by Brenda Novak
Because she was trying to expand her search in hopes of actually learning something that would make a difference.
Curling her fingers around the edge of the table, Claire took a deep breath. “Do you have any facts on which you’re basing such an accusation against Roni?”
“You mean other than believing she’s capable of it?”
Claire shoved a hand through her hair. “How can you say that?”
“I saw what she did to my father.”
“Your father had a hard life. I—I’m sorry about what happened. But depression did him in, not Roni.”
“Desperation did him in. The head games she played did him in. And that started when he met her.”
They could argue about this all day, but what was the point? Claire wasn’t close enough to that situation to know what was true and what wasn’t. “Tell me why you think she killed my mother.”
“She wanted her out of the way.”
Claire sank back into her seat. “Why?”
“Roni hated your mother. She was jealous of her years before she acted on that jealousy.”
Shoving the tea aside, Claire leaned forward. “Don’t state it as a known fact because—”
“I’ll state it any way I like,” she interrupted. “And if you really want to do right by your mom, you’ll listen.”
Claire almost stood again, but she figured she’d come this far, she might as well hear the rest. Then it would all be out, and there’d be one less rock to look under. Clenching her jaw, she said, “Tell me what you have to say.”
“They were having an affair. That wasn’t conjecture on my part. I heard all the shit she said.”
“But Tug and Roni weren’t even particularly good friends.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” April touched the condensation on her glass. “They worked at the gun shop together.”
This was it? What she was basing everything on? “Of course I know that, but—”
“They fell in love, Claire.”
“According to you. I’m not sure I believe it.”
“Trust me. Roni wanted him. But there was one problem. Tug already had a wife.”
“And Roni already had a husband.”
“She wasn’t worried about that. She’d toyed with his heart until she had him so beaten down he wasn’t the same man he’d been when I was young. Why he loved her so much, I can’t even guess, but part of his anguish came from knowing he had no chance of keeping her. My dad, God rest his soul, didn’t have the same…prospects as Tug.”
The fan in the other room stirred Claire’s hair as it moved from side to side but did little to cool the kitchen. “You’re talking about the money my parents had just inherited.”
“Yes.”
Claire had expected to hear something like this and yet it grated on her. “Do you have proof?”
“Once I began to suspect, I wanted to know for sure. So I hacked into her email account and read their messages. They were pretty hot.”
“But no one’s ever accused him of cheating.” Except her. Hadn’t she just asked him and Roni at the salon?
“They hid it well. It’s too bad your mother didn’t do the same.”
The burning in her throat threatened to choke Claire. “You’re saying you think my mom was having an affair, too.”
“Of course. Don’t you? Why would so many people point a finger at her if it wasn’t true?”
“Because they’re searching for answers they don’t have, so they come up with the only explanation they can.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “If that’s what you want to believe.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You didn’t hack into her email account, did you?”
April didn’t respond immediately. When she did, her voice was softer. “No. That part is pure conjecture.”
Claire wished she’d never instigated this conversation. “So, according to you, Tug and Roni were having an affair and so was my mother. But if they’d both found happiness with someone else, why didn’t they simply divorce? How does that situation develop into murder?”
“Far too easily, I’m afraid. Roni was making Tug feel like a desirable man, the only man for her, and you and I both know how susceptible he is to that.”
Claire gave no indication whether she agreed with this or not. Being attractive to the opposite sex had always been important to him. The way he dressed, far younger than his age, said as much. But April didn’t know Tug, not really.
“As long as he could provide the lifestyle she craved—the lifestyle my father failed to provide—he’d be her heartthrob.”
Even though she wished she could prevent it, the mansion Roni lived in courtesy of her mother’s inheritance popped into Claire’s mind. She and Leanne had each received ninety thousand, which they’d spent on their houses and on school, but Tug had kept the bulk of Alana’s inheritance. “So you think it was all about money.”
“That, and he didn’t want to lose you and Leanne.”
Leanne’s words during their last argument came back to Claire. Her sister had stopped short of accusing Tug of murder, but she’d also said he wasn’t sad about losing Alana because it meant he wouldn’t have to worry about being separated from her children. Did a consensus make that true?
No. She was allowing this to go too far. April hated Roni and Tug. She had a vested interest in describing them in the worst possible light. And Claire was letting her. “You don’t know how he felt about us so don’t pretend you do—”
“You’re wrong there, too. He wrote what I just said in one of those emails.” April picked up her glass, stared at it in the light of the sun and took a swallow before setting it back down. “He really cares about you, if that makes you feel any better.”
It didn’t. Claire was sick inside. “Most stepparents don’t go to such lengths to keep their stepchildren.”
“But he wasn’t going to get any more. Roni had herself fixed when she married my father. He already had the four of us. She didn’t want a fifth mouth to feed. And Tug couldn’t have any of his own.”
Claire nearly dropped her glass. “What did you say?”
