by Shari Lapena
Her cell phone rings—it’s Patrick. “Hi, what’s up?” she asks anxiously. She’s always anxious these days.
“I just heard from the attorney.”
She feels her heart rate shoot up. “What did he say?”
“Erica did have a baby. But she gave it up for adoption, privately, after it was born.”
Stephanie tries to digest this news, the implications. “That explains why she never came after you for child support,” she says after a moment.
“Yeah, but even better, I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to prove it’s mine.”
She hears the relief in his voice and it sickens her.
She pushes the stroller home, feeling unbearably weary. At last they arrive at the house and she sings out to the twins, “Home at last! We’ll have some lunch and then—” She stops in her tracks, her voice silenced. She’s staring at the front door.
It’s wide open.
Surely she locked it. She must have, especially after last time. And then she remembers that she’d forgotten her keys and run back in to get them. Did she forget to lock the door on the way back out? Did she forget to close it? Jesus. She has to be more careful.
She maneuvers the stroller up to the bottom of the porch steps and unbuckles Emma and lifts her out. “Mommy is so tired and getting way too forgetful, Emmie,” she whispers. She carries her up the steps and inside the front door, and screams.
22
Her scream fills the front hallway and startles little Emma into crying.
There’s someone inside, sitting in her kitchen. It gives her a terrible shock. Then she recognizes Erica and she can’t breathe.
“Get out!” she hisses when she gets enough air in her lungs, clasping the wailing baby to her chest. “Get out or I’ll call the police!”
“Honestly, Stephanie. Calm down,” Erica says, standing up and walking toward her, sounding perfectly reasonable. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You broke into my house!”
“No, I didn’t, the door was open. You should be more careful.”
For a moment, Stephanie is confused. She might have left the door open; she doesn’t remember. But she does know this woman has no business being in her house, even if she did leave the door open. “I know who you are,” she says.
Erica nods. “Good. I wasn’t sure you would. I don’t know how much Patrick has told you.”
“You were in here before—you stole my purse!”
Erica’s eyebrows go up. “I did not. Why would you think that?”
Stephanie doesn’t believe her. “Because Patrick saw it in your living room, through the window.”
“He was at my apartment?” Erica says, surprised.
Stephanie doesn’t answer that. “You shouldn’t be here,” she insists.
“Shouldn’t you bring the other baby in?” Erica asks.
Stephanie steps back a few paces and looks out the door at Jackie, still buckled into the stroller. She stands in the doorway, not sure what to do. Erica is inside her house; she’s been waiting for her. Should she take the babies and flee? Should she grab her phone from her pocket and try to dial 911?
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Erica says again calmly. “But there are some things you should know. About your husband.”
Stephanie hesitates. She remembers her earlier decision—this woman knows things about Patrick that she doesn’t. Erica knew him back then, when it happened. She wants to hear what she has to say, even if it might be all lies. She might learn something useful. So far she’s heard everything from Patrick’s perspective. She looks at the woman now leaning against her kitchen doorway as if she might be a friend, dropping by for a visit. Surely she isn’t actually dangerous?
She can’t take the chance. She’s not going to bring her twins into the house with this woman—who knows what she might do behind closed doors?
“We can talk,” Stephanie says finally. “Outside, on the porch.” She turns away and buckles Emma back into the stroller at the bottom of the steps. She makes sure each baby has a toy clutched in a little hand and then sits in the chair on the front porch closest to the stroller. Her phone is in her pocket. She’s not really frightened here, where they can be seen; people go up and down this street all day long. But she is distraught.
Erica has come out of the house and seated herself in the other chair. “Nice neighborhood,” she begins.
Stephanie doesn’t say anything for a moment. She’s trying to gather her scattered thoughts—and her courage. Finally, she turns to Erica and says, “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work. We aren’t going to pay you. I thought Patrick made that clear.”
“Are you absolutely sure about that?”
“You’re not going to get a dime out of us, much less two hundred thousand dollars.”
Erica gives her an annoyed look. She doesn’t speak for a moment, but then she bites her lip and says, “So he’s been telling you what’s going on? I wasn’t sure. He didn’t tell his first wife much.”
Stephanie feels a sense of revulsion overtake her. She says bitterly, “How would you know what he told his first wife?”
Erica turns and looks at her. There’s no hatred on her face, no venom in her voice. “You know we were lovers?”
“He told me, yes.”
“He must actually love you, then.”
“Of course he loves me,” Stephanie says firmly. “And I love him. And all this crap you’re threatening us with isn’t going to go anywhere. I don’t know why you’re bothering. He didn’t kill his first wife. You must know that.” Her voice is shaking.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Erica says seriously.
“Don’t threaten me,” Stephanie says in a hard voice.
“I don’t mean me,” Erica clarifies. “I mean your husband.”
Stephanie recoils from her. “Look, I know my husband far better than you ever did. Just because you slept together a couple of times doesn’t mean you actually know him at all.”
