Page 84 of The Perfect Deception

Dina caught her breath so hard she choked. Tears flooded her eyes and her nose ran and she dropped her phone into her bag as she rum­maged for a tis­sue. Ash­ley lied?

Wip­ing her eyes and nose one last time, she put the phone back to her ear. “What are you talk­ing about?”

“Oh good, you’re still there. I heard this hor­ren­dous noise and I called and called your name and you didn’t an­swer and—”

“Cheryl!”

“What?”

“Ash­ley lied? How do you know?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Yes, but this is too im­por­tant to dis­cuss over the phone. Please meet me for din­ner tonight.”

Dina’s glance shifted from the li­brary door to her car and back again. If she had to meet Cheryl in per­son, she wanted to do so now, so she didn’t have to spend the en­tire day won­der­ing about their con­ver­sa­tion. Be­cause even if she and Adam were no longer to­gether, her cu­rios­ity was too strong for her not to pur­sue this.

“Okay.”

They fine-tuned the de­tails and Dina went into work, con­fi­dent she’d get noth­ing done to­day. She was right. In spades. By lunchtime, she’d filed three books in the wrong place, had looked up the wrong in­for­ma­tion for her re­search project and had repacked the books she was sup­posed to un­pack.

Brian, her boss, came up to her as she was search­ing for her lunch in her bag. “Dina, ev­ery­thing okay to­day?”

“I’m sorry, Brian. I’m dis­tracted to­day. I’ll get a grip, I prom­ise.”

“Ev­ery­one has an off day once in a while, but you’ve been off now more than usual. I’m con­cerned about you.”

She ran a hand through her hair and it caught in her frizz. Winc­ing, she un­tan­gled her fin­gers and mas­saged her scalp. “I know. I’m sorry.”

As he walked away, she shook her head. She had to find a way to get over Adam. Maybe her con­ver­sa­tion tonight with Cheryl would help. She paused, her sand­wich half­way to her mouth. Cheryl had in­vited her and Adam to din­ner. Should she call him and ask him if he wanted to go?

No, she’d sound des­per­ate.

But it was about Ash­ley, who had ru­ined his life.

Ex­cept she didn’t know specif­i­cally what, other than she lied, which, if she were hon­est with her­self, didn’t mean much. She could have lied about any­thing.

It was prob­a­bly bet­ter to wait un­til af­ter she met with Cheryl and lis­tened to what she had to say be­fore de­cid­ing whether or not to tell Adam. For all she knew, it might not be im­por­tant, and it was silly to in­volve him for noth­ing.

That evening, af­ter an even less pro­duc­tive af­ter­noon than morn­ing, Dina walked into the sushi restau­rant where she was meet­ing Cheryl. It was a fa­vorite of hers, and when Cheryl had ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to come to Mor­ris­town, Dina had given her the name and lo­ca­tion of the restau­rant. She was about to give her name to the host­ess when move­ment caught the cor­ner of her eye. Cheryl sat in a cor­ner booth and was wav­ing her arms, try­ing to flag her down. Grit­ting her teeth, Dina thanked the host­ess and walked over.

Cheryl gave her two air kisses be­fore sit­ting back down and point­ing to the empty seat across from her. Stash­ing her purse next to her, Dina sat and took the menu from the wait­ress who ap­peared at the ta­ble, even though she al­ready knew what she was go­ing to or­der. It gave her hands some­thing to do, if noth­ing else.

“Oh, you re­ally do look like a li­brar­ian,” Cheryl said. “It’s adorable.”

Not quite sure what to make of that state­ment, Dina nod­ded. “Did you know Casanova was a li­brar­ian?”

“Uh…wasn’t he some sort of lover?”

“He was also a scam artist, al­chemist, spy and church cleric.”

Cheryl looked at her askance and Dina could feel a flush creep up from her chest to her face. Why was she try­ing to have a con­ver­sa­tion with this woman? She had no de­sire to be friends with her—they were com­pletely dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple. If she were smart, she’d keep her mouth shut—ex­cept to eat—and let Cheryl say her piece so she could leave and be done with this ridicu­lous din­ner.

“I guess be­ing a li­brar­ian gives you ac­cess to all kinds of in­for­ma­tion,” Cheryl said af­ter a few mo­ments had passed with ag­o­niz­ing slow­ness.

“Pretty much ev­ery­thing is good here,” Dina said. “My fa­vorites are the dragon roll and the spi­der roll.”

“I don’t re­ally like eel—too rub­bery. Oh, they have Cal­i­for­nia rolls! My fa­vorite!”

And now she knew ex­actly what kind of sushi “lover” Cheryl was. As soon as they’d or­dered, Dina sat back and waited for Cheryl to tell her why they were here. She tried not to fid­get, but she couldn’t stop her foot from swing­ing like a clock pen­du­lum on steroids. When the toe of her shoe made con­tact with some­thing solid, she hoped, for a nanosec­ond, it was the ta­ble leg.

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