The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [53]
Mel lowered her coffee mug onto her lap slowly, swiveled within her desk chair to face her husband, leaned forward and gazed squarely across the short stretch of office area and directly into his eyes. “You never used to treat me like this, you know, bark at me like this. Without you even asking, you’ve always been able to count on me to let you know what’s going on. I’m your wife, for chrissake. Show a little affection, a little appreciation once in a while. I missed you when you were gone. I always do.”
Melony had barely begun to speak when Max was already reverting to the task of sorting papers and files into a stack, after which he gathered them up and approached Mel with them.
Melony turned her attentions away in an instant effort of restraint from growing anger, then just as instantly lifted her head to face him again; he was right before her now, arching downwards for a kiss to make things better. For a moment the kiss seemed to erase the friction between them, make things right again.
“You know I love you,” he told her and he said it in such a way that Melony could have mistaken these words for an offering of warm sincerity...if it wasn’t for how he hurried them so. And if it wasn’t for the stack of papers he then planted upon the desktop space beside her. “Now, you’ve got to understand, Mel, the profound and likely importance of what we’re getting ourselves into here, with this Erlandson project. We’re gonna blow the lid wide open on something that you and I have been working extremely hard on and we’ll lose it like we’ve lost it before...only this time we’ve never been so goddamn close to it.”
He continued, “I know it’s difficult, but we have to wait, our relationship pales in the light of what we’re about to uncover. You should know that. We’ll have a nice dinner tonight, you and I...how about that? But we must get to work and I’d like you to take care of these papers I’ve brought you, you know what to do with them. And in a little while, I’d like to know everything about Ralston Cooper’s gig last night and about your investigations there. Meanwhile, there are a few things waiting for me to do. I love you, dear...you’re wonderful.”
***
Over the course of the afternoon, Max had gone about his business feverishly, with Melony obeying his instructions without another word.
Max phoned Matt McGregor and spoke to Matt’s wife, after which he paged Matt two or three times before his calls were returned. McGregor was an L.A. County law enforcement official of many years and advancements of rank and even for much longer, a personal friend of Max. More importantly, McGregor was the primary informant to Max in the Erlandson saga and in particular was the very man who contacted Melony regarding the discovery of young Nigel’s body behind The Crow Job.
While researching the fascinating child abductees by UFO’s in a remote village bordering a vastness of rain forest, Max was first notified of the Nigel discovery by his wife, followed expectedly by a call from Matt. Nevertheless, upon Matt’s returned call that afternoon, Max made certain to give his friend a thorough interview about the subject; Max questioned Mel about the previous evening and Ralston’s celebrated gig, though Mel chose to exclude certain details concerning her personal feelings about Andrew, about her attractions to him, about how her accumulating despair over the condition of her marriage helped conjure up those attractions.
Melony did, however, explain to her husband her impressions of Andrew, how he came across as far more of an average guy than she had ever expected.
She told Max about the date she’d planned with Andrew that weekend and Max was thrilled whereas others would in the least prove jealous by some degree. But a date tonight was out of the question, there were other things to be done, preparations to make.
Melony phoned Andrew not long after Max’s questioning her (or rather, his interrogating her, as she was tempted to