Free Love is Murder by Sandra Brown

the girl was. But if David wanted to stay available to me to avoid any suspicion—just in case I should happen to call—then it made more sense that they’d…
    What the hell was wrong with me?
    There I was, already assuming the worst. I had long thought that I had somehow managed to beat back my mother’s rampant misandry, yet I was quickly proving that I was just as cynical as she was.
    I got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor, wondering what I’d do once I reached David’s room. I imagined myself knocking on his door and lowering the pitch of my voice, saying, “Housekeeping” or “Room service,” as if I were a character in some bad romantic comedy. But when I reached it I simply stood there, staring at it, suddenly not wanting to know the truth.
    Then I heard a woman’s laughter.
    I couldn’t be sure if it originated from David’s room or the one next door, or even across the hall, for that matter. My sense of direction when it came to sound had always been faulty. All I knew was that a woman had laughed and it was a playful one, and in my mind, I could see that perfect female body stripping down to the nethers as the man I loved reached up from the bed and cupped her heaving breasts in his palms.
    I suddenly wanted to be anywhere but there.
    Five minutes later I was back in my rented car, thinking the worst and not knowing quite what to do about it. I was tempted to call my mother, but I knew that would be a huge mistake. The last thing I needed right now was an I told you so from her.
    I sometimes thought she would prefer that I’d never find a man worth loving. That anyone I hooked up with was some kind of threat to our relationship. That I needed to be just as miserable as she’d been all her life, so that she would always have someone to commiserate with. Someone who understood just how worthless the male species really was.
    There was a kind of desperation in that need that had always unsettled me. My mother was a lonely, bitter woman, and the thought that I might one day wind up exactly like her sent chills up my spine.
    I couldn’t let that happen.
    Wouldn’t let it.
    And just as I had nearly convinced myself that I should trust my boyfriend, as I always had, and assume that the implications of what I’d seen and possibly heard had merely been the product of thirty years of parental indoctrination, the lobby doors slid open and David stepped outside, hurriedly handing a ticket stub to the valet.
    Surprised, I checked my cell phone clock and saw that nearly an hour had passed—an hour that had seemed like minutes. I watched David intently, wondering if the lobby doors would open behind him and deposit Miss Wonderbod at his side.
    But then his car came and he tipped the valet and climbed behind the driver’s wheel. He seemed to be out of sorts, as if he’d gotten sudden bad news, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what it would be. He had no family to speak of, and any urgent calls would most likely have come from me .
    A moment later, he was on the road and I quickly started my engine and followed him, feeling more like a stalker than ever.
    * * *
    Following a car isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. Especially at night. I could count at least three times I’d mistaken the wrong set of taillights for David’s and it was a miracle that I managed to find him again each time.
    Twenty minutes into the drive, he took the turnoff toward the airport. He hadn’t taken a bag with him, and I had to wonder why he was headed this way, unless perhaps he was scheduled to pick up a colleague and was worried about arriving late.
    Then he surprised me again by suddenly pulling to the side of the road. I couldn’t very well pull up behind him, so I zoomed past, craning my neck to catch a glimpse of him behind the wheel.
    I could be mistaken, but I swear he had his face buried in his hands.
    What the hell was going on?
    I had the urge to circle back and find out, to ask what was troubling