”
Maybe she did mourn him? After all, thanks to Eleanor’s compulsion, his widow had no recollection of her dearly departed husband’s philandering.
It was better that way.
Eleanor could consider it as a good deed instead of enabling a cheating scumbag. She hadn’t cared about most of Simmons’s transgressions, but that one had bothered her. She detested skirt-chasing men who systematically and unapologetically cheated on their wives.
It was a betrayal of the worst kind. Not only because it was wrong to pretend to love someone while having sex with others, but because he could have given his wife a sexually transmitted disease, and probably had.
“Would you like some tea?” Bella asked.
“I would love some. Thank you.” It would give her a chance to scan the living room and the kitchen for bugs.
Her superficial search uncovered none, and after several minutes of chitchatting over tea, Eleanor put her cup down, looked into Bella’s eyes, and smiled. “Please show me where Edgar kept his important papers.”
The woman nodded obediently. “I’ll show you to his office. Anything work-related should be in there.”
Eleanor followed her down the corridor into the small bedroom that had been converted into a home office. There was a large desk, a wall lined with bookcases, and a closet that instead of clothes contained stacks of cardboard file boxes.
It would take her an entire day to go through all of that.
The good news was that she hadn’t spotted anything that looked like a surveillance camera in the office either. That didn’t mean that there weren’t any. They could be too small or too well-hidden for her to see.
“I’m surprised that no one came to collect all of this,” Bella said. “Elijah looked through it when he was helping me with the funeral arrangements. He said there was nothing important in Edgar’s files, and he suggested that I move everything into storage.”
That limited the scope of her search. If Roberts hadn’t deemed any of the documents important, then they probably weren’t. It also meant that if there had been anything worth collecting, Roberts had already taken it.
Still, if his search had been superficial, he might have missed stuff that she would find interesting.
“That’s a good idea.” If everything was in storage, she would have an easier time going through it at her own pace. “I can help you with that.”
The woman sighed. “I can’t bring myself to do that yet. Having Edgar’s clothes hanging in the master closet and leaving his office the way he liked it gives me the illusion that he is still around.” She sighed again. “Sometimes, I catch myself looking at the front door and expecting him to come in like he did so many times before, dragging his carry-on behind him because he was returning from one of his business trips.” She looked down. “I have to remind myself that there was a funeral, and that this time he came back in a casket.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Eleanor forced a sad expression and patted the woman’s arm.
During the time she’d worked for Simmons, most of his so-called business trips hadn’t been work-related, but served as a cover-up for his philandering.
He didn’t deserve his widow’s grief.
Looking into Bella’s eyes, Eleanor imbued her voice with command. “You are going to start a new life, Bella. You are going to pack up all of Edgar’s things and either donate them or store them. You are going to make new friends, take classes, go on trips, or do whatever else that will make you happy.”
The woman nodded. “I need to start a new life.”
“Yes, you do. Now, tell me, is there a safe in this office?”
“Behind our wedding portrait.” She pointed at the wall.
“Do you know the combination?”
“It’s our anniversary date. November 2, 1967. But there is nothing there aside from our birth certificates, passports, and our wills. I’ve already checked it.”
That was disappointing.
Eleanor looked around the room. “It will probably take me the entire day and half the night to go through all of this.”
Bella waved a hand. “Take your time, dear, and don’t overwork yourself. Do what you can today, and the rest you can do tomorrow or the day after that.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it, but I don’t want to impose.”