The End of Her: A Novel

by Shari Lapena

  Erica says, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  24

  As soon as Erica is out of sight, Stephanie brings the twins inside and lets herself fall apart. She rocks on the sofa, her face in her hands, sobbing. After a while, she pulls herself together, washes her swollen face, and resumes phoning the banks. Her heart almost stops when the woman at Hudson Valley Credit Union—the second to last one on her list—says, “No, your husband hasn’t been in to the safety deposit box today.”

  She regrets having to waste the twins’ naptime—she should be sleeping herself—but she quickly bundles them up and puts them and the double stroller in the car.

  When she arrives at the bank, she wheels the twins up to one of the clerks at the counter. She takes the safety deposit key out of her pocket. “I’d like access to my safety deposit box, please,” she says, showing her the key.

  “Can I see some identification?” the woman asks.

  Stephanie produces her driver’s license and holds her breath.

  “This way.”

  She leads Stephanie down a corridor—fortunately it’s wide enough to accommodate the stroller—and unlocks a barred door that opens into a long, narrow room lined with numbered metal safety deposit boxes. Stephanie leaves the twins in the hall and keeps an eye on them. “What’s the number on your key?” the clerk asks, pulling a card file.

  “Two twenty-four.”

  The woman flips through the file and pulls out a card, asking Stephanie to sign. The clerk fingers her way down a row and finds the box. She inserts her key and asks for Stephanie’s key, which she hands over. The clerk withdraws the box from the wall and leads Stephanie to an empty, private room with a table and chair. Stephanie follows her into the room with the stroller.

  The clerk puts the box gently on the table. “There’s a buzzer there on the wall when you’re finished, and I’ll come back,” she says.

  “Thank you,” Stephanie says, waiting until the woman has pulled the door shut behind her. The twins are fast asleep.

  She sits down and looks at the box for a moment, filled with trepidation. She can feel her heart pounding. What secrets are contained in it? She takes a deep breath and opens the lid.

  The first thing she sees are the insurance papers. She looks them over, but they merely confirm what she already knows. Patrick got a $200,000 payout on the death of his first wife. She lifts the papers aside and reaches in for the next thing. Lindsey’s death certificate, dated January 10, 2009. So far, no surprises. Stephanie swallows and lifts out the next item. It’s a marriage certificate between Patrick Edward Kilgour and Lindsey Paige Windsor, dated August 12, 2008. Something doesn’t feel right. For a moment, Stephanie blinks and can’t put two and two together. She remembers Lindsey was eight months pregnant when she died—the newspaper accounts had confirmed that. Stephanie looks at the marriage certificate again and does the math. Lindsey must have been three months pregnant when they married in August. Why hadn’t Patrick told her that?

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN PATRICK ARRIVES home from work, the twins are in the playpen and his wife is lying on the sofa in the living room, her eyes closed.

  “Stephanie?” he whispers. If she’s asleep he’ll let her rest as long as she wants. But her eyes pop open and she sits up abruptly.

  “When did you get home?” she asks quickly.

  “Just now,” he says. “Everything all right?”

  “I was asleep. I shouldn’t fall asleep when the babies are awake.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. They’re fine in the playpen—you don’t have to watch them every minute. Our parents didn’t do that, and we survived.”

  “But I didn’t even hear you come in.” She brushes her hair back from her face.

  He notices then that Stephanie seems agitated, even angry. “What’s wrong?”

  She looks up at him coldly and says, “I found a key. Taped to one of the drawers of your filing cabinet.” She digs into the pocket of her jeans and holds it up.

  He feels himself coloring. “What were you doing looking in my filing cabinets?”

  “Can you blame me?” Her voice is sharp.

  He realizes that she has a point. “No. I guess not.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “I FOUND YOUR SECRET safety deposit box,” Stephanie says. She’s furious at him and wants to hear his explanation. “I went through everything.”

