by Ellie Monago
I’m so anxious that I can barely walk, but I can hear their steps behind me. I keep going, because this is for Sadie. If I don’t take care of it, I’ll live in fear, and that’ll infect her. It’ll be a poison that runs through our home. She’s been poisoned enough for one lifetime.
I don’t remember the alley, but I must have retained some sense memory about where it is because my legs are carrying me toward the back of the bar and through an unmarked door. It’s like I’m seeing it for the first time, though it’s familiar enough from the picture. It’s long and narrow, with a giant Dumpster not quite ten feet away. The night is breezy, and some garbage swirls by our feet, straw wrappers like snowflakes.
Someone just might stab you in the heart.
But not tonight. Not when everyone knows where I am and who I’m with. These two people have a lot to lose, and they’re not stupid.
Then why are they still sending e-mails when they know the police are investigating?
Because they think they can get away with anything. Because they have loyalty to each other. Because whatever happens, they’ll tell the same story.
Someone once mentioned a safety net. Well, I’ve got one of my own. There’s no backing out now.
“Hi, Ellen. Long time no see,” I say. She registers no surprise. She doesn’t speak. “Let’s start with why you put the ketamine in my drink,” I dare her.
Again, nothing.
“Or was it you, Mark?” I ask, turning to Nolan. “I mean, I get it. I get why you wouldn’t want me living next door to her and why you would want to protect your sister. It makes sense. But did you have to be so brutal?”
“No one’s done anything brutal,” Ellen says. Nolan—Mark—gives her a quick look, from an older brother to a younger sister. He’s telling her to keep quiet.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nolan says.
“Deep in your heart,” I say, “you know the truth.” I’m talking to Ellen, to my friend, the one who knows me.
“You know the truth,” she says hotly. Nolan steps forward and puts his arm around her, both support and restraint.
“I told the truth on the stand. I kept your father from victimizing anyone else.”
“He didn’t victimize anyone!” she says.
Nolan tries to intercede. “Listen, now you know who we are. We know who you are. Let’s try to work this out like adults, not children. It’s true; we don’t want you in the neighborhood. It’s very painful for June.”
“What about you?” Ellen asks him. “Isn’t it painful for you, too? She ruined our family.”
“You buy a new house somewhere else,” Nolan tells me, “and I’ll compensate you for the time and trouble.”
“You’ll buy me off, you mean,” I say. This, I wasn’t prepared for. They drug me, they poison my child, they terrorize me, and then we’re just supposed to exchange some money and I’m on my way? There’s no justice in that. And suddenly, I realize that’s part of what I’m looking for. Justice. And acknowledgment. I told the truth. None of this was my fault. It never has been.
“She doesn’t deserve your money,” Ellen says.
“You need to hear this,” I say. “Both of you. You need to hear that your father seduced me, and I spent years believing I was complicit in it. That I was the one seducing him. Because he taught me how to please him, and that’s all I wanted to do.”
“Stop talking,” Ellen says, breathing heavily.
“No! You need to hear me. I even felt guilty for testifying. I felt disloyal. Isn’t that how you felt, too?” I’m talking to both of them but looking at Ellen. She’s looking back at me, desperate. Desperate not to believe me, but I can see the knowledge is dawning. “He nearly destroyed me, but he made you think I was the one doing it to him. Doing it to your family. And hasn’t he nearly destroyed you, too? He’s the reason you were terrorizing me. That’s not who you really are. You’re a good person, Ellen. For you to do what you’ve been doing to me, even poisoning my child—”
“I would never poison a child!” Ellen turns to Nolan triumphantly. “See? She’s a liar!”
I notice he hasn’t said a word, but he has gone pale.
“Someone poisoned Sadie,” I say. “Dr. Vreeland at Children’s Hospital told me so. I can prove it to you. Please, Ellen. Stop ignoring so much evidence. It’s time to see the truth.”
Suddenly, the door opens, and it’s Andie. “I thought maybe I should be a part of this conversation.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Ellen says.
