Leanne rode the bike Cassandra lent her as close as she safely could to the retaining wall that bordered the street.
“What are you doing?” asked Cassandra from the bike that she was riding directly behind Leanne.
“Knocking down the spider webs stretching from the wall to the road.”
“That’s very nice of you. Now, can we move a little faster? If you want to know the rest of the story before work, we haven’t got much time.”
Leanne picked up speed. A few minutes later, they were parking the bikes in Cassandra’s garage. They entered the house and Cassandra said, “Iced tea first.”
“Ok,” Leanne said, despite her growing impatience, which was fast turning into a case of serious frustration.
“Raspberry, lemon or peach?” Cassandra asked her as she prepared the K-Cup brewer.
“Peach.”
After the tea was brewed, they took their tumblers into the living room. Cassandra took several sips and then said, “Ok, so where did I leave off?”
“You were talking about setting Angel up to hit on your ex when she could catch him alone at lunch at the café.”
“Oh, right,” said Cassandra. She took a few more sips of her iced tea, adding another agonizing few seconds to Leanne’s waiting time.
“So did she do it?”
“Yeah, she did it,” Cassandra said dubiously. “And unfortunately, Leonardo agreed to set up a meeting.”
“Uh-oh,” said Leanne.
“I hate to say it, but a part of me still hoped he wouldn’t actually go through with it and that he’d realize what a stupid mistake he was making when it actually came down to business. But I needed to have a reason to destroy what little hope I had left if that was what was truly going to be the case. Meaning that I could’ve stopped there and assumed that his agreeing alone to see her was proof enough of him stepping out on me.”
“What happened next?”
“She asked me if that was enough, and I said, ‘No, it’s not enough. I need to know if he’s just saying he’ll get together with you, or if he really will actually follow through and put his actions where his mouth is.”
“They say seeing is believing,” Leanne pointed out.
Cassandra nodded. “So I had her go ahead and meet with him the next night, as was agreed to, all the while I was half-hoping the bastard wouldn’t call to say he’d be late coming home. I worked days back then.”
“Wait. When did this happen?”
“Just over a year ago. Our divorce was final last week.”
Leanne took the last few sips of her tea.
“That night – the night of his meeting with Angel – he was two hours late. Angel was supposed to meet him at a hotel, then make it like she got an emergency call about her fictitious daughter and split before anything could actually happen between the two. She was supposed to give no sex and accept no money other than what I paid her to do.”
“Right,” Leanne said with a nod, “because it was just a test.”
“I figured he was late because he was busy trying to find a fill-in for the bitch before it got too late. Meanwhile, Angel was supposed to call and let me know if he really did show up or not, what he said, and then bail out at the last minute using the so-called emergency message she was supposed to get. After a day went by without any word from her, I started to think she might’ve lost my number. Or maybe that’s just what I hoped was the case.”
Leanne nodded sympathetically. She was pretty sure where Cassandra’s story was heading.
“I never had Angel’s number, which turned out to be a good thing. Once I get to the end of the story, you’ll understand why. But since I couldn’t call her, I called Brittany. Brittany didn’t want to betray Angel by giving me her number, so she told me where she worked part-time during the day, which was in a local nursery. I assured Brittany I wouldn’t let her know I got her place of employment from her. I told her I would tell Angel that I just happened to wander in. After all, it was close to home and that time of year when the nurseries did most of their business, making my story more believable than if she worked far from where I lived or at a place that sells farming equipment.”
“Great way to confront the other woman,” Leanne said with a smile, trying to brighten up the somber mood that had fallen upon them.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t a great way for anyone to accidentally get killed.”
Had Leanne still been drinking her tea, it would have spilled all over Cassandra’s beautiful, plush, floral couch that looked brand new. “What?!”
“Yeah, here’s the part where there’s basically no turning back, Leanne. You either care about me enough to keep your mouth shut, or you don’t. I guess the best I can hope for if you don’t want to stick around is that you’ll at least keep my story a secret. I can let you go. You can call your parents or a friend to come and get you. Just please, please, please, never share my secret with anyone, ok?”
Leanne nodded.
“It truly was an accident, and well, do I seem like the type to you that deserves to spend many years, if not the rest of her life, in prison?”
Leanne shook her head quickly. “Definitely not. I haven’t known you long, but I’m usually a good judge of character. If you say it was an accident, I believe you.”
Cassandra smiled warmly, but only for a second. In a flash, the smile was gone, replaced with a look of seriousness. “I entered the nursery that day. At first, I thought it was deserted because I didn’t see anyone. It was one of those places where you entered a small indoor room with supplies. The nursery was in the back. There were a lot of full and mature palms, which made it hard to see the entire nursery.”
“I can picture it,” Leanne said.
“I called out hello, but no one answered. Finally, Angel came into view after having been behind a row of fan palms. She recognized me right away, and I pretended to be all surprised to see her. ‘That bitch!’ she screamed. ‘I told her not to give you any contact info.’ I assured her Brittany never said a thing and that I just happened by.”
“Did she believe you?”
“No. At least I don’t think she did.”
“So then what happened?” asked Leanne, eager to hear the rest of the story and what happened to the pricy call girl.
“I told her to tell me what happened with my husband and she’d never see me again. She said, ‘Oh, I don’t think you want to hear it. Things didn’t exactly go as planned.’ I told her I did want to hear it and I would accept whatever she told me and we’d just leave it at that.”
Leanne leaned towards Cassandra in anticipation of what was to come next.
“At first, I couldn’t get anything out of her and she remained pretty tight-lipped. ‘It’s over,’ she would say, ‘so why rehash it? He accepted my invitation and that was that.’ But I began to suspect there was a lot more to it. So I decided the blunt approach would be best and I asked if she fucked him. Just the look on her face alone told me she did, but I needed to hear it to put the subject to rest forever and so that I could begin filing the paperwork necessary for a divorce without feeling any pangs of guilt or doubts about it.”
“So did she admit it?” Leanne asked.
“Yup,” Cassandra said with a nod. “At first, I felt numb. Then became angry. I expected her to be positively and totally indifferent about the whole situation. After all, hooking was what she did. One of the things she did, anyway. But she actually did seem to feel a bit sorry. As I turned to leave, she rushed up behind me and apologized. I spun around, pissed off as hell now that reality was slowly starting to sink in, and shouted, ‘You were supposed to test him, not fuck him!’”
“I’d be pissed, too,” Leanne said.
“She started to speak again and to reach out for me, but I was too pissed to listen.”
Leanne studied Cassandra and imagined if she were pissed at her. The thought sent chills down her spine. “So what happened?”
“What happened? What happened was simple and horrible. She reached out to me and I shoved her away. Only I shoved her a little harder than I meant to. Maybe even a lot harder. Her foot caught on a hose running alongside one of the rows of plants and she fell backward and hit her head on the edge of a large pot that an eight-foot tree was planted in. I expected her to get right back up and start swearing at me or something, or even threatening to have me arrested for assault, even though that’s not technically what happened. It was a terrible, terrible accident and nothing more.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“No. Not to the absolute best of my knowledge, anyway. I started to bend down and call to her. My first instinct was to help her up. But when I saw the amount of blood pooling around her head and that she wasn’t moving, I knew it was useless. In that split second, I had a decision to make. Did I call it in and risk not being believed and being sent to prison? Or did I leave and hope for the best? Obviously, I chose to leave since no one was in sight, figuring that maybe it was that way for a reason and I oughta take advantage of it if I wanted a chance of hanging onto my freedom and my life.”
“I would’ve done the same thing,” Leanne said softly.
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