“Is that what he told you? That we slept together a couple of times?”
Now Stephanie looks back at her warily, afraid of what she might say next. But she needs to hear it. She knows that Patrick and this woman are going to have very different versions of events, and she wasn’t there. She can never know for sure. “What’s your version?” Stephanie asks dryly.
“We were in love,” she says simply.
Stephanie goes cold. The woman is delusional. Fully delusional. “That’s not what Patrick says.”
“That’s what he wants you to believe.” She looks earnestly at Stephanie. “But I was there. I was with him. We were very secretive, because he was married, and Lindsey was my friend. I feel terrible about it now, that I treated her that way. That I’m at least partially responsible—morally responsible—for her death.”
“That’s bullshit,” Stephanie says, her heart hammering.
Erica shakes her head. “He would come to my apartment at lunchtime almost every day. He told everyone he went home to eat, but Lindsey made his lunch every morning. He’d eat it in my bed, after we made love, before he rushed back to work.”
Stephanie feels ill. “I don’t believe you.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Erica says.
“Can you prove it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. We didn’t tell anybody, but I had neighbors. Someone might have heard us through the wall. People might have seen him coming and going.”
Stephanie shrinks back into her chair, as if trying to put distance between her and this disturbing news—and the person delivering it.
“I know how upsetting this must be,” Erica says. “And believe me, I don’t enjoy doing this to you.”
“Is that right?” Stephanie says, her voice bitter. “Patrick warned me that if I spoke to you,
you would tell me lies and try to drive a wedge between us.”
Erica shrugs. “He would.” She looks at the babies in the stroller and says, “I was pregnant with his child—did he tell you about that?”
“Yes.”
“So ask yourself—If Patrick didn’t kill her deliberately, and it was just a horrible accident, and I was carrying his child, why did I stay away from him all this time?”
Stephanie doesn’t know how to answer. She can’t think straight. Her head is buzzing with tiredness and confusion, and from trying to keep up her guard.
“I’ll tell you why,” Erica says. “Because I thought he’d killed her on purpose—my friend and her unborn baby daughter.” She turns her eyes away from the twins, looks out at the street. “We talked about being together. I wanted him to leave his wife.” Erica glances at Stephanie and looks away again. “I was very impatient and very selfish when I was twenty-one. I didn’t like myself for stealing Patrick away from Lindsey, but you have to understand how it was—we were in love. I thought Patrick and I were meant to be together, and somehow, in my immaturity, I thought Lindsey would just get over it, move on. I thought she would move on more easily from a broken marriage as a single mother than I would move on from a broken heart.” She adds, “God, I was stupid.”
Stephanie stares at her, appalled, wondering if she’s telling the truth. She can’t know for sure, but she certainly seems believable. Patrick had warned her that Erica could be very convincing.
“He kept telling me how unhappy he was. We argued, and he agreed things had to change. That was the day before she died.” Her face takes on a pained expression. “But I thought he meant divorce. I never thought he meant murder.”
23
Stephanie stares at her, her mouth hanging open. “You think he killed her deliberately, to be with you.” She shakes her head vigorously. “You’re crazy. I know my husband, and he’s not capable of what you’re accusing him of!”
“I think we’re all capable of things we might not want to admit to,” Erica replies. She pauses and then carries on. “I remember it so clearly, as if it were yesterday. Even now, I can’t stand heavy snowstorms.”
Stephanie doesn’t get up and tell Erica to leave. No, she listens. She wants to hear it all, no matter how dreadful her account.
Erica says, “Lindsey hated Creemore. She hated the snow. She missed her family in Grand Junction. She was finding it hard, Patrick not being around a lot.” Erica shrugs. “Of course, she didn’t know he was with me; she thought he was at work. They were leaving to visit her family. Patrick didn’t want to go—at least, that’s what he told me, and I believed him, because he didn’t care much for her family and the roads were bad. But I wondered afterward if he just said that, to make it look more like an accident, as if he hadn’t planned it.
“I saw Lindsey fairly regularly. I’d drop by when I wasn’t working, see how she was doing, trapped in that tiny apartment. I liked her, and I felt guilty, but that wasn’t all of it. I wanted to hear from her how things were going between her and Patrick. I knew they were fighting a lot, and it made my heart glad, because I thought it was only a matter of time until he left her.” She looks up. “Okay, so that does make me look heartless, but at least I’m telling you the truth.
“That morning, the day they were supposed to leave—it was a Saturday, and I was at home, asleep. Greg—he was Patrick’s best friend—called me and told me there’d been an accident. By the time I arrived the paramedics were already there, and Lindsey was laid out in the snow, dead. They’d tried to revive her but hadn’t been able to.”
Stephanie listens in dismay; Erica looks so earnest, so troubled. She reminds herself that Patrick had been equally distressed and convincing when he’d told her what happened that day. Either Erica is a very good actor, or she really believes what she’s saying, even though it may not be true.