“El,” Nolan says gently, “she already knows.”
Ellen looks back and forth between them. “She knows what?”
“Who Katrina is. What’s been going on.”
Ellen looks between them, disbelieving. She thought her brother had kept secrets from his own wife?
“I’m his partner in every way,” Andie says.
“If you’re his partner, why are you off fucking my husband?” I ask.
“Doug and I are friends, that’s all.”
I see that Nolan’s lips are still pursed. He doesn’t believe her any more than I do.
Wyatt pushes the door open and steps outside. He looks us all over. “Hi,” Nolan says casually, as if we’re all just taking a breather from the fun inside.
“Everything OK out here?” Wyatt asks, like he’s in his official capacity.
“Everything’s fine,” Andie says, cool as ever.
“It’s good you’re here,” I say. “You can make the arrest.”
“Arrest?” Andie laughs. “No one’s getting arrested.”
“These three,” I gesture, “are the ones who left the notes. They’re also the ones who slipped ketamine in my drink and who tried to kill Sadie.”
It occurs to me that Andie should look shocked at what I’ve just said, that she should be saying no one poisoned anyone, that’s crazy. Instead, she says, “Nolan and I had nothing to do with that. June tried to get us caught up in her vendetta.”
Nolan turns to Andie. Turns on her. “Don’t talk about my sister like that. She would never harm a child, and you know it.”
“It was you,” I say to Andie.
“No.” She shakes her head.
I look at Nolan. He’s gone even whiter. “You know it was Andie. Deep down, you know. Same as you knew about your father.”
He doesn’t speak, and I can see I’m right. Ellen turns to him, and she’s starting to shake. Somewhere inside, she’s known, too. But instead she says, “Dad didn’t do anything wrong. His whole life was ruined for nothing.”
Nolan’s still silent.
“Tell her,” Ellen exhorts him.
Finally, he says, “I can’t.”
“This is bullshit!” Ellen explodes. “Katrina’s a liar. She was jealous of our family. You know that as well as I do. We lost a lifetime with our father—with both our parents—because of her.”
“I know that you’ve believed it a long time,” Nolan says quietly. “I did, too. I’ve wanted to, but since everything started with Katrina moving here, and since things have gotten so out of hand, I’ve started reading the court transcripts. I read Katrina’s testimony, and the other girl’s, too, and they’re almost identical.”
“That’s because they were prepped by the DA. They were coached to lie.”
“I don’t think so. Look at her and listen to her. You know what’s true.”
My eyes meet Ellen’s. She can’t resist knowing anymore. She sags against her brother. I see something I’m very familiar with: shame. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Tears are flowing down my cheeks. I feel like I’ve finally shed this awful weight I’ve carried for so long. I know now that Layton was the dirty one, not me.
“This is bullshit!” Andie snaps. “Family is family, and Kat is no one to you. You put family above everything, no matter what.”
No one speaks for a long minute. Then I say, “You did it, Andie. You poisoned Sadie. Was it because you
were putting family above everything or because you wanted my husband for yourself?”
Andie turns to Wyatt. “She’s clearly unstable. I hope you’re not actually believing any of this.”
“No,” Ellen says. “That wasn’t for family at all. That was all for herself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Andie says.
“You met Doug before he and Katrina moved in,” Ellen says. “Doug came out a few weeks before to measure inside the house. Andie offered to help. They were inside for a few hours, at least. When you came outside with Doug that day, after all the ‘measuring,’ the two of you were laughing like old friends. You gave him a big hug before he got into his car. You told me how good it would be to have him in the neighborhood. You said, ‘He’s the kind of guy who could make me rethink my closed marriage.’”
“That was a joke!” Andie protests.
Nolan is staring at Andie, and even though he’s known for a while—he couldn’t avoid knowing when he saw them in the hospital room—the devastation looks fresh. Ellen is piecing things together, connecting the dots for him.