April watched her more closely. “You mean the part about Tug being infertile? You didn’t know?”
He wouldn’t admit it. She suspected the reason for that was his ego. He didn’t want to be perceived as damaged goods or less capable, less attactive to women. But she did know. That was the problem. She’d overheard her own mother say it, and that lent April’s whole terrible story more credibility than she wanted it to have. “Who told you?”
“It was in one of the emails. I’m guessing he sent it before she told him she couldn’t conceive, because he was trying to reassure her that she didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant.” She tore at some loose skin on her lips with her teeth, apparently struggling to recall the specifics. “If I remember right, he said something like, ‘All I ever dream about is making a baby with you. But even with Alana out of the way, you need to know it wouldn’t be possible.’ Then he went on to say that when his first wife couldn’t get pregnant, she dragged him to the doctor and they learned he had a low sperm count. He claimed that’s why she divorced him.”
When Claire merely stared, slack-jawed, April grimaced. “I really didn’t expect this to shock you quite so badly. You have to believe someone killed your mother. Who else could it be?”
Anyone. Joe. His brother. His wife. A…a stranger. A psychopath.
“Just be glad you weren’t the one to read those sickly sweet emails,” April told her. “I get a cavity just remembering them. But it was the sexual ones that really grossed me out.”
Claire lifted a hand to stop her. “Spare me the details, please.”
“No problem. I’ve already blocked them from memory.”
It seemed a bit convenient that she could remember so much about the other ones, especially after fifteen years. “Do you have copies of those emails?”
“No. I was afraid my fat
her would see them, and—” her voice wavered “—I didn’t want him to be hurt.”
April had lost a parent, too. Claire sympathized. But that didn’t mean it was right for April to blame Roni. “So she never figured out that you knew?”
“She didn’t have to figure it out. Several months later, I accused her of it.”
Claire folded her arms. “If she’s so diabolical, weren’t you afraid of what she might do to shut you up?”
“She hadn’t killed anyone at that point. I knew she was a selfish bitch, but I never dreamed she’d go quite so far—until it happened. That convinced me pretty fast.” She pushed her lip to one side so she could reach a different spot with her teeth. “I’ll never forget where I was when I heard the news that your mother was missing. I was sitting in my father’s trailer, crying. He was drunk, passed out yet again, but the TV was blaring in the background, showing the police going in and out of your house.”
“You immediately knew Roni was responsible?”
“Of course. That’s why I went to the police.”
But there was no record of her contact with the sheriff’s department. Claire would have to ask Myles if he knew anything about it. “If you weren’t scared before, you should’ve been then.”
“I was. But I was married at the time and didn’t feel so vulnerable. As the days, months and years passed, and she got everything she wanted, I realized I wasn’t at risk. She doesn’t consider me a threat. If what I knew could hurt her, she would’ve been in prison long ago.”
“I still can’t believe you’ve stayed here.”
“Where would I go?”
“You have siblings elsewhere in Montana.”
“But this place is all I know. And my children’s father works for the fire department. Scott wouldn’t let me take them away even if I wanted to move.”
Claire counted the rotations of the fan. The steady swoop sounded like a propeller circling in her head. “So you’re telling me she doesn’t have to worry because you have no proof those emails ever existed.”
April sat as straight as the chair. “The police should’ve confiscated her computer. But they didn’t.”
“No copies, like I said.”
Her gaze fell to the table. “No copies. Just what I can remember, what I told you.” Her eyes lifted to meet Claire’s. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Claire said, and fled the house before the tears welling in her eyes could roll down her cheeks.
But she couldn’t lie to herself quite so easily. Maybe she didn’t want to believe April had hacked into Roni’s computer and read such damning correspondence. But if what she said wasn’t true, how did she know Tug was sterile?
This time he was going to turn her away. No matter what.
Yesterday when he left her salon, Isaac had made the decision not to have any more contact with Claire. Her problems weren’t his problems. He wasn’t even sure why he’d been getting so involved. After a random two-day photo shoot in the mountains, he’d come home determined to avoid the emotions she evoked in him, which he could only do by avoiding her.
But an hour after he walked through the door, she stood on his stoop with tears streaking her face, looking as if her world had just come to an end. He wanted to ask what was wrong, what had happened. He could tell it was something significant. But he couldn’t allow himself to be drawn in again. He was done hanging on, regretting, hoping, craving.
“I found the money under the mat. There was no need to return it. I got the haircut. But thank you,” he said, and closed the door.
He hadn’t given her the chance to say a word. Part of him hoped he’d made her mad enough to knock again. Shouting at each other would be better than this oppressive silence. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe. But she didn’t make a second attempt. He heard nothing until her car started. Then a new wave of regret washed over him, and it was all he could do not to fly out of the cabin and flag her down.
He would have, if he’d thought it would help either one of them.
