The Monster

How is that the evil people in this world, the liars and cheaters and con men, succeed so often? I've concluded that the real reason is the rest of us. Most of us on this planet are basically honest, basically decent. We tend to tell the truth in most situations and treat one another with some degree of kindness.

Not surprisingly, we also take for granted that those around us will behave the same way. But our assumption that most people, most of the time, are honest, leaves us terribly vulnerable to those bastards who lie and cheat without any conscience at all. They can utterly fool us for quite a long time—sometimes forever—without our ever realizing it. Because we don't lie and cheat, we don't suspect quickly enough that others might be doing it to us.

It was Gina Giannopoulos who taught me this painful lesson. Or I suppose I should say Gina Giannopoulos Macmillan, because that was her married name. I'm Alex Macmillan, her ex-husband.

****************

The engine of my Lexus started making some scary noises one morning, and I dropped the car off at Marshall Motors, where Dominic had been working on my cars for about ten years. He called me around lunch time—but instead of telling me that the car was okay he said, "you'd better come down here and talk to me."

When I got there he took me into the private office in the back.

"Alex, the engine is fine, just a belt loose. But there was something else."

He looked at me seriously. "Somebody had tampered with the brake-line. There was just enough hydraulic fluid left for some routine stops, but if you'd had to go down a steep hill or stop in a hurry, you would have crashed the car."

I stared at him, my mouth open. Six months before, Gina and I had moved to a new, fancy modern house in the suburbs. It was gorgeous, with cathedral ceilings and lots of glass, and it was surrounded by quiet woods.

But it was also at the end of a cul-de-sac off a main street that plunged steeply down a hill. Had I driven the car home that night I almost certainly would have been killed.

After a couple of minutes I pulled my thoughts together a little.

"Dominic, do me a favor, OK? Don't tell anyone about this for now. Have you fixed it yet?"

"No, man, there was a crime committed here—or at least an attempt. I have to call the police."

"Okay." I thought some more. "How about we do this? Take some photos of the brake-line, and write it up just as you would for the police. But let's not call them yet. Just leave the car parked on your back lot, and I'll rent one of the clunkers you keep around for a few days. There are surveillance cameras on the lot, right?"

"Yeah." Dominic looked doubtful.

"Here's the thing. Whoever did this is going to want to cover it up when they find out I'm not dead. So I'm betting they'll try to steal that car off the lot in the next few nights. I don't want to call the police until after that happens. We'll have the camera footage to give them at the same time."

Forty-five minutes later I got out of my rented blue Corolla and left it in my driveway. I'd taken the rest of the day off—I wanted to think hard about what was going on.

The attempt on my life had to be about money. I was the President and co-founder of Apex, an $6.8 billion software firm in Silicon Valley, and my first guess was that someone wanted me out of the way as part of an attack on the company.

It was the day off for Carmelita, our cook/housekeeper who normally worked noon-8pm, and the house was quiet; Gina must have been out shopping or playing tennis. I walked around aimlessly, my mind spinning through the possible culprits and possible reasons for whatever was going on.

Picking up the phone, I spoke to Jeff Denham, my old friend who runs the security firm that Apex uses. Without giving him a reason I made clear that I suspected some sort of problem going on: either some sort of financial irregularity already in the works, or a future attack on the company. We arranged to have his financial guys do a complete screening of our computers and financial records. I gave Jeff a temporary password that would let his people access what they needed from my office desktop, and told him that I wanted this done discreetly. We would tell everyone they were doing a routine audit.

Then I called Meredith, my long-time secretary, and told her to put the temporary password into my computer, and that Jeff's guys would be in later in the day.

Once that I was done I resumed my aimless wanderings. I went to our home computer and poked around on it, not expecting to find anything. Out of pure idle curiosity I tried to open some of Gina's files, including her email, and to my surprise they were all password-protected.

What would Gina have on our computer that she didn't want me to see? Outside of something unlikely like planning a surprise party, I couldn't imagine. I made a mental note to ask her about it later.

I was having a cup of tea in the kitchen at about 4:30 when Gina walked in. She took one look at me and virtually collapsed. I'd never seen anything like it: her mouth dropped open, she went white, and her body sagged against the doorframe.