  “Okay,” Patrick says. “I’d forgotten about the safety deposit box. I got it long before I met you.” He adds, his voice conciliatory, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it, but there’s nothing in there that I don’t want you to see.”

  She looks at him in disbelief. “Seriously? Then why did you hide the key?”

  “If you remember, I had those filing cabinets before I met you. That key’s been there for years.”

  She asks bluntly, “Why didn’t you tell me that Lindsey was three months pregnant when you married her?”

  He looks at her as if he’s completely surprised. “What difference does that make?”

  He says it utterly without guile, as if he can’t see it at all. She can’t believe his stupidity. “It makes all the difference in the world,” she exclaims. “It looks like you married her because you had to, not because you wanted to. Did you?”

  “Come on, Stephanie, that’s ridiculous. How can you even say that? People don’t get married anymore because of an unplanned pregnancy.”

  He seems to believe what he’s saying. She’s astonished. “Of course they do!”

  “No, they don’t. For Christ’s sake! We were in love, she got pregnant, and we waited till August to get married, mostly because we didn’t have the time. We weren’t ashamed of it.” He adds, clearly annoyed, “God, I can’t believe you’re so old-fashioned.”

  She raises her eyebrows at him, irritated. “I’m not old-fashioned.”

  “It sure sounds like you are.”

  She’s livid all of a sudden. Patrick is certainly innocent in the death of his wife. But . . . surely anyone in their position would be concerned about how it looks? Stephanie says, “People will think that you married Lindsey because of the pregnancy, because you felt you had to, not because you loved her.”

  “That’s not true,” Patrick says stubbornly.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” Stephanie says, her voice rising. “For Christ’s sake, can you just think about how it looks? Does Erica know?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We didn’t advertise it. When we moved to Creemore at the beginning of September we were already married. Nobody asked us when the wedding was.” He sounds angry now too.

  “What if Erica looks up the marriage certificate?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Stephanie, she’s telling nothing but lies!”

  “It’s not all lies, is it?” she shoots back, before she can stop herself. “You slept with her, you got her pregnant.”

  He takes a couple of breaths before he answers, his nostrils flaring. “Yes, I slept with her. But I’m not a murderer,” he says lowering his voice and looking at her, almost coldly. “Maybe I should ask you what you believe.”

  Stephanie drops her eyes and avoids the question. She must tell him. “Erica was here today.”

  25

  Erica sits on her sofa, eating take-out Thai food from cartons on her coffee table and thinking about her conversation with Stephanie earlier that day. Erica’s annoyed. Stephanie isn’t going to pay. Patrick would have, but she won’t. And she’s the one with the money. God, Erica hates stubborn people who can’t see what’s in their own best interest.

  She remembers that Stephanie told her Patrick had seen her purse in Erica’s apartment. She leans over and hauls the black bag up onto the sofa. She’ll have to get rid of it. She’ll throw it in the river.

&nb
sp; This is all going to take a little longer than expected and require a bit of creative thinking. In the meantime, Niall has potential, and she has her part-time job at the hospital to tide her over. She likes working in hospitals, because hospitals have doctors. And doctors have money. And, in her experience, they have big egos, work long hours, and are prone to having affairs. Sometimes they even have drug problems.

  The world is full of opportunity, Erica thinks, if you keep your eyes open.

  * * *

  • • •

  PATRICK IS CLEARLY shocked to hear that Stephanie has seen Erica. For a moment, he goes completely still. “What?” he says.

  “She was here, waiting for me, when I got back from the park,” Stephanie says. She doesn’t tell him that Erica was inside the house. That she probably left the door unlocked again by mistake. “We spoke on the porch.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?” he bursts out. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “You didn’t want to go to the police, remember?” she says with heat. “You wanted to wait and see if she’d just go away.”

  He runs a hand nervously through his hair. “What did she want?”

  “Money, of course. I made it clear we weren’t going to give her any.” She adds, “And she wanted to talk to me. So we talked.”