“The vasectomy,” she says. “So you wouldn’t reproduce the Layton genes. That wasn’t really your idea, was it? It was Andie’s.” He’s too anguished to answer. “She was always leaving an escape hatch.” Ellen spits out her next words at Andie. “How long has it been going on, Andie? You and Doug?”
Nolan can’t even look at Andie as he says, “You’re the one who came up with the ketamine. You talked about how Ellen needed an insurance policy when it came to getting Kat to move. You said the threatening letters weren’t enough. You did what you always do. You made me think it was my idea, but it was what you wanted all along.”
“You’re all crazy! It must be contagious.” Andie tries to laugh.
“You want Doug, but he’s mine,” I say. “And I’m going to fight for him.”
“Like you can win!” Now Andie is laughing, but it’s ugly and harsh. Has she forgotten her own husband is standing there?
But she hasn’t won yet, or she wouldn’t be so insecure. “Doug told me he doesn’t have feelings for you,” I say. I want to inflame her, get her to show her colors all the more. I need Nolan and Ellen to turn on her for good, to turn her in to the police, because I know that she’s behind the poisoning. Nolan and Ellen are done terrorizing me, but Andie still needs to be stopped.
“He’s lying! You’re nothing! Just a fucking victim.” She sneers at me, infusing the word victim with loathing.
“He’s been using you,” I say, hoping it’s true. “You’re a placeholder. He loves me, and you know it.”
It’s a direct hit. She flies at me, knocking me against the brick wall. I’m so startled that it takes a second to react, and by then I’m down on the ground. She’s smacking my head against the concrete, and someone’s trying to pull her off, but she’s curiously strong, feral.
I hear a loud, authoritative voice. “Freeze! Get off her now!” It’s Wyatt, bellowing, and I look up to see a gun trained on Andie.
Andie listens, standing up and stepping away. I’m dazed, from the shock of the attack and from the blow to the head.
Ellen squats down next to me. “Are you OK?” she asks. Wyatt is looking down, waiting for my answer, and maybe that’s why Nolan grabs the gun away from him so easily.
“Hey, Nolan. Hey, man,” Wyatt says. “You don’t want to do this.”
Nolan gestures for him to get back, and Wyatt complies.
“So you did sleep with Doug,” Nolan says. “Even though you spent all last night convincing me that I was wrong about what I saw in the hospital room. And it almost worked. I came so close to believing you.”
“We haven’t slept together,” Andie says. “He has feelings for me, yes, but that’s because I wanted him to. I wanted that insurance policy we talked about. If he fell in love with me, if his marriage ended, then he and Kat would move away. See, it was for the family.”
Nolan continues as if she hasn’t spoken. “You talked about killing Kat. In that last e-mail you sent her. Stabbing her in the heart.”
“You know I wasn’t serious about that,” Andie says. “I was trying to help you. You and June. That’s what this has all been about.”
“You made that comment one time.” Nolan is seeing Andie as if for the first time. “You said that if something happened to Kat, you would hate for Ellen to take the fall. But she would be the most likely suspect, the one with the grudge, who’d written all those notes.” He levels the gun. “Katrina wasn’t getting out of the picture fast enough. Doug hadn’t chosen you. You were going to murder her and frame my sister.”
“No, no.” She waves her hands frantically. “I would never do that!”
“You poisoned someone. Maybe it was meant for Kat; maybe it was meant for Sadie. But I don’t want to know what else you’re capable of.”
Andie is talking to Ellen now, probably calculating that it’d bring Nolan back to his senses. “Ellen, you know me. I love your brother. Tell him.”
“She’s not worth it,” Ellen says to Nolan. “Give the gun back to Wyatt.”
“I’m Fisher’s mother,” Andie says. “He needs me.”
“You’re not Fisher’s mother anymore,” Nolan says. “You’re a monster. And I’ve known monsters before.”
He shoots, and Andie crumples. It really is like slow motion, like a movie, and the sound is still ringing in my ears, and I don’t know who goes to whom, but my arms are around Ellen and hers are around me.
