You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal (top novels txt) 📗

people touching each other, under the shirt, in their pants—yuck.

What was it with Dirk, though? Karin had kept saying how the whole idea was to work as a team, but then he’d just accused her of wanting to “take over.” It didn’t make any sense.

The girls didn’t have to say anything about it anymore. No way were Karin and Lotte going to chase after the other two. They’d just find their own way, with their half of the map. They’d probably make it to the campsite a lot faster than the other two anyway.

Without talking about it anymore, they both got up and brushed themselves off. Lotte pointed toward the trail that seemed to head northwest, not the one Dirk and Margot had taken, obviously. So what if they were just two twelve-year-old girls? They were both pretty smart, and not at all crazy. They were way better off on their own.

Chapter 8Accounting

Grace, now in Martijn’s terry robe, her skin still warm and doughy after a long drench, climbed the stairs and looked up at the door to his office, which was at the top of the house, in a converted attic reachable only by a ladder. It was an A-shaped space with a single window that offered a view across red-tiled rooftops, including the steeple of the church tower, with its bright blue imperial crown. It was a lovely view but one Grace had only ever seen a few times, because Martijn had claimed the room as his private office.

She had been very respectful of the idea of his “man cave”—understanding at a basic level that he might need a space of his own—although it had made her slightly uncomfortable to think that part of their house was off-limits to her. In any case, he kept it so messy that it gave her a headache to even look inside, so she hadn’t bothered to make a fuss. He wouldn’t even allow the cleaners who came once a month to vacuum in there or to run a duster along the exposed surfaces; he liked to say that it was his “own private pigpen.” Fair enough.

Now, though, she looked up at it with a kind of curiosity that amounted to hunger. Since he wasn’t home, she could at least enjoy the view for a few minutes, right?

As she put one foot on the first step of the ladder, she acknowledged to herself that this was an obvious betrayal of trust. He’d explicitly asked that she not go in there. If he found out she had, he would definitely be upset. But despite his admitting it was work that was bothering him, Grace worried he’d change his mind about saying anything more. What if he came back and nothing changed?

Anyway, he was gone for the whole night—and did he need to find out? She could be careful, make sure she didn’t really touch anything. Plus, she shouldn’t have to be afraid of her husband, right?

So she climbed, putting one foot and then the other on the ladder, until she had to grasp the handle and push up through the trapdoor. Then she hauled herself up into the room. She was immediately hit by a stench of old food, mildew, and—could it be?—cigar smoke. Did Martijn sit up here in the evenings puffing a Cuban? Was that his big secret?

She looked around at the drab office furnishings, the desk with its black Dell desktop computer, a metal filing cabinet from the 1970s, a bookcase with lots of dusty old volumes she was sure he hadn’t touched in years. There was a single plant underneath the window, but it was half dead already, poor thing. The only thing that was respectably new in the room was his office chair, an expensive ergonomic model he’d probably purchased with a company discount.

Keeping her little promise to herself, she went to the window first, to catch her glimpse of the view. It was a cloudy night, so she couldn’t make out the moon or many stars. She could see the silhouettes of the canal houses, all triangles and pentagons jutting up into the sky at odd angles. Somehow it made her think of being under the water in an ocean of sailboats, seeing only their hulls. It was pretty. It was nice. But it wasn’t why she was really here, was it?

Grace took a few steps back and let herself fall into the soft trampoline-like seat of his high-priced chair. She swiveled it back and forth a couple of times, getting a lay of the land. The desk was covered with dark gray three-ring binders stacked on top of one another, many of them bursting with papers. How could a man who was supposed to be a rationalist keep his files in such a chaotic state?

On the spine of each one was written a name, presumably of each of his accounting clients: VELDKAMP; VISSER; VRIES, DE. These were the Vs. On the other side of the desk was a manila file labeled OPERATIONAL SUPPORT, which seemed to contain nothing but financial spreadsheets. Boring, she thought. Just a lot of boring numbers. This couldn’t be what was keeping him up late, what was making him so tense, what was absorbing all his energy, could it? How did he really keep himself occupied up here?

Grace turned toward the filing cabinet, pressed the latch, and pulled out the top drawer. Did he keep his secrets here? A bottle of scotch? A pair of panties? A secret stash of porn? It was ever so slightly titillating to think, for even a moment, that he had a whole erotic life hidden away up here.

But no, Martijn’s files, Grace found, were all that filled this cabinet, and they were meticulously orderly and alphabetized. They seemed to be labeled with the names of clients: AARDEN, AUGUSTINE, BEEK, BEYL, BROUWER, CORNELISSEN…alphabetical. Ah, here was the evidence of the rationalist she’d married.

While thumbing through his files, she mused how strange it was that he basically