"Alex! You're...you're...what are you doing here?"

I smiled mildly. "Actually, honey, I live here. Remember?"

She pulled herself together a bit, and sat down at the table across from me. Forcing a smile, she said, "of course, baby. It's just...well, you're almost never home this early, and I didn't see your car outside."

It happened in an instant. I was about to tell her all about the brake-line; and then instead I just said, "there was a problem with the engine and I had to leave it with Dominic for a few days. He rented me one of their clunkers, that's what's out in the driveway."

Why hadn't I told her the truth? At the time, I think I believed it was because I didn't want to worry her—didn't want to say, "by the way, honey, someone's trying to kill me." Why terrify your wife?

But when I thought about it later it might have been for a very different reason. Why was she so incredibly shocked to see me sitting in the kitchen—not just surprised but stunned, as if it were the most unexpected thing in the world? I didn't understand her reaction, and the more I thought about it later the more it gnawed at me.

"Oh," she said, and I could see her making an effort to pull herself together. "Well, it's great to have you home so early. What do you want to do about dinner?"

"How about if we go out, since Carmelita's off?"

"Great!" she said. "Let me just shower, and maybe we can go to Andante?"

Then she was headed quickly out of the room, and a couple of minutes later I heard the shower running. I put my teacup in the sink and started toward the bedroom, thinking I'd wash my face and change into something more casual before we went out.

The bedroom door was nearly closed; and to my surprise, as I approached I heard Gina talking on the phone, in a low, urgent voice. Why would she have started the shower running, then called someone? I hadn't heard the phone ring, so she must have made the call.

I didn't hear much; just, "no, Dowdle, I have no idea!....no, of course not...yes, we'll have to...okay, baby, bye."

Not much—but more than enough to freeze me in my tracks. She was talking to Jeff Denham, my friend and security guru. His middle name was Dowd, and I'd been calling him "Dowdle" since about 8th grade. Gina had picked up the nickname from me—there wasn't much doubt about who was on the other end of the line.

I waited as she hung up the phone and headed into the bathroom. Then I waited two minutes more, before entering the bedroom and changing. I washed my face in the guest bathroom rather than disturb Gina's shower. My mind was racing—what the hell was going on? Could Gina—and my friend Jeff—possibly have been involved in what happened to my car?

Despite the evidence of the past ten minutes, it seemed utterly impossible. Gina and I had been married for eight years; I was 46 and she was 37. I'd been married and divorced once before, in my twenties; and I had two great kids whom I saw only on summer vacations and occasional quick visits, because their mother had moved them 2000 miles away after the divorce.

I'd first seen Gina when she toured the Apex offices while working as a sales rep for a computer support firm we did business with. I made it my business to find out who she was, and then to arrange a lunch date with a friend at her company who could casually introduce us.

It was worth the effort. Even if you woke her up out of a sound sleep Gina would be one of the ten most beautiful women you'd ever seen; and when she has time to do the clothes and makeup thing, she is just stunning. Nearly 5'10", with long raven-black hair and dark eyes, high cheekbones and a saucy mouth, and a tight, athletic body.

She also has "the look": the way of walking, moving, presenting herself, looking you in the eye, that says "I know I'm hot, and I know you think so too". I knew from the first time I took an interest in her that I'd have lots of competition, and it was a pleasant surprise that we were soon dating, and then dating seriously; and after about a year, engaged to be married.

I'm not bad-looking, but no hunk, and I'm nine years older than Gina. I knew that my business success and my money had to be part of the attraction for her, and that didn't bother me. Why be successful, if it doesn't get your foot in the door with gorgeous women?

And we had an iron-clad prenup that limited her to nothing more than about a million dollars if we divorced in less than twenty years, so I felt confident that she loved me as well as my money. We'd live very well together, and if she loved being rich with me that was fine, as long as she was also making me happy.

Gina made me very happy. She spent a lot of money—but I had it, so not a problem. She was energetic and lively, very sociable and full of fun. She made a lot of friends, dragged me to a lot of parties, and flirted with a lot of guys—but at the end of the evening she came home with me and, as often as not, balled my socks off. Gina was experienced and enthusiastic, as adventurous in bed as elsewhere (she loved hang-gliding, rock-climbing, stuff like that). She wore me out, and I was completely happy about it.

