by A. R. Torre
I returned the sentiment, my hands stealing around his waist.
“This is so crazy,” he said quietly. “What if this guy had come to our house instead of theirs?”
“Then our security system would have gone nuts, and we would have been in the panic room and on the phone with the cops before he even got in the front door.” I rose on my toes and kissed him. “Assuming I could keep you from storming downstairs and trying to tackle him.”
“I am an excellent tackler,” he admitted. “And it’s been a long time since I got to use anything other than my sharp tongue in a confrontation.”
“Well, it’s a very talented tongue,” I teased, grinning up at him. “I can personally attest to that.”
A throat cleared, and we both turned to see Matt standing at the open side door, his arms limp at his sides. William frowned and stepped toward him. “Are you okay?”
“Is there anything going on with you and my wife?”
My gaze snapped to William, who stayed silent. “William?” I prompted, dread coating my heart at the anticipation of what he would say.
“There are no feelings between Neena and me,” he said finally.
“No feelings?” Anger whipped, sudden and fierce, as my insecurities and emotions were validated in that simple yet horribly evasive response. I came around the counter and stood beside Matt. “What does that mean?”
“Have you ever touched my wife?” Matt asked, each word pushed out as if he were having trouble breathing.
“Yes.” William’s response ripped my attention from Matt’s health and to my husband. “Once. It meant nothing.”
It meant nothing. I choked on the words, vaguely aware that we had an audience, the kitchen staff falling quiet as my husband pissed all over our marriage. He had risked our marriage over something that meant nothing? What did that say about us? Our life? Its worth to him? I gripped the edge of the counter to keep myself from sinking to the floor, my response silenced by Matt’s next words.
“You might want to tell my wife that.” Matt’s upper lip curled in a sneer, the expression foreign on his consistently cheerful face. “It may mean nothing to you, but from what I just saw in my bedroom, it means a lot to her.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell us what was in their bedroom.” William stood at the bank of side windows in our dining hall, his hands on his hips, and watched as Matt’s car moved around a forensic van and down their drive.
I stood at the entrance to the room and waited for William to turn, waited for some acknowledgment of what he had done to our lives. He stayed at the window until after the car disappeared, his profile stubbornly turned away, his face hidden.
I used to think of him as a god. When had he fallen? When had he changed, so definitively, from the man I had married? Was he really this weak and helpless against basic human desires? It meant nothing.
“That was not how I expected you to find out. If you ever found out.” He turned his head to the side, his profile visible but his eyes still elusive. “I’m sorry you had to hear it like this.”
“So, you . . . what? You had sex with her?” I knew. I knew before he even opened his mouth. I could taste it in the air. Could taste her in the air, feel her presence as if it were clogging the air ducts. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Cat.” My name was a broken syllable on his lips, and when he turned to face me, his face was a mess of emotion.
“Please,” I begged.
“I’m sorry.”
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe—
“It just happened. She—”
I picked up the closest item, a glass bowl we’d picked up in South Africa, and threw it across the table, the delicate piece shattering across the polished surface. It felt good, the ability to destroy something. “She what?”
“She’s been relentless. I tried to hold her off, but I—”
“I told you,” I hissed, pointing at him, my voice rising. “I told you that she was obsessed with us. I told you she was getting too close. And you told me to trust you. You acted as if I was crazy. You let her do this to us.”
“I fucked up,” he said quietly, trying to reach for me. “I have no excuse. I—”
I shoved at his chest. “She tried to have Matt killed. You realize that, don’t you? And she poisoned me at their house. I could have died. Did you know what a lunatic she was?”
He sank into the window seat and cupped his head. “I didn’t know anything, Cat. I was being selfish, and insecure, and stupid.”
“And risking us in the process,” I said quietly. I hesitated. “Tell me you used protection.”
He didn’t answer, and his silence confirmed what I already knew. He had been bare inside her. What if she was pregnant with his child? Had he thought of me once during the act?
I thought of the way he’d walked back in the door after work each day and kissed me on the lips, as if everything were normal. “Do you love her?” This question was softer, and it was the one I was most terrified to voice.
“No.” He stood up and moved toward me, his face breaking. “I don’t . . . I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing—was doing—with her.” He grabbed my wrist, and I stepped back.
“I can’t—” I inhaled sharply. “I can’t do any better than us, William. We’re happy. We’ve been strong. If you can’t be faithful to me now, what will happen in our hard times?” I felt the tears in the moment before they came and rushed to finish before I broke into sobs. “You were my everything.”
“Cat,” he said softly, his voice breaking in a way I’d never heard from him. Not when his father had died, not once in our fourteen years together. “Cat, please. This was a stupid thing.” He gripped my arms, pulling me against him, my struggles failing as he forced me to look into his face. “I need you to forgive me. I can’t live without you. Please.” It was a gruff, fierce plea, his voice shaking with the intensity of it. He dropped to his knees, clawing me closer. “Please don’t leave me.” It was as much an order as a beg.
I didn’t move. I didn’t respond. I watched him, and when he looked up at me, I studied the depths of his eyes, the love and heartbreak in them.
