Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Vicky
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Carol asks.
It’s Monday, and we’re sitting in Carol’s living room, me on one sofa, her on the other, the coffee table between us strewn with papers and empty mugs. I’m grateful she’s working from home, but Alex is still an asshole for assuming she’d be here. Even though she is. That’s not illogical, right?
“It’s harmless,” I say. “I’m only accessing public records.”
“Yeah, but on Van Wyk’s late wife.” Carol chews her lip. “It’s just a suggestion, and you can totally ignore me, but from everything you’ve said—”
“That’s a lot of hedging.”
“—why don’t you just drop it?”
“Because I don’t drop cases. You know that.”
“Yeah,” Carol mutters. “I know that.” She gets up, collects her work laptop—I’ve commandeered her personal one while Alex hasn’t come good on the replacement for mine—and sits down next to me on the sofa. “Okay, what have you already done?”
I glance at her. “Are you offering to help?”
“You’re in up to your neck. Alex, Fournier, Van Wyk, Amelia… this Company thing.” A pause. “Severed fingers, for crying out loud?” She grimaces. “So yeah, if I can help you get out of all this, I’ll sleep better.”
I bump her shoulder with mine. “You’re a good friend.”
“The best. Now, I’ll take litigation and corporate, you take social.”
We work in companionable silence for a while, like we were both back at Dalton Reed. All it’s missing is Franklin breathing down our necks and being ever so slightly creepy.
An hour later, and Carol leans back. “That’s pretty sparse.”
“How sparse?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s sparse.” I look at my own paltry results. “Amelia was the same. Van Wyk, too. They’re clean. If there are records, they’re not public.”
“You got the medical examiner’s report, right?”
A text comes in from Alex, distracting me.
Still sore, Tink? Take a bath when you get home, and I’ll pick up some massage lotion for this evening.
Goddamn it. I’m never going to be able to take a bath again without thinking of him.
That’s fine, I like showers.
It’s almost a sweet message, if I didn’t know he’d have something deeply uncomfortable planned, despite how sore I still am.
And my traitorous body reacts to the images that thought produces. My stomach clenches, my nipples tighten. Heat pools where I don’t want it pooling.
“Vicky?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you all right? You just went bright red.”
And calling attention to it only makes it worse. “Uh… medical examiner’s report?”
“Right, yeah.” Carol gives me a look, then carries on. “I’ve got the death certificate, but there’s nothing we don’t already know.”
“And I have a bunch of old photos. All they prove is Van Wyk has a type, and Juliette and Amelia both share it.”
Carol puffs out her cheeks. “She didn’t own property. She didn’t have any corporate ties I can find. No litigation against her, and no bankruptcy. What did she even do?”
“I’m betting very little,” I say, thinking of Amelia’s apathy, the blank look in her eyes. The lack of emotion, just like Lucy had said. A woman who used to laugh, and now no longer does. Like she was just…
“What?” Carol asks. “I know that look.”
“Amelia’s trapped, right?”
“Yeah… that’s pretty clear. What did you say? ‘I’m not trying to leave anymore’?” She shakes her head. “It’s sick.”
“So we assume Juliette was trapped too, right?”
“Okay…”
I pull up a new browser, typing in as I speak. “What do trapped people try to do?”
“Leave. So he killed her.”
“Did you pull the marriage certificate?”
Carol frowns. “No, but… why would that help?”
“What does marriage lead to?”
“Babies?”
“Divorce.”
“They weren’t divorced, were they?”
“No. But I’m playing a hunch, and something tells me I’m right.”
Carol watches over my shoulder as I run my search, and it doesn’t take long. The list of cases it returns is short, and there’s only one entry for Van Wyk v. Van Wyk. I click into it, and check the docket summary.
We both stare at the screen.
I think of Amelia’s eyes, composed but hollow. I think of Juliette, who tried to leave.
“So she wants to divorce him, and he kills her.” Carol voices the obvious conclusion.
“Juliette instigated it, then discontinued it. And it’s not litigation against her. That’s why it didn’t show up on our other searches.”
“Yeah,” Carol murmurs. “Who looks for something that doesn’t exist?”
“I do, I suppose.” I lean back into the sofa, chewing my lip. It’s not proof, but it’s sure as hell no coincidence. “I can’t believe the investigation into her death missed this.”
“I can,” Carol says, then shrugs when I look at her. “Police respond to a suicide, and they look for foul play, right? No signs of that, then there’s no investigation.”
“No foul play?” I echo. “She was stabbed in the throat.”
“By a man who kills for a living—assuming that’s what he does. You think he can’t fake a suicide in his own house?” Carol shifts on her seat. “If he’s that good, why didn’t he kill her somewhere else? Hide the body.”