Erica continues. “Patrick was so distraught—but I caught his eye, just for a moment—and there was something in that look, just for a second, between the two of us, something triumphant—and I knew then that he’d done it on purpose. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then Stephanie says, not hiding her astonishment, “A look. Your belief that my husband is a cold-blooded murderer is based on a look.”
“Hear me out,” Erica says urgently. “He was crying, distraught—completely convincing—but I knew. He went away with the sheriff to be questioned and I was terrified. I thought they’d wear him down, that eventually he’d tell them about us, and they would think I was part of it.
“I went home and hid in my apartment. I kept asking myself how Patrick could have done that to his wife and unborn child. I thought I was to blame, that he’d done it to be with me. I was waiting for the police to come, to question me, and I was going to tell them the truth. That I wanted Patrick to leave her, but that I had no part in her death. But nobody came. I saw on TV that night that they’d declared it an accident. That he’d gotten away with it. I couldn’t believe it—I was horrified. And then I was relieved, because I wouldn’t have to go to jail. But I felt the most horrible guilt and remorse about Lindsey. I knew she was dead because of me.
“I didn’t want to see him, I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t know how to act around him, knowing what I knew. I was the only one who knew the truth. I was afraid he might call me, but he didn’t. I didn’t want to go near him, but I had to go to the funeral. It would look strange if I didn’t.
“The funeral was a couple of days later. It was ghastly.” She looks at the twins nodding off in their stroller, and Stephanie follows her gaze. “Everyone completely broke down. Patrick’s grief was totally convincing and I even wondered if he had regrets, though he was now free and he’d gotten away with it.
“He tried to talk to me at the funeral. I turned my back on him. No one seemed to think that was strange—I was Lindsey’s best friend, and it was his fault she was dead. Everybody was a mess. But I know Greg thought I was behaving badly. He came up to me and told me to get a grip, that everybody was hurting, not just me, and who the hell did I think I was to treat Patrick like shit at his wife’s funeral? Of course, Greg didn’t know anything.” She pauses. “It was the next day that I found out I was pregnant. I was a few days late. I tried to ignore it, but after the funeral I got a pregnancy test from the pharmacy where I worked.” She takes a deep breath, exhales. “Of course it was Patrick’s. I wasn’t with anybody else when I was with him.”
“Where is the child now?” Stephanie asks.
Erica turns to her. “I gave him up for adoption. I never said I kept him.”
Stephanie is silent. Her mind is tumbling over with confusing thoughts, like a dryer full of clothes.
“Why didn’t you just have an abortion?”
“Maybe I should have.” She pauses for a moment and then says, “The truth is I knew that if I carried the baby to term there might be some money in it. A private adoption. Yes, I’m greedy. But you know that.”
Stephanie turns away; she can’t bear to look at Erica any longer.
“He did it deliberately, Stephanie, I know he did,” Erica says. She seems to consider something and then says, “I’ll tell you why I came forward now, after all these years.”
Stephanie turns back and stares at her, waiting. There’s something more. There’s always something more.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on Patrick all this time. I knew he’d remarried. When I saw that he’d married again, I looked into you.”
“You looked into me? Why?”
“Because some men use wives like ATMs,” Erica says. “And I saw that you were going to inherit quite a lot of money.”
“How did you know that?” Stephanie asks. She’s wondered about this for a while.
“Because wills that are probated are public information. I looked into your parents, saw that
they’d been wealthy, that they’d died in a car accident. I looked at your parents’ wills. And I saw that they left you a trust, and that you would come into the money when you turned thirty.” She adds pointedly, “Which was only a couple of months ago.”
Stephanie looks back at her, shocked. She had no idea that kind of information was public. She thought nobody knew about her trust but her lawyers—and her husband.
“Tell me, did Patrick know about that when he married you?”
Stephanie remains silent.
“You have life insurance too? Let me guess—something you got when you were pregnant?”
Stephanie doesn’t answer; she doesn’t have to. The coldness in her heart spreads outward to reach all of her extremities. She wonders if Erica already knows her life is insured for a million dollars.
“So you see,” Erica says, after a long pause, “regardless of what happens, I’ve done you a favor.”
Stephanie slumps in her wicker chair on the porch, shaken. She remembers the fire, the frying pan left on the stove. She still doesn’t remember putting the pan on the stove. Then she pulls herself together and reminds herself who she’s dealing with. “Let’s not forget why you’re really doing this,” Stephanie says coldly. “You looked into our financial situation, saw that we had money, and tried to blackmail us.”
Erica nods. “Yes, well, I never said I was perfect.”
“I think you should leave.”
“Fine.” She stands up. “But remember, just because I tried to blackmail you doesn’t make it any less true that Patrick murdered his first wife.”
She looks down at Stephanie, flicks a careless glance at the twins in their stroller, and says, “Be careful. After all, if he did it once, he could do it again.”
Stephanie says emphatically, “Patrick would never hurt me. Or Jackie or Emmie.”