Of course I wouldn’t leave him. That was why, after all, I had done all this.
CHAPTER 45
NEENA
“What’s in the safe?” The detective was flanked by three uniforms, all of them staring at me, suspicion heavy in their eyes. I glanced back at the doorway. Matt was already gone, and I wanted to scream at him to come back. He couldn’t leave me with these cops, not after opening Pandora’s box and shoving me into its teeth.
“Neena?” Detective Cullen stepped forward, her gap tooth peeking through her chapped lips. I studied her greasy hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, and stayed silent. “What’s in the safe?”
I shouldn’t have put it in the safe to begin with. Though the alternative, the cavity hidden in the floor, had proved just as insecure. I eased toward the door that Matt had escaped through and was blocked by a fat officer in a uniform a size too small.
“The safe’s in the closet.” Another male officer spoke up from behind me. “It’s locked.”
“You can give us the combination, Neena, or we can drill out the lock.” Detective Cullen shrugged. “It makes no difference to us.”
“Or we can just call your husband,” the fat one suggested. “He sounded like he’d be willing to give it to us.”
I glanced at the detective. “Does your warrant cover the safe?”
“Your husband just gave us permission to search it. We don’t need a warrant.”
I clenched my hands into fists. “I’m not giving you the combination. I don’t remember it. Call Matt if you want to. He’s not going to know it, either.” And he wouldn’t remember the complicated six-digit combination, but he’d probably remember where we stored it—the Post-it stuck in the top drawer of our bathroom vanity.
“We will,” Detective Cullen promised, glancing at one of the other officers. “G
o get Matt Ryder’s cell phone number and text it to me.” She pointed at me. “And you, Dr. Ryder—you just stay right there.”
Five minutes later, after a quick call to my treacherous husband, getting his verbal authority to open the safe and oh-so-helpful guidance to the yellow sticky note that held the combination, the chambers of the large safe clicked into place, and the heavy iron door was wrenched open. Detective Cullen flipped her Maglite on and shone the beam into the velvet-lined depths.
I think she said something, but I wasn’t sure. At that moment, I swayed, my knees buckling as black spots dotted across my vision, and I fainted.
“I got to tell you, I’ve been in this business a long time and have only had two suspects faint on me.” Detective Cullen knelt in front of our coffee table. She wiped a pale napkin across her mouth as she took a bite from the breakfast sandwich clutched in her nail-bitten claws. I blinked slowly, focusing on the sandwich and wondering if it had come from William’s chef. Had Detective Cullen seen William? What had she told him? Did she tell him what was in the safe? I glanced down at my hands, surprised to see that they were free, no handcuffs in sight.
“I think she’s okay.” Detective Cullen waved at someone, and I followed her motion, surprised to see a paramedic crouched beside my recliner. How had I gotten downstairs? This was Matt’s chair, not mine. I sat upright, and the man hurried to assist.
“Take it easy. It’ll take a few minutes to get your bearings.”
“You’ve been out for a while,” Detective Cullen said cheerfully. “Fainted and then went right to sleep. You missed all the excitement.” She tapped the folder next to her. “We cataloged everything in the safe. I got to say, Neena, you got me excited about the contents, but there’s not a whole lot there.”
I stared at the folder, unsure of what mind game she was going through. I didn’t have the mental stamina for this. If she had opened the safe, then she had me. I should be in handcuffs and headed to the station, not sitting here listening to her crunch through a bacon-and-egg sandwich as if it were her job.
“We went through everything.” She licked the tip of her right index finger, then did another mouth swipe with the napkin. “And I think I found the source of your anxiety.”
She flipped open the top flap of the folder and shuffled a few pages aside. “You really do have a wonderful husband.”
I thought of Matt, his face red, features angry as he had wrapped his hands around my father’s neck. The silent gape of my father’s mouth. The wild swing of his arms. The bulge of his eyes as he had stared at me, begging me, all the way until the moment they rolled back into his head.
“Yes,” I managed, “I do.”
“How long have you and Mr. Winthorpe been having an affair?”
That shut me up, and I hated the way she said the word. Affair. As if it were something fleeting and dirty. This was a righting of the axle, the putting of everything into place. I belonged with someone like William. And furthermore, I liked the emotional chess game that stealing Cat Winthorpe’s husband entailed. I was going to have him as my husband or his money as my cushion—before today anyone could have looked at the playing board and seen it all.
I pondered which angle to attack this from. “You’re confused,” I finally managed. “William Winthorpe is my employer. Any relationship we have is strictly a professional one.”
“As is so clearly evident by your photo montage upstairs,” she said dryly. “Now”—she flipped over another page—“five million dollars. That’s a nice little parting gift to leave a wife.”
It took me a moment to understand that she was talking about Matt’s life insurance policy. “So?” I shrugged.
“So . . . when we look at your obsession with William Winthorpe, that life insurance policy, and this, it equals motive.”
This seemed to be indicated by the paper she slid forward. Matt’s will and testament. Unlike mine, it was a simple one-page document, devoid of any confessions and secrets. His was entirely focused on the distribution of all his assets, his demolition company, and his life insurance policy. It all went to me, which made logical sense.
