Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

Instead of them dining alone, Paul invited two male conferees to join their table. “Denise only came along to go shopping,” he explained, introducing her and dismissing her in one stroke. The three men talked shop throughout the meal. Trying not to feel hurt, Denise reminded herself that the purpose of the conference was business. When we’re alone in our room, I’ll have him all to myself.

Feeling out of place at the welcoming cocktail party, she told him she was calling it a night. He nodded distractedly, his attention on a female conferee who appeared to be alone. Then he turned and bathed Denise in a look so glowing that she forgot everything else. “See you later,” he whispered.

His promise held her until the pay-TV movie and the late show were both over. Lying in the big, lonely bed, Denise cried in the darkness. Paul couldn’t be trusted — she had known it almost from the start. They had met five years ago, after her invalid sister, her only family, had died. Back then, Paul had hung on her every word, but as soon as she had surrendered, he turned cold. Yet where would she be without him? She was thirty-two and she seldom met other men. Paul might be a rat, but he was her rat.

She awoke to feel him crawling into bed. Despite her earlier tears, her breath caught in anticipation when he moved close. Maybe things would be all right after all. He reached for her and she smelled the cloying sweetness of another woman’s perfume.

Her stomach clenched and she feared she would throw up. Head spinning, she stumbled from bed, suddenly desperate to escape. Barely thinking, she found her clothes in the darkness and fumbled them on, tucking her short nightgown into her jeans as if it were a blouse, pulling her sweater on over it.

“What the devil are you doing?”

She blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I’m going home.”

“Like hell you are!” Sitting up, Paul turned on the bed lamp. His naked chest looked pale and vulnerable in the shaded light and his expression showed alarm.

Denise blinked, realizing he had taken her seriously. A sense of power filled her. “It’s my car, isn’t it?” She took out her suitcase, opened the closet, yanked the bureau drawers wide.

“But — what about me?”

His anxious question fueled her newfound power. “Bum a ride with one of your conference friends. Or walk.”

Packed, Denise snapped her suitcase shut. Paul had taken advantage of her for the last time. Burning self-realization swept her from the room, down the elevator, and out to the parked car. Paul had wanted her on the trip for her car; he had wanted her in his bed in case he struck out with somebody else. Paul had been bad news from the start, but out of fear and loneliness, she had bargained away her self-respect. She may have been a fool, but never again.

Denise drove through the night, taking a different route from the one coming down. Paul had wanted to avoid the Washington traffic so they had traveled west from Baltimore to Frederick before going south on 1-81. Now, she aimed to cut east to Richmond, then follow 1-95 straight to Washington, taking pleasure in a course he would disdain.

A cloudy day dawned. Denise stopped for gas and a snack. She sipped dark coffee and smugly envisioned Paul ducking out of meetings to see if she had returned to their room. He wouldn’t be able to believe she had actually left him.

By afternoon, however, she was weary from driving and suffering second thoughts. Her apartment would be so lonely. Suppose Paul had had good reason for having come to bed so late? She had been half asleep — maybe she had imagined the perfume. He might have been able to explain. Shouldn’t she have at least given him the chance? She gripped the steering wheel with sweaty hands. Leaving Paul had been a mistake. The week and a half without him had been hell.

That’s when she saw the shoe, sitting exactly where she had seen it before. Her car was past it when she realized it couldn’t be the same shoe. She was traveling north, not south, and miles to the east. This wasn’t even the same road!

Two shoes placed so similarly at least seventy-five miles apart excited her imagination. She eased her foot from the accelerator and pulled off onto the shoulder. The shoe showed in her rear-view mirror, the toe pointing toward the highway.

“Come on, mister, I’m waiting.” She spoke as if picking up a hitchhiker. A chill shivered through her. This is silly. I should drive on. But since she was already stopped, what harm would it do to take a closer look? Backing her car, she felt a bump. The shoe must have been closer than she had thought. She got out and found it lying in front of her rear tire.