Chapter Forty Marni
Chapter Forty
Marni
Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.
The exercises didn’t work. No amount of deep breathing or visualizing being in a different place eased the caved-in sensation
in my chest. My breathing sounded hollow and stuttered.
The attorney told me he would do the talking. I should only answer if he gave me the okay. The order tumbled around in my
head as I sat in a small room that didn’t look like any interrogation set I’d seen on television. This resembled a conference
room without windows.
The people across from me included the detective I’d talked to previously, a woman from the FBI, and some other man seated
back, away from all of us. They gave their names and titles. Due to the jumble in my brain, I forgot the information as soon
as they’d offered it.
All the coaching from the attorney and his associate, and all of Cam’s orders about staying quiet, vanished when I saw the small plastic evidence bag on the table. It sat between me and them. Not a coincidence. It was there to shake me. To make me question and panic.
The only thing that kept me from blathering on was the fear of throwing up if I tried to push a single word out. My stomach
clenched. It ached like when I was a little girl and ate all my Halloween candy in secret in my bedroom. A rancid, curdled
feeling.
I didn’t need to open the evidence bag and dump out the contents. I knew what I was looking at. My bracelet. The one Patrick
gave me. Engraved. Personal. Intimate.
While the detective droned on, the FBI agent looked at me. Her gaze skipped from my face to the bag. To that damn bracelet
that once meant everything.
Marni, Our time is coming - P
The engraving once filled me with hope. It had been a promise about a future to come. Now it would damn me.
“Ms. Richards, were you having an affair with Patrick Tanner at the time of his disappearance?”
Not death. The detective still talked as if Patrick could walk through the door, sit down, and offer an explanation.
The bones destroyed that fantasy.
The FBI agent picked up the bag and studied the bracelet. “Is this yours, Ms. Richards? I mean, how many women named Marni
are there in Sleepy Hollow?”
The detective answered. “Just one.”
The agent touching something so private and personal. A memory I stored deep in the shadows, walled off in my mind after years
of grieving. The one I dragged out when the pain crested and loneliness thumped too hard for me to sleep.
“The bracelet belongs to Ms. Richards,” my attorney explained. “She was a friend of the Tanner family and especially close to Victoria Tanner. They spent a lot of time together at both Tanner homes.”
The lawyerly response aimed for the neutral space between denial and arrest, but the carefulness of it damned me. I had to
get out in front of the allegations. To prove I had nothing to hide even though I did. “It’s mine.”
The attorney’s leg shifted under the table until it leaned against mine in a not-so-subtle reminder to shut up. Understood
and ignored.
“But it’s not a friendship bracelet, is it?” The detective pretended to take a closer look. “I admit I’m a practical guy,
but this sounds like a pretty romantic inscription.”
The FBI agent nodded. “I’d be devastated if I lost something so special.”
Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.
The breathing exercise worked that time. Their practiced show didn’t make me want to cough up any new information.
The FBI agent continued. “After all, you wouldn’t give this to your wife’s friend as a thank-you or even for a birthday. This
meant far more.”
Seven months. That’s how long we’d been together the last time. On and off for years before that. The bracelet was a symbol
of a future. A promise that we weren’t once again rekindling a secret relationship. This time we were starting something new.
He’d given a speech at West Point. We used the event as an excuse to escape to the Berkshires.
He surprised me with the bracelet and the name of the divorce attorney he planned to use with Victoria.
I both rejoiced and panicked but the pain of betraying Victoria didn’t trump the love I had for Patrick . . . no matter how hard I wanted it to.
Back during the years when the town whispered about Patrick sleeping with Hanna, he’d been sleeping with me. I asked but Patrick
never directly answered my questions about if he’d ever had sex with Hanna. He let me think maybe. He had no problem using
her as cover and as a way to get a jealous rise out of me.
He let Victoria aim her anger at Hanna, which left me out of the firing line. A choice I regretted now but at the time the
thrill of our illicit relationship fed something deep inside me. A pulsing need I didn’t even know I possessed.
“This is the kind of bracelet that might be a Valentine’s Day gift. Something I’d get my wife for an anniversary.” The detective
continued to examine the bracelet through the bag.
A thin strand of alternating diamonds and sapphires. A small sum to Patrick. Everything to me.