But the events of the last few hours had changed everything—or at least they threatened to. I needed to do a lot of hard thinking, above all because Dowdle seemed to be involved. Under other circumstances he would be the first person I'd call. In fact, I had already called him, and gotten his people started on a check of Apex's finances. I realized now that I'd perhaps made a bad misstep, by tipping him off that I was suspicious about something.

Thank God I hadn't mentioned the car being tampered with! Neither he nor Gina knew I knew about that—at least not yet.

***************

That evening tested my acting skills to the limit. Gina and I went off to Andante and had a nice dinner, with a bottle of good Chianti. I was incredibly preoccupied, but I tried hard not to seem withdrawn or distant. I made sure the conversation flowed, and when Gina took her shoe off and slid her foot up and down my leg under the table, I responded with a smile and some discreet caresses of my own.

I knew that the evening would end with some athletics in bed—that was certainly Gina's habit, after a nice dinner out with some good wine—and I wondered about what to do. But the right decision was obviously to go with the flow: not just because I didn't want to make her at all suspicious, but because sex with my wife was about the most fun I had ever had! Suspicions or no, I was going to enjoy her, at least this one more time.

We didn't do anything out of the ordinary for us—when she came out of the bathroom in a short red nightie, I was waiting naked in bed for her. She liked to suck on me until I was not only hard but desperately excited, then lie back and let me lick her to a couple of orgasms, and then we'd fuck.

And that's what we did! Gina adored being eaten, and I made sure to give her her money's worth: lots of tongue on her lips and clit, then some finger-attention to her tight asshole, then back to the clit with my tongue while my fingers rubbed her G-spot. She came three times in rapid succession; then, her eyes blazing, she pushed me over on my back and jumped on top of me, riding me cowgirl until I exploded into her, seeing stars as I shot off. It was sweaty, energetic, terrific.

And then we cuddled for a few minutes, said our "wow"s and our "I love you"s, and went to sleep. An exciting but typical romp in bed, after a pleasant but typical dinner out. Nothing out of the ordinary, or so it seemed....

***************

One of my talents is the ability to think about a problem with part of my mind while I'm doing other things—like having dinner with, or fucking, my wife. So when I got up the next morning I knew exactly what I would do to get to the bottom of the mysterious attempt on my life, and my wife's apparent involvement.

I woke early and made the preparations for a quick trip to Los Angeles: I packed an overnight bag, and I had the company's travel agent book me the usual round-trip flight for a three-day trip and a room at the Beverly Wilshire, where I always stayed in LA. I called for a limo to the airport, had a quick breakfast, then went into the bedroom and woke Gina.

"Babe, sorry to bother you." I smiled at her, and enjoyed the sight of her beautiful face as her eyes slowly opened and she smiled back up at me.

"Morning, Alex," she murmured, pulling me down for a long kiss, then another one. God, she felt good! I was more than a little tempted to pull off my clothes and jump back in bed with her, but I resisted.

"I've got to go to LA, honey," I said. "I got a couple of emails this morning about a meeting we've been trying to set up—it's all come together suddenly, and I'll need to be there for a couple of days."

This was a lie, but a very plausible one. I traveled frequently, and business trips quite often came up on short notice.

"Okay, sweetheart. I'll keep the bed warm for you—you'll be back on Friday?"

"Yeah, that's the plan. Just make sure it's only you keeping the bed warm, OK Gina?"

She gave me a big laugh, then squeezed me tight in another hug. "No one in here but me, baby. Just think of how horny I'll be by Friday!" she whispered in my ear.

In the limo I marveled at my wife's ability to lie to me. Either I was completely wrong, and she was innocent of any connection to the attempt on my life, or she was one hell of an actress! More than that—a cold-blooded monster. I hoped I was wrong, but I didn't see how it could be.

