Free Looking for Laura by Judith Arnold Page B

he’d been cheating on Sally with another woman.
    â€œIt can wait,” he said, adjusting a dial on the wall oven and flicking on a fluorescent overhead light. The kitchen had no windows in it, Sally noted. She would die if she had to work in a kitchen with no windows.
    Rosie climbed up into a chair at the small butcher block table in one corner. Kneeling on the seat, she stuffed one cracker into her mouth and flipped through the notebook, searching for the perfect page to draw on. Once she found it, Sally turned to Todd.
    He was tucking his now-buttoned shirt into the waistband of his jeans. She watched his flattened hand slide in and out of the denim, shoving the shirt in.
    Just as she’d never thought of Todd as building model cars, she’d never thought of him as having a real chest. She felt slightly disoriented, even though he was now covered. He angled his head in the direction of the living room, and Sally nodded and led him out of the tiny kitchen.
    â€œI want the letters back,” she said in a low voice once Todd had joined her.
    â€œI’m not done with them yet.”
    â€œI don’t care. I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I decided I want them back.”
    He shook his head. “Sorry.”
    â€œThey’re mine. They were Paul’s, and Paul died, and that makes them mine.”
    He shook his head again. “You seem to forget thatI’m the executor of his will. I know exactly what he left to you. I don’t recall the letters being part of his estate.”
    â€œThey were part of his personal effects,” she argued. “I found them in a drawer in my room. That makes them mine.”
    â€œHe didn’t leave them to you.”
    â€œHe didn’t leave them to you, either,” she retorted.
    He shrugged. “I’ll give them back to you when I’m through with them. For now, I need them.”
    â€œWhy? Are you going to have a handwriting analysis done on them?”
    He gazed thoughtfully at her. “That’s not a bad idea,” he murmured.
    It was a ridiculous idea. She’d said it just because she wasn’t as good an arguer as he was.
    â€œI’m trying to figure out who Laura is,” he explained. “Once I do that, you can have the damn letters back.”
    â€œWhy are you trying to figure it out?”
    â€œBecause…” He faltered, then glanced toward the window overlooking the front lawn and let out a weary breath. “It’s not like you were the only one he lied to. I was his best friend, Sally. And he never breathed a word of this to me. Not even a hint. It pisses me off.”
    â€œOh. It pisses you off.” As the aggrieved wife, she was pretty pissed off, too. Yet the hurt she sensed in Todd’s voice was genuine. The anger in his eyes was real. He felt cheated on as much as she did. Even if she didn’t like him, she could sympathize, and out of sympathy she could avoid sarcasm. “What do you think will happen if you figure out who Laura is?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll figure out who Paul was.”
    He was my husband , Sally wanted to say. He was thefather of my daughter. He was a two-timing jackass . “How are you going to find her?”
    Todd studied Sally’s upturned face in the filtered light from the window. Annoyance still resonated in his frown, but she saw more in it—acquiescence, a reluctant kinship. No pity, thank God. “I sneaked into his office today,” he said in a near whisper, as though he thought Rosie might hand him over to the authorities if she overheard his confession. “I stole some of his diskettes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI thought, maybe this Laura was a client of his. Someone he met through work.”
    â€œSo you brought his diskettes home?”
    â€œYeah. I was going to have a look at them after dinner.”
    Sally had to admit she was impressed by his