“Missing-person investigation involving a spouse? They’d definitely go digging then.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” She looks at me, eyes mournful, that puppy-dog expression she wears when she’s about to tell me there’s no more ice-cream.
“What?” I say, cautiously.
Carol hesitates, wincing. “Shut me down if I’m out of line, but… is it wrong to draw the obvious parallels here?”
“What parallels?” But I know what she’s going to ask. I’ve been avoiding it, but I can’t any longer. The question I’ve been refusing to acknowledge.
“If Alex finds out… uh… when he finds out you’re going to leave him—for the second time, no less—what will he do?”
That evening, I text Alex, explain I’m staying at Carol’s and we’re doing a girlie thing, and that I’ve got my period.
He calls within twenty seconds.
“Come home. I’ll run you a bath.”
Damn me for reacting to that every time.
I take a moment to steady myself. “That’s really sweet of you, but I’ve already had one and we’ve broken out the ice cream.” I let my voice drop. “We’re already a quarter of the way into Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Carol would be devastated if I left now.”
Across the room, Carol mimes vomiting, then crosses to the bookshelf and pulls out Starship Troopers, waving it at me.
But my choice does the trick. I can almost hear Alex’s wince. “Very well. I suppose I can go one night. But I’ll miss you.”
He’ll what?
“Do some work?” I suggest dryly. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”
“I can’t work. Not without knowing you’re home, and safe.”
That’s so unlike him and I almost pull the phone from my ear and check I’m speaking to the right person. It’s his voice, just not his words.
“Uh… that’s sweet.” It kind of is, actually, even if I don’t believe he means it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Which gives me a day to think up another excuse.
“And I’ll spoil you rotten then. Call me if you need me?”
Why would I need him?
“Sure. Good night.”
“Feel better.”
He ends the call, and I bite my lip and stare at my phone.
That was almost… normal. I hate that I want it to be.
Except nothing about Alexander Reyes is normal. We’re the only engaged couple in the world that don’t finish our phone calls with those three little words. And I don’t mean Happy Birthday, Vicky.
“Lucy’s replied,” Carol says, nodding toward my laptop.
I reach for it and spin it around, and her email is the top one.
Lunch tomorrow, she’ll be here.
Now I have to figure out what I’m going to tell her.
“You saw her?” Lucy asks, leaning forward on Carol’s sofa and gripping the edge of her cushion.
Carol sits in the armchair, sipping quietly at a cup of tea.
“I did,” I reply, my voice carefully neutral. “I was able to corroborate your assessment of her.”
“Corroborate my assessment?” Lucy echoes, looking at me with puzzlement.
“It means to confirm—”
“I know what it means.” Her gaze sharpens. “You’re using formal, clinical language to take emotion out, aren’t you? I’m not an idiot, Miss Callahan.”
I take a breath, glance at Carol, and nod. “My apologies,” I say in a more normal voice. “You didn’t deserve that. Let me try again.” I pause. “The news I have for you is not good. How blunt do you want it?”
“Blunt.” The word is steady, but her knuckles whiten where they grip her seat cushion.
“Very well. It's my opinion—I have no proof—that her husband severely restricts her movements. She cannot travel freely or see people without his permission. She appears to lead a very limited life and shows signs consistent with psychological abuse. When I suggested she spend time away from him, she reacted with fear and deep suspicion.” I hesitate, then plow on. “She… told me she ‘wasn’t trying to leave anymore’ and that she wouldn’t consider going anywhere ‘without Lukas.’”
Lucy takes it quite well, all things considered. She leans back in her seat and lays her hands on her lap. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry the news wasn’t better.”
“No, but it’s… what I expected.” She purses her lips, looks down for a moment, then meets my gaze again. “And Van Wyk? Were you able to look into him?”
This is the part I was dreading.
“I have, yes,” I begin, still not sure how I’m going to share what I think.
“Bluntly, please,” Lucy reminds me.
“Officially, there’s nothing of any interest to a private investigation concerning Mr. Van Wyk.”
Lucy doesn’t miss a beat. “Unofficially?”
I hesitate. “I will remind you again, that nothing I’ve told you or can tell you has any evidence to support it. It is subjective, and my opinion only.”
“Noted,” she says dryly. “But I don’t think you’ll surprise me.”
I wouldn’t bet on it.
But I’ve already decided to stick purely to the facts.
“I was able to ascertain that Van Wyk’s previous wife died a year before he married Amelia.”
“How did she die?” Lucy’s instincts lead her straight to the right question. She’d make a good investigator—or maybe she’s just a good sister.
“Suicide,” I say, trying to soften the delivery even though it’s brusque by its nature. “Specifically, she stabbed herself in the throat.”