Lust, Money & Murder by Mike Wells

messages, she would play them over and over again in the privacy of her office or living room, where she could relish the sound of his voice. Her emotional state would swing wildly to one extreme or another based on the slightest inflection or look in his eye. She longed for him to take her hand, like he had the first day she had arrived in Sofia.
    Elaine could only imagine the shock he would experience if he knew the emotional turmoil he was causing inside her.
    She felt like a schoolgirl endlessly pining over a boy who was utterly unaware of her existence.
    She hated herself for it, yet she seemed powerless to do anything about it.
    You want Nick so badly simply because you can’t have him, she thought, trying to talk herself out of how she felt. He’s out of your reach, and that makes him all the more attractive . If he was easily available, you wouldn’t be interested.
    She didn’t believe a word of it.
     
    * * *
    One day she came into Nick’s office and he was so engrossed with something on his computer screen that he didn’t seem to notice.
    “Nick?” she said.
    “What?” he muttered distractedly.
    She gradually came closer, looking over his shoulder. She almost expected to see pornography on the screen.
    “Ever been to the Provence region of France?” he said. He was scrolling through a series of small countryside villas.
    “No,” Elaine said. “It looks lovely. Are you thinking of taking a vacation there?”
    “Yeah. A permanent one.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I’m retiring. And soon.”
    Elaine was taken aback. “Aren’t you a little young to retire?”
    “Oh, I’ll keep working at something. But something that’s not life-threatening.” He glanced over at her. “I’ve got plenty of money socked away,” he said. “That old Mustang is the only thing I own.”
     
    * * *
    Elaine often thought about what Nick had said during the next couple of days, wondering how he had so much money “socked away” that he could retire in his 30s.
    One night she had a wonderful dream. She was eating dinner with Nick in a huge, rustic kitchen. The windows were open, the breeze blowing through the room. Fresh vegetables were spread over the table. Outside, she could see rolling, golden hills and poplar trees, like in a Van Gogh painting.
    Two children were sitting at the table, a boy and a girl, and both were speaking French. The boy favored Nick. The girl had strawberry blonde hair.
    There was a knock at the door. Suddenly, the feel and texture of the dream changed. For a second, she was back in her little house in Garfield.
    “I’ll get it,” she said, getting up from the table.
    As she walked through the hallway, she was filled with terror. The Secret Service was there, and they were going to arrest Nick, and take him away, and destroy her beautiful family and her idyllic life with him.
    When her hand touched the doorknob, it was cold as ice. Swallowing, she twisted it and pulled the door open.
    The two girls that had approached Nick at the bar in Sofia were standing there, the brunette with the pageboy haircut, and the blonde with the braid down her back and the skintight pants.
    “Is Neekie here?” the dark one said, her lipstick-smeared mouth grinning lewdly. “Can he come party with us?”
    Elaine awoke with a start.
     
     
    * * *
    She finally decided to call Ashley and spill her guts. She needed to talk to someone about her obsession—keeping all her feelings bottled up inside was making her crazy.
    Ashley was good at giving advice about the opposite sex—ever since Elaine had lost her virginity to “Mr. Rodriguez,” Ashley had been a kind of mentor to her, at least in the romance department.
    “You’ve got to let him know how you feel,” she said.
    “How?” Elaine said, shivering. She was standing in a phone booth in a Sofia suburb, and it was about 10 degrees outside. She wouldn’t have dared talked to Ashley about this on her cellphone or from the phone in her office or