But it wouldn’t. He had to be more realistic about his own shortcomings. If sex was all there was to a relationship, he could give her that. He’d done it before. But not love. He didn’t know how to give love, or be loved. His own mother hadn’t even been able to love him.
He let his breath seep out as the sound of her engine dimmed. The temptation was over. She was gone.
But no sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he grabbed his keys and went after her.
As much as he’d tried to ignore it, tried to tell himself he didn’t care, he did. He had to know why she’d been crying.
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16
“Where were you Thursday night?”
Claire was cutting Carrie Oldman, one of the eight women in her book group. She’d already received a message from Carrie, as well as Laurel and one other friend, wondering why she didn’t show, but she’d been too caught up in everything else to respond. “Um, I was…not feeling well,” she finished lamely. Even if she was sick, it would be unusual for her not to call. Rarely did anyone miss their meetings. But that was the best answer she could conjure up on the spot.
Carrie frowned into the mirror. “Are you better now?”
“I’m not contagious, if that’s what you mean. Why?”
“You seem…a little out of it.”
Claire kept her attention on the short bob she was creating out of Carrie’s long, straight hair. With all the thinning and breaking as Carrie aged, she definitely needed a change. But it’d taken a year to talk her into this new style. And she’d chosen today of all days to go for it.
“I haven’t been getting much sleep,” Claire said. But that wasn’t everything. It was what April had said during their discussion yesterday that weighed so heavily on her: You mean the part about Tug being infertile? You didn’t know?
The drape rustled as Carrie brought her hand out to scratch her nose. “I’m really worried about you. We all are. You know that, don’t you? Once it was obvious that you weren’t going to come, Laurel hardly said a word the rest of the night.”
Claire would be able to reassure Laurel tonight. They had that date, which she didn’t want to go on. “I’m fine. Really. You guys need to quit worrying.”
Carrie’s hand came out again, this time to loosen the fastening of the drape. “You were just a little sick? That’s all it was?”
“That’s right.”
She looked slightly hurt. “But we called, and when you didn’t answer, a couple of us came by. You weren’t home.”
Claire hurried to shore up the lie. “I must’ve walked over to Leanne’s.”
“Your car was gone, so we knocked at Leanne’s door. She said she hadn’t seen you.”
“I guess I saw her later, after I got back.” Claire gave a laugh she hoped didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. She really didn’t want her association with Isaac to get out. She had to come to terms with too many other things first. “I drove over to my parents’. You know how it is when you feel sick. Sometimes you want someone else to take care of you.”
Uncertainty flickered in Carrie’s eyes. “Oh, you were at Tug and Roni’s.”
She hoped they hadn’t checked there, too. Claire wouldn’t put it past them. She loved every member, but a few of them didn’t know how to mind their own business. Of course, the same could be said about most people in Pineview. “For a while.”
“So what happened yesterday?”
“Yesterday? Nothing. Why?”
“Ellie saw your car at April’s house.”
Her heart began to thump but Claire kept cutting.
“We didn’t think you and April were friends,” Carrie added. She had a sweet way about her, but she was better at wheedling information out of a person than almost anyone else in town.
“We’ve never had a disagreement,” Claire said.
“So…you were there? You went to April’s?”
Shit… So
metimes her hometown drove her crazy. “Roni had a photo of April’s nephew she wanted me to drop off.” Maybe if Carrie thought Roni already knew about the visit, had even requested it, there’d be nothing scandalous to report. Claire preferred to keep that visit, and what she’d learned, to herself until she figured out who and what to believe.
Seemingly satisfied, Carrie’s piqued expression cleared. “I get it. Of course she wouldn’t want to deliver it herself. They’re still not speaking.”
“I’m not sure they ever will.” Considering what April thought, Claire doubted it…?.
Carrie lowered her voice. “April thinks Roni caused her father’s death. Divorces are difficult, but suicide…that’s an individual choice.”
Perhaps. But Roni could be more culpable than she let on—for April’s father’s suicide and Alana’s disappearance, not that Claire wanted to accept that. She had too many positive memories of her stepmother taking her back-to-school shopping or planning her birthday parties or snapping pictures of her in her prom dress.
Instead of answering, Claire pretended complete absorption while measuring the hair on either side of Carrie’s face. “Looks straight,” she murmured, and backed away. “How do you like it?”
Carrie’s smile was more hesitant than Claire would’ve liked. “It’s…going to take some getting used to.”
She looked darling, much better than when she’d walked in, but familiarity counted for a lot. Claire just hoped Carrie did get used to the change, and that her ultraconservative husband would react favorably. She couldn’t deal with a disgruntled client today, not one who was disgruntled over an improvement. “I think the new look takes five years off your age.”
She perked up. “Really?”
“Definitely.”
The bell jingled over the door. As Claire removed Carrie’s drape, she turned to welcome her next client, but it was her sister.
“Where’d you go last night?” Leanne demanded without the courtesy of a greeting. Obviously, she was still angry.