  Now he turns worried eyes on her. “Jesus, Stephanie. You shouldn’t have done that. She’s dangerous. Devious. What did she tell you?”

  “She said that the two of you were in love. That you weren’t together only a couple of times, but a lot.” She looks up at him from the sofa, where he’s standing in front of her, careful to watch his reaction to what she says next. “She said you used to go to her apartment at lunchtime and make love, and eat the lunch your wife packed afterward, in her bed.”

  She knows from the panicked look in his eyes that she’s struck a nerve. She hadn’t expected it. “It’s true?” she gasps.

  He shakes his head. He’s gone pale, and when he answers, his voice is strained. “That only happened once, I swear. The only other time we slept together was before that, and we were drunk. I put an end to it after that.” He adds, desperately, “It was nothing, Stephanie. I realized how stupid I’d been. She meant nothing to me, nothing at all.”

  She gives him a hard stare, less sure of things now.

  “Erica isn’t going to get anywhere with this, I promise.”

  She looks back at him, utterly exhausted. How can he not see what they’re up against? How can he make that promise? How can he even say it? Maybe it’s because he knows he’s innocent. But even that is no guarantee. Innocent people get convicted of murder all the time. She feels her face begin to crumple. “How can you promise that it’s all going to be fine? How can you promise anything?” she says plaintively.

  “Where is this coming from, Stephanie? Don’t you believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you, but—”

  “But what?”

  “If Erica does go to the police—they might believe her.”

  * * *

  • • •

  PATRICK IS PRETENDING to sleep, but he’s wide awake behind his closed eyes. Stephanie finally put the twins down and joined him in bed a few minutes ago. His back is turned to her, but he can tell by her breathing that she’s fast asleep. He’s been waiting, hoping that tonight she would drop off quickly.

  Quietly, he gets out of bed, careful not to wake her. He pulls on his jeans and a T-shirt and creeps out of the room. Once she’s asleep, she should be out cold until the twins start to cry around 6:00 a.m. He’ll be back by then. With any luck, she won’t even notice he’s gone. And if she does, he’ll say he couldn’t sleep and went for a drive to clear his head.

  He gathers his wallet and keys and sneaks out of the house, locking the door carefully behind him. He gets into his car, backs out of the driveway, and doesn’t turn his headlights on until he’s down the street. He takes the highway to Newburgh.

  * * *

  • • •

  ERICA IS AWAKENED by the sharp sound of her apartment buzzer. She lifts her head and looks at her clock radio—it’s 2:54 in the morning. The buzzer goes again, insistently.

  She throws off her covers and pads in bare feet to her door. She speaks into the intercom. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me. I want to talk.”

  She recognizes Patrick’s voice. Her heart begins to beat more rapidly. “Okay. Come in.”

  She wonders fleetingly if she should be afraid of him. She is, a little, but she thinks he’s finally ready to talk business. This could work out well for both of them—maybe he’s beginning to see that.

  She’s pulling on her robe when she hears his knock. She finishes tying her robe, then opens the door.

  He stares at her for a moment before he brushes past her to enter the apartment. She closes the door, trying to gauge his mood. He turns around to face her.

  “What brings you here in the middle of the night?” she asks.

  “You need to stay the hell away from my wife!” His voice is threatening.

  This is not exactly what she was hoping for. She was hoping he would realize that the death of his current wife would be in their mutual interest. Whether it’s what he would have chosen or not. But instead he’s being protective of her.

  “Why would I do that?” she says, in an equally hostile tone. “She deserves to know the truth—to know what you’re capable of.”

  “Cut the bullshit!” he thunders. Then he walks closer and lowers his voice and says venomously, “I’ve had just about enough of this—and just about enough of you.”