I paused, waiting for more. Waiting for my own will to be slid beside his, the guilty beside the innocent. Nothing came, and I stared blankly at her. “That’s it?”
The detective smiled thinly, and there was a dot of pepper in her teeth. “I’m sorry, Dr. Ryder. You seem to be struggling to catch up, so I’ll spell out the elements of motive.” She held up the index finger of her left hand. “Money. You stand to inherit a five-million-dollar life insurance policy and significant assets upon Matt’s death. That alone would be powerful, but you’re impressive enough to have a second motive.” She flipped out her middle finger to join the first, making a peace sign. “Your obsession and pursuit of William Winthorpe. With your husband out of the way, you could go after a richer, better-looking one, though I do have to say, you’re barking up a formidable tree that is guarded by Cat Winthorpe.”
“But . . .” I stared down at the papers before her, still stunned that this seemed to be all they had. “But you don’t have anything.”
She let out a strangled laugh. “I would hardly say that. Granted, from your husband’s broad declaration and your resistance to opening the safe . . . I had expected something a little more incriminating, but it’s more than enough for me to bring you down to the station for questioning.”
“Questioning for what?” I still wasn’t following this. Where was the gold envelope with my will? Why wasn’t she going over it line by line? Calling in cadaver dogs and cold-case files? If they hadn’t found that envelope, what were they arresting me for?
“For the attempted murder of your husband.” She cocked her head at me as if she were confused. “Should we be questioning you for something else?”
CHAPTER 46
CAT
Kelly called me twice, her voice mails filled with concern and giddy intrigue over the police presence dotting the Ryders’ property. This would be the most exciting thing to happen to Atherton since the Bakers’ disappearance. Add in the fact that this was on the same property, and we officially had the most notorious block in the neighborhood. We might need to buy and bulldoze the house just to retain our property value.
I deleted her voice mails and watched as the police car containing Neena pulled out of the drive. She had been put in the back seat, handcuffs on, in the rigid pose of the detained. Their garage door was still open, her SUV in its spot, Matt’s car still missing. Where had he gone after he had confronted William? Our guesthouse was prepped and empty, but I had a feeling he’d rather sleep in the street than on William’s property. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts, finding his name, and the number I had never used. I typed out a text.
I don’t know where you are, but if you’re up for a drink, let me know.—Cat
I sent the text and turned to face the dining room table, where Randall James sat. Our Tennessee-born attorney had a full spread before him and was digging enthusiastically into a blueberry-and-whipped-cream-topped crepe. Across from him, William was on the phone with the Human Resources director of Winthorpe Tech, discussing termination possibilities for Neena. Firing her had been my first demand, coupled by the quick requirement that he never, ever speak to her again. No texts, no emails, no calls. A complete dissection of her from our lives. He had quickly agreed, then tried to pull me in for a kiss—one I had refused. Punishment for this crime had been too long coming to be dealt swiftly. Neena was experiencing a mountain of it. William barely had to deal with a molehill.
“No severance package.” My husband slid his chair back from the table and met my eyes. “Yes, effectively immediately. I want her locked out of everything.”
Randall tapped a piece of paper and slid it toward him. William glanced at the document and nodded.
“Yes, I’m aware of that risk. If she threatens anything, you have her call Randall. He’ll handle it. And we have a release form she needs to sign
. Tell her that her final paycheck is contingent on it.”
“Not until Monday,” I said quietly. “Lock her out now, but don’t fire her until Monday. In the meantime, send out an email that looks like it’s going to the entire team but only goes to her. One that says the office is closed today and tomorrow.”
“Will she believe that?” Randall settled back in his seat and straightened, his checkered orange tie resting on his generous belly.
“She won’t have the mental energy to question it,” I said, turning to the window and looking across our yard at their house. In the light of day, there were only two police cars present. The forensic van and search dogs had left, their work done. The dogs had followed the intruder’s path through three yards and over a low place in the neighborhood’s fence, then lost the scent when he got into a vehicle. Poof, gone.
“Why wait until Monday?” William questioned, the phone pulled away from his mouth.
“She’s been hit with a lot,” I said. “Losing her job in the middle of a police investigation—it might be too much for her to handle.” I said it with an air of kindness, but my motives were far from altruistic. She needed to properly understand the ramifications of her actions, and right now, her firing would just be one more thrown stone. Better for that blow to come when she would feel the sting of its impact.
I met William’s gaze and raised my brows, daring him to question me. He held the eye contact for a moment, then relayed the instructions.
From the front of our yard, movement caught my eye as a police SUV made the turn into our drive. I cleared my throat. “Randall, they’re here.”
The doorbell rang, and the attorney stood and wiped at his mouth. “Both of you, just stay right here.”
I leaned against the wall and silenced my phone, which was ringing with another call from Kelly, who must be watching the excitement with binoculars. Randall’s smooth accent boomed through the entry hall as he flirted shamelessly with Atherton’s female chief of police.