Thought I Knew You(38)

She barely looked at them. “Ma’am, our guests greatly value their privacy, and I cannot tell you if anyone has stayed here or is currently staying here.”

I nodded as if I agreed with her. “I realize that, but this is my husband, and I’m not sure if he is alive. Is there any way you can look at the pictures and tell me if you have seen him in the last six months?”

She glanced down at the pictures, then picked one up, looking at it thoughtfully, her birdlike features intent on the photo. “Truthfully, I don’t think so. He doesn’t look familiar, but again, we have hundreds of guests a month. I’m sorry.” She handed the photo back to me. She did genuinely look sorry.

I took a shot in the dark. “Can you tell me if a Greg Barnes has been registered here in the last six months?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. We cannot reveal the names of our guests.” She backed away from the counter to answer the phone. A dismissal. Over her shoulder, she said, “Feel free to look around. In public areas, of course.”

“Of course.” Sarah and I walked around the lavish lobby. I couldn’t believe Greg had stayed there. A room probably ran three or four hundred dollars a night. Greg, forever frugal, balked at a four-hundred-dollar car payment. Would he really spend so much on his mistress? If so, then he was two different people.



I scanned a row of pamphlets on a table in the corner. One caught my eye. Golf with the pros on a Tom Fazio designed course. I looked across the lobby, out the large bank of windows and doors, and into the generous gardens beyond. Green as far as I could see. Images flashed in my mind like tumblers clicking into place: a single white golf tee in the pocket of his work khakis, elaborate cursive, The Grand, as in Grand Del Mar.

Greg didn’t golf, at least not well, or often. At the time, I had dismissed the golf tee, thinking maybe someone had given it to him, or he had picked it up off the ground and meant to throw it away, the way someone might pick up a discarded wrapper, conscientious of littering. When was that? June, perhaps? I did remember that the day had been a hot one.

Absently, I walked out onto the patio overlooking the golf course. “He was definitely here. And I think he played golf here.”

Sarah trailed after me. “Greg didn’t golf,” she said automatically, with the confidence of someone who knew her friend’s husband well through the eyes of her friend.

I glanced at her. “Does this look like a place that lets a beginner whack around a ball for a few bucks a round?” She shook her head. “I think he did golf. I think Greg did a lot of things I didn’t know about.”

“This makes no sense,” she said.

Nothing made sense anymore.





Chapter 18



We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel. Sarah had insisted that I needed a serious injection of fun. The nightly rate was steeper than I would have liked, but I happily took it out of the inheritance fund. I harbored no guilt, particularly after seeing the splendor of his accommodations with his mistress. The interior of the hotel was slick and urban. Counters were underlit with electric blue, and the far wall behind the check-in desks was painted to look like a rock concert crowd. Thin men in black turtlenecks and tight black pants checked us in.

When we got to our room, I flung open the mini-fridge.

“Careful!” Sarah warned. “These places charge you for opening the door.”

Ignoring her warning, I pulled out an airline-sized bottle of Crown Royal and downed it in one gulp. I flopped backward on the bed, splayed like a starfish, wanting to sleep for days and weeks and months and wake up when I reached the bottom of the rabbit hole, when all the facts had been assimilated for me, and I could stop feeling unwillingly whipped around by circumstance.

Lying on the opposite bed, Sarah stared at the ceiling. “How’s Drew?”

I sighed. “He’s happy to let me use him, and it’s what I continue to do, I guess.”

Sarah had a crush on Drew, not a serious one, but the way she had a crush on everyone. She loved men. She loved Greg, and she loved Drew. She always joked that it must be so great to have two husbands. In retrospect, the joke must have needled Greg. Probably because it was true.



She playfully hit me in the face with a pillow and pointed toward the shower. “Get up. We’re going out to eat.” She wagged a finger at me. “Look, you wanted me to come to bring you some fun. So that’s what I’m going to do. You know what restaurant is in this hotel? Nobu! Where movie stars hang out!”

“Sarah, there are no movie stars in San Diego. You’re in the wrong city.”