Nolan is doubled over on the ground. It’s like he’s the one who’s been shot. Wyatt, meanwhile, is springing into action.
“Call 911,” he tells me. “And remember this, all of you: she was reaching for the gun. Andie reached for the gun, and with all that we’d just learned about her, Nolan had no choice.”
“It was self-defense,” Ellen says, robotic with shock.
“Exactly.” Wyatt is pure kinetic energy. I think of all those stories you hear about the thin blue line, the way the officers pull together, how they plant guns in the hands of people they’ve shot.
“Call 911,” he says, “now.”
I take out my phone, which has been recording since we came out here. I didn’t get a confession exactly; I don’t know why Andie did what she did. But I told the truth, and I got more than I could have hoped for. Acknowledgment. Vindication. Ellen’s arms around me. Ellen and Nolan don’t need to be punished by the law. They’ve suffered plenty—in different ways than I have, but still.
I look over at Andie. Is she breathing? Do I want her to be?
Maybe justice has been achieved after all.
CHAPTER 37
Doug is on the love seat. The room is dark except for one dim lamp. He’s slumped, wrapped in blankets, a portrait in misery. I’ve never seen him look like that.
Is it because he knows? Word spreads fast in the AV about the most minor things; it’s hard to imagine it hasn’t spread about something as big as this.
“It’s after two a.m.,” he says hoarsely. “We need to talk. I’ve been waiting up for hours. Where’ve you been?” There’s no anger in it, only fear.
So word hasn’t spread to Doug. He’s that out of the loop.
“Just girls’ night,” I say. “You know how those nights can go.”
“Kat, I have to ask. Were you with Wyatt tonight?”
“No.”
“But I know you’ve been with him before.”
“I was dosed with ketamine, Doug. Just like I told you. You may not believe me about that, or anything else, but I’m not crazy. This neighborhood is.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
I stare at him. “Why the change of heart?”
He sighs. “Let’s just put it all out on the table. I’ve been spending time with Andie, as friends, but tonight, after you left, she came over to tell me she loves me and that she wants us to be together. She just wants to wait until after her tenth wedding anniversary to
Nolan so she can get his money. What kind of person is that?” He looks amazed, and he doesn’t even know all that came to light earlier. That’s the least of her crimes. “I told her she was crazy and that I love you.” No wonder it was so easy for me to push Andie over the edge. Doug had just rejected her. He’d chosen a nothing like me over her. So what I told her actually turned out to be true.
“You’re saying you aren’t sleeping with her? You’ve never slept with her?”
“No. I swear to you. But I know I made a mistake spending time with her at all, when I should have been on your side and by your side. She was in my ear this whole time. She showed me your phone and said that you’d been with Wyatt. I should have confronted you then, but I was just so hurt. And angry, too. Maybe I wanted you to see me hanging out with Andie. I wanted you to see that someone else was interested in me, since you haven’t been lately.”
I almost laugh. So it was true. He really was using Andie.
“I flirted with her, which I know was wrong, but I felt like I needed the escape. From us, and from Sadie being sick. That day I went in to work, I couldn’t focus, and she texted me. I told her how bad I was feeling, and she said we could take a drive together. We went to Point Reyes and ate some oysters, but that was it. Still, it was enough. I lied to you. I was weak, and I was running away.”
“You didn’t sleep with her, but do you have feelings for her?”
“I didn’t even like her much, once I got to know her. She’s so full of herself.”
Not anymore, she’s not.
“I love you. I love our family. I just didn’t know where your head was and how you could kiss Wyatt. Andie made it sound like you’d done a lot more than that. Then she told me about the openness, and she said you were supposed to tell me about it, and you didn’t, so I felt like you were keeping it all to yourself. You know, like you didn’t want me to be with other people but you were doing it behind my back, with my new friend.”
I can understand his point, but after the night I’ve had, I don’t know what to think or feel.
“You’ve been through so much in your life, Kat, and you always deserved better than me. I’m just this spoiled kid, and the first time things didn’t go my way, I started spending time with another woman.”