Patrick started out as my friend’s hot husband. Tall and sure. Charming and brilliant. Flirty with a killer smile. A man so
different from the forgetful, weak playboy husband Victoria whined about as lacking drive. The dissonance had me checking
in, spending more time at the house, watching him. Until the day I noticed him looking back.
He had this ability to make big ideas sound relatable. I could listen to him for hours, but the sexiest part is how he listened
to me. With him, I could say or do anything. I felt beautiful and free. Only the guilt drove us to shaky ground.
“Did you report the jewelry missing? Or was it stolen?” the detective asked.
“I never . . .” Every explanation sounded wrong in my head. “I lost it.”
The attorney looked at me and nodded. I knew he hoped I’d stop answering and stay silent.
What I really wanted was to grab the bag and slip the bracelet on. Let the platinum warm my skin. But I couldn’t. I knew this
game. The detective and the FBI agent bantered back and forth, pretending not to know what every person in the room already
knew.
“A romantic gift from your best friend’s husband.” The FBI agent had suggested something similar before but targeted the words
now. “I bet Victoria didn’t like that. Did she know the truth about you and Patrick?”
Victoria. People saw her as too . . . everything. Pretty. Smug. Wealthy. All unfair. They judged her based on her last name,
which she threw around at first because she could but later out of desperation. I saw through the facade because I watched
her cry over Aubrey’s spiraling behavior. I knew Victoria loved her family and yearned for her life to morph into the perfect
picture she presented to the public.
Victoria had an idealized vision of what her marriage and motherhood should be and when reality came up short and all that
money didn’t solve her problems, her frustration changed her. She went from craving stability to demanding more, thinking
if she found that one missing piece she’d fix the dysfunction. I understood. We shared similar histories. We knew what it
was like to stand on the outside, begging to get in.
Even before I had any feelings for Patrick I pleaded with her to leave him so she could outrun the unhappiness slowly overtaking her world.
Her sense of being penned in and trapped never went away.
I assumed they’d both be happier if they were free, but I stopped offering marital advice when I fell for him.
I was no longer qualified or worthy of being Victoria’s confidante. My life became a nonstop push and pull between wanting
her to find peace and wanting him to choose me. Two states that could never work together.
I betrayed her and I hated myself for it. Not enough to stop. Not enough to tell Patrick to be a better husband. Not enough
to warn Victoria about the pain to come. I made excuses for my weakness and my dishonesty, but I never had the guts to walk
away. Then they disappeared and I didn’t have a choice.
I never wore the bracelet in front of her. I kept the gift private where I could savor it. Then I lost it two days before
Patrick’s murder. At the Tanner house after being with Patrick. Victoria found it and our lives unraveled.
You know he gives these out to all his girlfriends. You’re not special. He has the damn jeweler on speed dial.
“Do you know where we found this?” the detective asked.
The memories screamed in my head. That day at the house. Victoria called me and begged me to come over. Said she needed me.
Wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I assumed Aubrey because she was the cause of so much of Victoria’s grief.
Turning fourteen had flipped a switch that never turned off again. Aubrey tested boundaries all the time. She didn’t yell
or throw tantrums. She stood in silence. Unblinking and assessing. Watching as her mom lost it.
But that’s not why Victoria called. Not this time.
“The bracelet was wrapped around Patrick’s hand, as if he was holding it when he was killed,” the detective said.
That’s not what happened. That’s not how it got there. That’s not why I called Cam for help that day.
The FBI agent put down the bag and leaned forward. “Maybe this whole situation was about self-defense.”
The detective and the FBI agent shared a look before the detective took over. “The heat of the moment. You’re arguing and
he gets angry. Lunges. You didn’t have a choice but to fight back.”
“Are we going to find more bodies?” the agent asked. “Was this a lovers’ quarrel gone wrong or did you step into the middle
of a marital fight?”
“No.” It’s the only word I could spit out.
“I’m thinking Patrick wanted to end it.” The detective sighed. “Look, we see this sort of thing all the time. The husband
makes promises. Lies to the wife and to the girlfriend. It’s twisted. He pits decent women against each other, then it all
blows up on him.”
The agent retook the lead. “It’s understandable. You were crushed. Devastated. He deserved your anger. You didn’t intend to
hurt him. Things got out of hand.”
“No.” And that wasn’t a lie. They had this all wrong.
Victoria confronted me with the bracelet. I tried to wrestle it away from her. She fought back and I ran. But I didn’t kill
Patrick.
Patrick was already dead when I got to the house.