Free Sweet Little Lies by Bianca Sloane Page B

Gordon was furiously tapping his Mont Blanc pen against his mahogany desk. Kelly Ross was standing him up. Mark Monroe’s death had led every newscast this morning and was splashed all over both of the city’s daily papers. Sam looked at his watch again. She was supposed to have been here an hour ago. Fuck her. He stood up, grabbed his briefcase, and turned out the lights.
    Let her drown.
    •
    Kelly hated these far-out suburbs.
    Everything looked the same, and there were no discernible landmarks, meaning you wound up going in circles. It was like being out in the country. Her GPS was broken, and as much as she hated to, she had to pull over at a gas station to ask for directions. Finally, she located the house and made the block once before she parked a few houses away and turned off the car.
    Like all the homes in Olympia Fields, the house was beautiful. It was two stories, with a carefully manicured lawn and a gold Lexus parked out front. She was still in shock. How could Mark have gotten away with all this without her noticing any of it? Was he just that good at covering his tracks?
    Or was she just that stupid?
    She was debating. Should she knock on the door and confront Geneva Monroe, or should she just wait? Wait for what? She wasn’t sure.
    She sighed, tired and realized she was hungry for the first time since this nightmare began. On the way back to the city, she’d stop somewhere. She thought about Sam Gordon waiting in his office to talk to her. Well…he’d just have to wait a little bit longer. She sighed again and looked back in the direction of the house. Just then, the door opened, and a young boy came out, followed by a woman.
    It was them.
    Mark’s family.
    Even from a distance, Kelly could tell the little boy was Mark’s son. He had his sloping nose and high cheekbones and even walked like Mark. Kelly felt her heart ram against her chest. She was captivated by him; he was simply precious. Any resentment she might have felt toward him melted in that instant. She pegged him to be about nine or ten. His Bulls cap was turned backwards, and he wore baggy jeans, a Bulls jersey, and a pair of black Nike’s.
    Could have been any ordinary kid.
    Except he was Mark’s kid.
    The woman who had followed him outside was yelling at him about something. Kelly turned her attention to the woman.
    “Oh, hell no,” Kelly groaned to herself as she drank in the appearance of Geneva Monroe and realized everything she’d suspected about her was true and then some.
    For starters, she must have weighed close to three hundred pounds and had attitude written all over her. She had one hand on her hip, and the other was waving around her head like she was skywriting. She pointed one long purple acrylic claw in the direction of her son, who was pulling a garden hose from around the side of the house. Her complexion the color of a dull penny, Geneva wore a short black skirt that hugged her tree trunk legs and a snug red tank top that strained against her numerous rolls of fat. Even from the distance, Kelly could see her nails had all kinds of designs airbrushed on them. She wore a crimped hairpiece that was some kind of yellow color Kelly guessed was supposed to match the brittle and brassy golden color of her real hair.
    Kelly felt sick.
This
was who Mark had been carrying on with? Had married? She just…she was…nasty. She was just a nasty-looking, foul-ass ‘hood rat who Kelly couldn’t understand for the life of her…How on
earth
did Mark get tangled up with this woman? Geneva didn’t fit who she knew Mark to be. Kelly stopped herself. What had she been saying earlier about double lives? But still…this was nuts. Absolutely nuts.
    The little boy was ignoring his mother and had gone about the task of watering the lawn. As she watched the little boy concentrate so intently on his duty while his mother continued to wail like a banshee, Kelly felt herself well up again. She and Mark would never have children. She would