Free Random Hearts by Warren Adler

could have
misunderstood."
    "Would you like me to check tomorrow's passenger
list?"
    "No," Vivien said quickly, not knowing why.
Perhaps she did not wish to raise the level of her anxiety. She was certain
there was a perfectly logical explanation. After all, she hadn't told him she
would be there. She slid into a telephone booth and dialed home. "Has Mr.
Simpson arrived?" she asked Alice.
    "Not yet, Mrs. Simpson. Was he supposed to come
straight home?"
    It seemed an odd question, but she ignored it, inquired
about Ben, and then hung up. She felt disoriented. Surely she had gotten it all
wrong. Or his plans had changed. There were any number of possibilities. If she
had not come to meet him, she might have been spared the bother. A call or
telegram would soon come, announcing a later flight. Finally, she called Orson's
office and spoke to his secretary, Jane Sparks.
    "What plane was Orson coming in on?" she asked
casually. "I must have forgotten." Her relationship with Miss Sparks
was strictly business. Secretly, though, she resented her and often felt
patronized.
    "I assume the Concorde," Miss Sparks said
crisply.
    "I'm here at Dulles. He's not on it."
    "That's strange..." There was a long pause.
"But then I didn't make the arrangements, so he could be on another
flight."
    "That's a relief," Vivien said, taking a deep breath.
Then she asked pleasantly, "He hasn't called?"
    "No. I haven't heard from him since early Monday
morning." Vivien remembered that he had called the office before he left.
    "He hasn't called any of the other partners?"
    "I'm not sure about that. I'll be glad to ask
around."
    "Thank you." But she didn't hang up. Something
nagged at her. Miss Sparks made all his arrangements, especially for travel.
"Isn't it unusual that you didn't make the arrangements, Miss
Sparks?" That sounded accusatory. She tempered it with a nervous giggle.
    "It was unusual, Mrs. Simpson, but..." Her
hesitation was odd, longer than expected. "Sometimes he does things like
that. I might have been busy on a brief or something. Apparently it was a new
client. I really don't know much about it."
    "A new client?"
    "A possible new client, I think."
    She had always assumed that Miss Sparks knew everything
about Orson's life. It was the very reason she felt patronized.
    Her continued hesitation was disturbing.
    "Would you switch me to Mr. Martin?" she asked
politely.
    "Of course," Miss Sparks said crisply.
    Dale Martin was one of the partners. Orson and he had both
come to the firm together. Surely Dale would know.
    "What is it, Viv?"
    "I thought maybe you knew what plane Orson was coming
in on."
    There was another long pause. She felt the backwash of the
eggs Benedict in her throat and behind it the sour aftertaste of the martini.
    "Gee, I don't know. He said something about a new
client in Paris."
    "Yes. Miss Sparks said that."
    "Well, what hotel was he booked into?" The
question seemed directed at someone other than herself, probably Miss Sparks.
She heard him say: "You don't know? He made it himself? Now that's
strange." The words were spoken away from the mouthpiece, with an odd
hesitancy. When he spoke directly into the mouthpiece, his voice was firm.
"I'm sure it's no problem. We'll ask around the office. Where will you
be?"
    The question hung in the air. She was still disoriented,
and it took her a few moments to gather her wits.
    "Vivien?"
    "Home, I guess," she said finally.
    It was when she was heading toward McLean on the Dulles Access Highway that she came to grips with her anxiety. Admonishing herself for
overreacting, she felt foolish. Nothing more gauche than a hysterical wife,
especially one who seemed to be checking up on her husband. Credibility was
always an important consideration for Orson, especially in terms of herself.
What she had done was embarrass herself before her husband's partner and his
secretary; she had made herself less than credible. Any wife worth her salt
would know her husband's itinerary, if only to