Chapter 36
I have never seen Ian look so afraid. I almost wish I could take a photo and show him.
“You remember the Murder Mansion, right?” I say, still seated on the sofa.
His expression contorts. He croaks out a single word: “What?”
“Come on, you remember. The one nobody would buy after they found those poor people slaughtered inside?”
Sweat slicks his forehead, his skin unnervingly gray. He hunches over the sink now, as if he might get sick.
“Erika reminded me about it the other day,” I explain, “and then I saw your girlfriend in front of our building. So I thought, sure, why not take care of that problem and kill the competition for the house all at once?” I shrug. “You know I’ve always been a multitasker.”
“I … I’m calling the police,” he chokes out. “You’re out of your mind.”
I figured he’d react like this. But he’ll come to his senses.
“I think you should stop and seriously consider how that’ll work out for you. I mean, do you really want to raise your hand and volunteer that you were fucking the dead girl? You know it’s the boyfriend like 99.99 percent of the time, right?”
He stares at me, unblinking, and takes a hard swallow.
“Oh, and that reminds me, we’ll need to get rid of your new burner”—I let my eyes wander over him—“wherever you’re keeping it.”
Whatever guilt I might’ve felt when I first heard Alex’s voice crackle through that intercom dissolved as soon as I scrolled through her phone.
They’d been texting that whole night, while I was upstairs at Natalie’s.
Ian’s old Nokia is out of battery and stashed inside the drawer of my nightstand, so it was obvious he’d gone out and bought another one. Asshole.
“But Alex…” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, beating back a wave of nausea. “Alex had one, too,” he manages to get out.
“You think I don’t already have it?”
His face relaxes for a split second, before tensing up again: “My DNA will be everywhere.”
“Just what every wife wants to hear.” I get up and join him in the kitchen.
He staggers away from me, as I reach past him to fill a glass of water at the faucet.
“You need to trust me, Ian. As long as those burners are the only thing connecting you two, the police won’t even know to look in your direction. ”
“But what about Jack and Curt?” he says. “Think about it—after everything we did to them? Don’t you think they’ll point to us?”
I laugh. “Absolutely not.”
“How are you so sure?” His head tilts the way Fritter’s does when he’s trying to work out what I’m saying.
“Because,” I help him along, “they need someone to buy their house. Once everyone else drops out, we’ll be their only option. If they turned us in, they’d be sending their only buyers to prison. They’d be stuck there forever.”
Ian’s jaw goes slack, the fight in his eyes deadens.
“This could end my career,” he whispers, mostly to himself, I think. “It would be better…” He stares at the floor, nodding rapidly. “Yeah, I think it would be better if we cooperated…”
Jesus fucking Christ, I really do have to do all the critical thinking around here. I punch him in the biceps to snap him out of it. He looks up at me, stunned, eyes watering.
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Margo … I’m … I’m not like you. I can’t live with this.”
I let out a long, exhausted sigh, then spin away from him, heading for the bathroom.
Fritter hops off the sofa and trots after me.
There, I dig behind the cleaning products and cotton balls and extra toilet-paper rolls, back behind the drainpipe underneath the sink, until I reach the First Response box.
I pull out the test, still declaring my happy news in the form of two bright-pink lines.
Holding it out in my flattened palm, I return to the kitchen and present it to Ian.
In an instant, a Below Deck episode’s worth of drama plays out across his face. His brow scrunches in confusion as he studies the stick, then stretches back out in horror. But when he lifts his gaze to meet mine, I see it—just a flicker, but undeniable. Joy.
“Is that…” he stammers. “Are you really…”
“Do you want to be in jail for the birth of your child?” I ask, my eyes locked into his. “Or, worse, you want me to give birth in a prison cell? You want our baby ripped away from us, her life destroyed before it can even start?”
Tears pour out of him now. Sloppy, silent blobs rolling in fast succession down his cheeks. Good boy.
Before either of us can speak again, his phone—the legit one—dings from the kitchen counter. Mine chimes from the coffee table at the same time.
He peers down. “It’s my mom,” he says weakly.
“What does she want?”
His voice shakes as he reads her text aloud: “Hi, kids, I’ve been hearing about the Bethesda Basement Body. Isn’t that where you’re house hunting? I thought it was supposed to be safer there.”
“Keep it short,” I instruct him. “‘Yes, it’s awful,’ whatever. Nothing too emotional.”
He nods, his face ashen. Then he lurches toward the sink and pukes up his turkey sandwich.