LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Ellie put down her pen and glanced at the door again. The sign on the private detective’s door said, “Be back in ten minutes,” but she’d been waiting for thirty-two minutes and he still hadn’t returned. She looked down at her notebook again. She was making notes on a story about three women who go back in time and change their lives. The book would be a departure from her usual stories about the life and adventures of Jordan Neale, but if it was good, the readers would like it.
She looked down at her watch again, then her glance traveled up her arm, and from there she looked down at her legs showing beneath her short denim skirt. Putting her notebook down on the seat beside her, she put her hands around her waist. She’d measured it every one of the three days since she’d returned, and each time she felt a thrill when she saw that her waist was once again a teeny, tiny twenty-four inches. And every morning, she’d weighed herself. The first time she’d stepped on the scales and seen the needle stop at one hundred and one pounds, she’d burst into tears.
Three days ago had been the day before her fortieth birthday, but three days ago she’d been sent back to her old life, back into her former, slimmer body. But, more important, she’d been sent back to her own mind. For the first time in years, Ellie once again had stories running through her head. She had energy. She had a feeling that good things were going to happen to her, that they could happen to her. This happy feeling was odd because she knew of the horror that was going to happen very soon in the coming divorce, but since it hadn’t actually happened yet, she didn’t have the depression that she knew would come after the divorce.
“How much time is wasted in depression,” she whispered aloud.
She was sitting on a wooden bench outside the office of Joe Montoya, the private eye she’d hired to investigate her soon-to-be ex-husband. She’d gone to the detective the first day she’d returned, and she’d had a lot to tell him. Most of the things she told him were what she’d found out after the divorce, but now, this time around, she knew what her ex was up to.
On her first visit to the detective, she’d sat on the other side of his desk, opened her notebook and started on her list of things that she knew were going to be important in the divorce. “He’s going to say that he coauthored my books, so I need for you to document his daily activities to show that he was too busy socializing at my expense to have time to help me write. And you said you know a forensic accountant? I need help in finding out what my husband has done with all my money over the years,” she told the private eye.
He was writing quickly, only now and then looking up at Ellie in speculation. She knew what he wa
s thinking, that most women on the verge of divorce were a basket case of tears and misery. But Ellie had done that—and as a result, she’d lost everything.
“He’s going to say that he did all the research for my books, that he contributed at least half of their development,” she continued. “And he’s going to say that he was a brilliant manager of the money I earned, so I need an accountant to look at the discrepancy between what I earned and what was left after he finished with it. And I need someone who can be a down-and-out and get my ex to talk.”
“What?” Montoya asked.
“My slimy ex-husband—almost ex, that is—is going to tell the court that he has no money hidden, but I know that he does because after the divorce I found out that—”
“What do you mean, ‘after the divorce’?” the detective asked.
“Sorry. My mistake,” she said, smiling. “It’s just that I want to get away from him so much that I tend to think of it as a done deal.”
She could see that he didn’t accept her explanation, but she wasn’t worried that he’d guess the truth. “Do you have someone who could get to know my ex . . . uh, my husband?” she persisted. “It has to be a man, preferably someone who looks like a drunk, or is a drunk; that would be even better.”
The detective put down his pen. “Why don’t you tell me what this drunk has to do with hidden money?”
“My ex—” Try as she might, she could not bring herself to call him her “husband.” “Often goes out to bars in the evening. I believe he meets a woman there.”
“I see,” Montoya said, then bent over his desk and picked up his pen again.
“No, you don’t see. This isn’t about another woman.” Taking a deep breath, she leaned back against the chair and tried to calm herself. “Mr. Montoya, may I be honest with you?”
“It would help,” he said, also leaning back in his chair.
“The truth is that when you have as much money as I’ve earned in the last years, the courts and the lawyers couldn’t care less about who’s sleeping with whom. I could walk into that court with eight-by-ten glossies of my ex in bed with two men, three women, and a chimpanzee, and it wouldn’t matter in the least.
“What matters to them is money and that’s all. Money, money, and more money. California is a community property state, and I don’t mind giving him half of what I’ve earned in the past—not that he deserves a penny of it—but I can live with that. But I know him, and he’s going to tell the courts that I couldn’t have written the books without him. And, based solely on his word, the judge is going to decide that he deserves far more than what I have earned in the past. The judge is going to say that Martin Gilmore deserves all my past income and half my future income because he made me what I am. What I need to do, and do very quickly, is gather enough evidence to show the court that Martin Gilmore is not the upstanding, self-sacrificing person that he says he is. I want to show the court that he’s been skimming money from me and that he now has it hidden. I just need to find out where it is.”
For a moment the detective looked at her. He knew how successful she was, and he’d dealt with a couple of other writers, so he knew about royalty payments. “You’re talking millions, aren’t you?”
“Millions in money and an unimaginable amount lost in dignity and self-esteem,” she said softly. “He’s after money, but I am fighting for my sanity. For my future.”
He continued to look at her for a moment; then he picked up his pen again. “So what makes you think he’ll tell about this money to a stranger? A drunken stranger?”
She smiled at the top of his head. He was an ordinary-looking guy, and there were a couple of framed photos on the cabinet behind him of a woman, two kids, and a dog. “My ex has a big mouth and he loves drunks,” she said. “The losers of the world make him feel better by comparison.”
“And you want him to talk about money he’s hidden?”
“Yes. Where is the money he’s taken out of my bank accounts over the years? You see, I did a little accounting on my own and even though he spent—spends—a lot, I’ve earned more. But I don’t know where it is. In the last three days I’ve searched through every piece of paper in our house, but I found nothing. My only hope is to get him to talk.”
Looking at her, Montoya lifted his eyebrows in question. “And you think he’s going to tell that to a stranger?”
“Yes,” Ellie said firmly. “Martin loves to brag, loves to tell people how clever he is. If you plant someone near him who has a mournful story about a wife who’s ripping him off, Martin will reveal all his secrets of how to turn the tables and get back at the bitch.”