  She doesn’t pull back; she pushes her face up closer to his. “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t have something in mind for her before I came along. You married a woman you knew would inherit a fortune. And now she has. And let’s not forget the life insurance.” She smiles coldly at him. “If I hadn’t come along, how would this story have ended?” She sees the fury in his eyes. “Struck a nerve, have I? Ruined all your plans?”

  “You miserable, lying bitch,” he seethes. “You’re so caught up in your own fantasies that you actually believe them!”

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” she says, “I’ve got you in a tight spot. If your cheapskate wife dies now, before I go to the police in Colorado, no one has to suspect a thing, if you do it right. You’ll be free of her, and you can split her money with me—there’s plenty of it.” He glares at her, speechless with rage. Erica says coolly, “The alternative is being investigated for the murder of your first wife. Once that happens, regardless of the outcome, you’d never be able to get rid of Stephanie, would you? You wouldn’t dare.” She waits a beat and adds cruelly, “And maybe she’d divorce you and take her money with her.”

  “You selfish, amoral, greedy bitch,” he snarls.

  His opinion doesn’t bother her in the least. “So what are you going to do?” she asks.

  He looks back at her, his face so close to hers. She can see a vein throbbing with tension in his temple. She waits for his answer.

  “You’re assuming I’m a killer,” he says, in desperation.

  “Aren’t you?”

  26

  On Thursday morning, Hanna decides to invite Stephanie and the twins over for a playdate. She’s grown increasingly concerned about her neighbor. Stephanie is clearly exhausted, and Hanna can tell she’s finding it hard to cope. Who wouldn’t, with colicky twins and no mother of her own around to help? Hanna is more grateful to her own mother, who lives nearby, than she ever thought she’d be, and Teddy is an easy baby.

  It had been upsetting, the other day, finding Stephanie’s door wide open and seeing her in such a state. Theirs is a nice neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be robbed if you leave your door open. With the rise in internet shopping, there’s been a rash of thefts of packages left on p
eople’s doorsteps, and probably more opportunists about.

  There’s something else that’s bothering Hanna. A couple of days earlier, she’d seen Stephanie talking on her front porch with the woman who’d looked at the house for sale two doors down. Hanna remembers her friendly chat with the woman when she first came by to check out the neighborhood. But from where Hanna was—glancing out her living-room window, while walking around and burping Teddy—it didn’t look like she and Stephanie were having a pleasant conversation.

  Hanna isn’t nosy; she doesn’t like to pry. And she’s discovered that Stephanie is a private person, not quick to disclose personal information, so she’s not sure she should bring it up. But if this woman is thinking of buying that house . . .

  She picks up the phone and soon the two women and three babies are comfortably ensconced in her living room. Hanna notices that Stephanie looks worse than the last time she saw her.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Hanna says sympathetically, “but you look terrible.”

  “I feel even lousier than I look,” Stephanie admits.

  Hanna offers her a cup of coffee and asks casually, “Who was that woman you were talking to on your porch the other day?”

  Stephanie averts her eyes, accepting the coffee cup. She takes a sip, and says, “Just an old school friend of Patrick’s.”

  “Oh.” Hanna considers the information and says, “Is she still interested in buying the house?”

  “What house?”

  “The one for sale two doors down from you. I spoke to her early last week, and she’d just been in to see it.”

  “Oh no, I don’t think so,” Stephanie says. Then she changes the subject.

  Hanna thinks to herself, Something here isn’t adding up.

  * * *

  • • •

  NANCY TRIES TO LEARN everything she can about E. Voss. She does the obvious things—Google searches, Facebook—but she doesn’t find anything helpful. She keeps an eye on the Tesla app. She’d seen her husband driving out to Newburgh when he was supposed to be working on Sunday afternoon, but she’d been trapped at a birthday party for one of Henry’s little friends. She has taken to following her husband whenever she can—after all, Niall could be meeting this woman anywhere—but on a time lag. When she sees where he’s gone and parked, she goes there later, sometimes with Henry with her in the car. So far he’s only been to legitimate job sites.