On the short flight from San Jose down to LA, I worked out some of the details of my plan. The key was total secrecy—since Jeff Denham appeared to be involved, I had to avoid any action that would tip him off to my suspicions. And since he was the leading security guy in the whole Bay area, that meant bringing in someone from far away.

***************

On the cab ride in from the airport, I stopped off at an electronics store and paid cash for a throw-away cell phone. Then, after checking in at the Beverly Wilshire, I called Dan Camorin and arranged to meet him for lunch near his office downtown. Dan had been my right-hand man when I founded Apex, and we had both gotten pretty rich when it took off. Three years earlier we'd had a mutually friendly parting of the ways: he moved down to LA with his family and took a job running a financial-services company that, thanks to his brains, was doing very well. Dan and I saw one another a couple of times a year, so no one would find it odd that I was visiting with him.

We sat over sandwiches and a couple of beers in an outside terrace restaurant, reminiscing about old times and sharing stories of recent problems and triumphs. He asked about Gina, and told me about his wife Linda and what their kids were up to. But when we finished eating, I leaned forward and spoke more seriously.

"I'd like to ask you a couple of favors, Dan, if you don't mind."

He looked interested, and I continued. "I have reason to believe I may have some sort of problem inside Apex. Do you have a security firm that you trust?"

"Absolutely," he said. "Vertex Securities. Alan Newman, the guy who runs it, is first-rate. But you've still got Jeff Denham, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I want someone from the outside on this one. Here's my first favor: would you give Newman a call and tell him a good friend would like to talk to him over the phone and get some advice, but without giving him my name?"

Without hesitation, Dan called on his cell phone and made a phone appointment for "a friend of his" later that afternoon.

"Thanks, Dan. I'll ask you please to forget that that ever happened. Now here's my other favor—actually it's a question I want to ask you. During the time you knew Gina, did you ever see her...behave in a way that was inappropriate, or suspicious at all?"

To my amazement Dan looked away, and his face flushed red. I waited, and finally he looked back at me, a more sheepish expression on his face than I'd ever seen before.

"Alex, I...this is difficult, OK? A little embarrassing. I hope you won't want to slug me.

"About four years ago, in the last few months before I quit as your Chief Operating Officer and left to come down here, Gina kind of...flirted with me several times. It wasn't just the usual flirtation, though—the kind of stuff that beautiful women do all the time. On a few occasions she came very close to propositioning me."

My face must have shown my amazement, because Dan put up his hands defensively, almost as though he thought I might actually hit him.

"It wasn't obvious, Alex—she never said, 'do you want to take me to bed?' or anything like that. She came close to the line, but always subtly enough that it was never overt. The offer was there for me to grab, but if I pretended not to understand it was ambiguous enough that neither of us had to feel embarrassed.

"That's why I never spoke to you about it. I felt really strange, believe me—but I didn't want to get you furious, either at me or at her, when it was something so hard to pin down. I was afraid you might think I had imagined it."

He sat for a moment, looking unhappy.

"I think I understand, Dan—and I'm not pissed off at you. So you just let the subtle invitations go over your head, and after a while she backed off?"

"Exactly. It went on for a few weeks and then it just stopped. Gina went back to being the friendly, mildly flirtatious woman she'd been in the past. It was weird—as though she was experimenting on me or something."

"And was there ever anything else, any other strange behavior that you noticed?"

He nodded, still looking unhappy. "This is worse, Alex. Just after we moved down here, Linda told me that she'd had a farewell lunch with Barbara Daniels, Josh's wife. Barbara was very upset; she told Linda that Josh had been cheating on her, and she was almost positive it was with Gina."

Josh Daniels had worked for Apex for seven years and was now our Chief Financial Officer. I leaned forward. "How did Barbara know?"

"She didn't, not for sure. She'd caught Josh lying to her about his whereabouts a couple of times, and there were some other things that convinced her he was cheating. But the part about Gina was much more iffy—maybe he came home once smelling like her perfume or something. I don't remember all of it.

"But I do know that Linda and I struggled together with the question of whether to let you know. I sure know that if she ever screwed around behind my back I'd want my friends to tell me! But the thing was, it was all so inconclusive. I hope I didn't make a mistake, but I didn't want to ruin your marriage over something that might never have happened at all."