Chapter Forty-Nine Marni
Chapter Forty-Nine
Marni
Stella and Hanna fussed over me for an hour. The pain in my head finally subsided. It now registered as a dull ache, which
made it easier to ignore Hanna’s repeated pleas that I go to the hospital. I didn’t want to be seen anywhere.
I’d already gotten the call from the school—in record speed—about taking a voluntary leave of absence. To recover from the
discovery of my “friend’s” body. I couldn’t see the principal make air quotes, but I could hear them in his voice. Then he
rambled on about how my private life could easily become a distraction to the children and staff. More like being in the building
would make it harder for everyone to gossip behind my back.
I didn’t bother with the breathing exercises. They’d never break through this mess. The anxious rumbling in my stomach seemed
to be permanent now.
The whole town knew or guessed. I was the evil bitch who slept with her best friend’s husband. Now he was confirmed as dead. My friend remained missing. I’d been questioned. The whispers flew and the judgmental stares had started.
Interesting how quickly that news broke out. Only a few people knew. Two of them were in the room with me, sitting on the
chairs in Stella’s family room. They didn’t leak it. I was terrible at reading people—obviously—but I couldn’t imagine Hanna
starting the kind of rumor that followed her for years, chipping away at her stability and peace. Stella didn’t gain any advantage
by leaking the news. She was practical and a little bloodthirsty, but I didn’t see this linking back to her.
Someone at the police station. One of the reporters at the scene at Xavier’s house could have been following me. Aubrey. The
last was the most likely culprit.
“We need to share information.” Hanna delivered the familiar refrain in a weary voice. “No more stalling. It’s the only way
we’ll figure this out and I’ll find Jeremy.”
Still no word from him. The only positive was that the police detective just called Hanna, asking for information about Jeremy’s
car. He suggested there were “renewed concerns” about his absence. Checks of his banking and phone records had started.
Hanna sounded too lost, too broken to be positive. She didn’t run off because Stella had used my injury as a way of guilting
Hanna into abandoning her trespassing house search for a few hours.
“Agree.” Stella didn’t hedge this time. Didn’t change the subject like she usually did when this topic came up. She didn’t
exactly dump what she knew on the table either.
I mentally weighed the pros and cons of spilling the information I’d spent more than a decade hiding. Of unleashing the damning truth. My lawyer and Cam wanted me to stay quiet and keep a low profile. The police warned me about leaving town.
Then there were these two. Stella and Hanna. They risked a fall to their deaths on treacherous stairs and the reality that
the attacker might have been waiting downstairs for them in favor of getting to me.
Decision made.
“Victoria texted me that day. She was upset about Aubrey and Patrick and not making sense.” I glanced at Hanna. “And she contacted
you.”
“No. Patrick texted me. Admittedly, it was a cryptic text about needing help. I told the police it was a follow-up on a work
thing but that’s not why Patrick asked me to come over.” Hanna winced. “I walked in the door and heard you and Victoria fighting.”
“About Patrick.” Him and so much more. A reality that haunted me to this day.
“Is that when Victoria discovered the affair?” Stella asked.
“She figured it out the night before but didn’t tell me until I got to the house. A surprise attack of sorts, which I, of
course, deserved.” I held a mug of tea. The heat seeped into my palms but didn’t calm me. The conversation had a ball of panic
clogging my throat. “She’d found the engraved bracelet Patrick gave me. I’d worn it a few days earlier. Must have dropped
it next to their bed.”
Stella winced. “Ouch.”
“I never left my house with it, but Patrick had invited me over and Victoria was out . . .” I waved a hand in the air, as if I could bat away my terrible decision-making. “She knew what the bracelet and the inscription meant.”
“She confronted you?”
Leave it to Hanna to jump right to the point.
“Yes and she really did text you,” I said, delivering the information I now believed Hanna never knew. “She used his phone
to lure you there. She said the two of us could fight it out.”
Hanna jerked back. “What’s the it in that sentence?”
“Over which one of you got to be with Patrick?” Stella asked. “That’s weird.”
They still didn’t get it. “No. Victoria meant we could fight over which one of us was going to take the blame for killing
Patrick.”
A beat of heated silence filled the room.
I was never here. There’s a library fundraiser this afternoon. That’s where my car is. Where everyone will believe I was when
this happened.
I could hear the screech of Victoria’s voice as if she were standing in front of me. “She was wild and not making sense. She weaved all these irrational thoughts together. Mumbled one minute about how she would
need someone to be a witness for her at the fundraiser, then raved about Patrick’s behavior and his being a terrible father
the next. She repeated Noah’s name and said she couldn’t find him. She screamed about Aubrey.”
I took a breath because I needed a break. Hanna and Stella stared at me, their concern obvious.
“She said it was our fault. Yours and mine, Hanna. I didn’t have any idea what touched off the madness until I saw him.”
His body. Unmoving. So brilliant and alive with energy and purpose in life. So normal and unimpressive in death.
“Patrick was already dead when I got to the house. I didn’t know it at first, but I found him.” The pain crept out of the shadowy corner where I’d stomped it into submission and locked it up. Step by step, growing bigger, looming like a wild, angry beast.
