Like a Woman Scorned

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Her fingerprints needed to be gone. All of them. Carley worked her way around the office, checking and double checking, one wall at a time, each piece of furniture, making sure everything was wiped clean. It was important to do a thorough job, so she forced herself not to rush. Carley couldn’t afford to make a mistake born of complacency now. She inspected all the surfaces, the shelves in every book case, going over them twice until she was certain she left no trace.

Next, she opened drawers and cabinets, reconfirming that nothing had been placed in any of them. The procedure began to have a chilling effect on her. It was finally really happening. The important thing now was to avoid any stupid oversights. Don’t make a mistake. Don’t make a mistake. It’s the little things that usually trip up criminals, so Carley paid close attention to all the details. Not that she was a criminal by any reasonable standard of justice. Rick had this coming.

Satisfied, she did a final walkthrough. Everything appeared to be in order. The keyboard on her desk had been replaced with exactly the same model. She had never used his computer—or anything else in his office, for that matter. Carley had been extremely careful with those kinds of details. She never touched any of the law books. All the legal research he needed from her had been done on her computer.

And her computer led to nowhere. No personal search records, no trails or links to her life outside of that office. They would get nothing on her out of that PC, try as they might.

Any hairs found would be blonde, but she wouldn’t be blonde for much longer. Besides, the cleaning crew was so darn good, whatever traces of her remained wouldn’t be there more than a few days at best. It was unlikely anyone would be making that technical of a search for her, anyway. This wasn’t going to be a murder investigation, and lawyers are ultimately held responsible for whatever happens in their office.

Carley wanted to be remembered as the tall, thin, blue-eyed blonde secretary who worked for him for about a year. She would no doubt be on video tapes from the lobby, and perhaps even up here on the 12th floor. But you couldn’t see all that much of a person from those tapes—and even if you could, what would be the point? They weren’t going to find someone who had simply ceased to exist.

He was away so much he never noticed how little involvement she had with most things in the office. There hadn’t been much need for that. She rarely touched anything in the small kitchen space, and always brought in her own coffee and bottled water. No need to wipe the kitchen down.

As her last act, Carley cleaned her phone with antiseptic wipes.

Boy, Rick really blew it. He should have realized what a good team the two of them made. Instead, he haplessly clung to his helter-skelter family life, taking futile stabs at alleviating some of the guilt wherever he could. Nobody was fooled, and as a result Rick never felt grounded. There was a time when Carley almost felt sorry for him and wanted to step in and fix things, but she caught herself early and nipped those feelings of sympathy in the bud. All she had to do was remember the pain, the anguish, and no one there to help her through it—certainly not the man who caused it all. The anger she felt over his betrayal had not subsided. Nothing was going to change that.

She broke her train of thought with a shiver, removed the surgical gloves, and put them in her purse. It was almost over. It had been a long time in coming, but that made it all the more fulfilling.

Goodbye, Richard Waterman.