“I heard you and Victoria fighting. Not the words, exactly. More like I heard the anger.” Hanna winced. “Then you walked into
the entry, where I was standing, and I saw your hands.”
“The blood.” I put the mug down, then picked it right back up again. “When I realized Victoria was holding the bracelet my
first instinct was to bolt. I pivoted to get away from her. Ran into the kitchen and almost tripped over his . . .” So stiff.
So quiet while chaos fired off around him. “Patrick.”
You stupid bitch. You left the jewelry on purpose. You wanted me to know. Well, now I know.
“I . . . dropped to the floor. I . . . I . . . touched him, hoping he somehow survived losing all that blood. I couldn’t breathe
or think. I had to get out of there, but I’d gotten spun around.” The same sensation of being trapped, gasping without enough
air, hit me now. “Victoria’s voice . . .”
You did this. You. You ruined everything. And Aubrey . . .
The look of pity on Hanna’s face stopped me. I glanced away. Couldn’t see it. I didn’t deserve her compassion.
“I got the whole way to the front door before I saw the blood smeared all over my hands and on my shirt. The terror in your
eyes.” I fought back the tears, then and now. In between, I’d cried so many times. I could no longer separate the devastation
of losing him from the breath-stealing pain of losing myself.
A broken heart. A destroyed friendship. A kick to my sanity.
“The way you looked . . .” Hanna didn’t finish the sentence. “I didn’t know what happened.”
“You were holding a knife and that confused me even more because why? And why was it so far from the body?” Later I tried
to walk through every minute and remember but so many details remained hazy. Too destructive and heartbreaking for my mind
to relive them.
Hanna nodded. “I found the knife on the staircase and picked it up without thinking. When I saw you I thought you’d done something
terrible and that I’d touched the weapon you used.”
That fit. “My theories bounced all over the place. First, I thought Victoria saw Patrick and had some sort of mental break.
Then I tried to convince myself she was innocent, and you killed him in a jealous rage or Aubrey did it and Victoria was trying
to cover for her.”
“The knife might have told us the answer.” Hanna’s hesitation only lasted a second. “We’ll never know because I wiped it.
I worried my fingerprints were on it, that I’d be implicated and lose Jeremy.”
“Shit.” Stella didn’t offer anything else. Didn’t have to.
“I promise you I didn’t kill Patrick.” Hanna leaned forward. “I didn’t even know he was dead until the police confirmed the
remains were his. I left through the mudroom. I never walked into the kitchen or saw his body.”
“I saw the aftermath. The blood pooling around his body. The stark expression on his face.” My life stopped.
Not in a moment or a flash. More like a slow sputtering, jagged and raw.
I could never rev it up and get it started again.
That was my punishment for the affair, for not protecting Victoria, for not telling the truth .
. . for not getting to the house faster.
My world ended when Patrick took his last breath. I hadn’t enjoyed fresh air since.
The last of the secrets poured out of me. “I called Cam. He told me to leave the scene. That he’d take care of it.”
Stella whistled. “So, Aubrey is right about the police screwing up the investigation. On purpose.”
I rushed to defend Cam like I always did. “He was protecting me. He didn’t want me to get blamed for something I didn’t do.”
“I called Xavier.” Hanna blew out a long breath. “I’ve regretted it every day since. I panicked and called the one man I couldn’t
trust. I should have called the police and never touched that knife.”
The picture remained fuzzy and out of reach, but at least we could see a few disparate pieces. We needed more. I looked to
Stella for clarity. “And you?”
“Xavier called me. He said something happened at the house.” Stella blinked a few times, probably from dragging her mind back
to that shocking time. “I rushed over because I figured there was a problem with Aubrey. Knowing what we know now, I assume
he got a call from Patrick somewhere during that fight with Victoria. Patrick called for reinforcements. Xavier called me.”
Hanna stared at me. “Aubrey.”
My least favorite subject. “What about her?”
A new energy radiated off Hanna. “What if our timing and assumptions about the marital fight are wrong? What if Xavier did
call Stella because of Aubrey?”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time,” Stella said. “But why would we think that about that day?”
“Isn’t it strange Aubrey hasn’t asked you about Patrick or questioned what you knew and when?” I must have looked lost because
Hanna settled in. Started explaining. “Think about it. The whole town knows you were brought in for questioning. People think
you killed Patrick. Aubrey must wonder, right?”
“A normal person would.” I wasn’t sure if that actually answered the question.
“Despite that, she didn’t confront you when she had the chance. One-on-one with only us to stop her if she lost it. She didn’t
ask if you killed Patrick or demand answers. She didn’t blame you when any other person in her position likely would,” Hanna
pointed out.
“Shit,” Stella mumbled.
“There’s an obvious reason for her not to go after you or at least demand answers about Patrick’s death.” Hanna didn’t wait
for me to catch up. “Because she knows exactly what happened to her family.”
It seemed so clear now, but I still needed to say it out loud. “You think Victoria panicked and really was trying to protect
Aubrey? That would mean she used the affair as an excuse.”
“Aubrey didn’t ask us any questions about Victoria or Noah either,” Stella said.
My mind flipped back to that first day in the courtroom. The way Aubrey walked in, drenched in malice and wallowing in the
discomfort she caused.
Stella said the terrible words out loud. “It’s still possible Aubrey killed all of them.”