Chapter 77 Katie Morrow
Katie Morrow
Katie sat on the upper porch of their bedroom balcony and watched the sunset, a glass of wine in hand. Beside her in the soft bassinet swing, Chloe Resin Morrow cooed and gurgled to herself as she played with the hanging mobile above her cocoon.
It really was a beautiful lot. She could understand why Willow and Mark had picked it.
The view and privacy were unparalleled, though they couldn’t have known that they would be needing to haul a dead body out of the back of it.
Still, it had risen to the occasion, and now, with the case closed pending new evidence, it seemed like they had gotten away with it.
Thanks to Katie. Her decision to keep her knowledge to herself and her mouth shut was the only thing that had kept them both out of jail.
Sure, they could claim that David’s death had been an accident, but with just a skeleton, that would be next to impossible to prove.
Three adults had entered their home that night, and one had ended up at the bottom of a lake, weights tied to his limbs.
It didn’t take a PhD to figure out who was guilty there.
It was the weights that had tipped Katie off. In one of the press conferences, the station had shared a photo of the two kettlebells investigators had found at the bottom of the lake and believed had been used to weigh down David’s body.
She knew those weights. She knew those weights because when she’d reorganized the mess that had been Willow and Mark’s house, a hodgepodge of expensive workout equipment had been in the junk room, including a set of kettlebells. An incomplete set of kettlebells.
Katie had donated them, along with half of the items in that room, but not after photographing each one, assigning a value, and adding it to a database of donation items that she provided to the local Goodwill and their tax accountant, to ensure that they received a proper deduction.
It had taken less than a minute to pull up the photos and verify that the set was missing two of the powder-coated twenty-pound weights.
Katie printed out the photos and stored them with the memory card of the audio recordings of the night she’d left Willow and Mark alone.
She had placed hidden mics in their bedroom, Willow’s guest room, the kitchen, living room, and back patio.
She had been expecting to catch Mark cheating, but had instead captured hours of walks down memory lane, including a concerned conversation about the ongoing police investigation.
At the time that she’d first heard it, she’d found Willow’s interest in David’s homicide odd, but after making the kettlebell connection, she gave it another listen.
“Can you imagine if we’d had the security system back then?” Mark.
“No. Someone else on the course might have, though. You sold the cart?” Willow.
“Yeah. Just in case. The basement remodel was down to the studs. You think I don’t take care of stuff, but I do.” Mark.
“You know I came back to make sure you didn’t fuck anything up.” Willow.
*A laugh* “With what?” Mark.
“Anything. You were always a shitty liar.” Willow.
“You came back because you missed me. Admit it.” Mark.
“I’m going to get another drink.” Willow.
Of course, the recordings would never be admissible in court, not with California’s laws on two-party consent. Still, the tapes were valuable, as was the parting information Willow had shared. Information that, despite Katie’s initial disbelief, seemed to be true.
She wasn’t going to beat Mark or handcuff him or do any of the ridiculous things that Willow had mentioned, but she had taken the information to her psychiatrist and gotten a master’s course worth of education on how she could stimulate and satisfy Mark’s desire for domination in ways that didn’t gross her out or cause any harm.
Chaos, as it turned out, was what her emotionally absent husband needed.
She’d first introduced it unintentionally, by filing for divorce.
It was a move that flipped their power dynamic and had Mark suddenly ravenously interested in his now-cold and bitchy wife.
She had yielded, staying in the marriage but with a new MO, one where she held the reins and he jumped however high she demanded.
A new nursery, one he had finished out himself.
She’d had him hang the wallpaper twice, then decided she preferred him to strip it all out and do a venetian-plaster finish instead, a painstaking process that had him applying layers of lime putty and marble dust. In the final months of her pregnancy, she’d demanded he rub her feet and calves while she binge-watched episodes of a trashy reality love competition, then sent him out for her favorite snacks.
If he ever balked or refused, she turned ice cold and left.
Once, she’d spent a week away, relaxing at a spa resort in Malibu, his number blocked from her cell phone, and returned to find him frantic and apologetic.
It was strange, having power in this relationship, but she didn’t dislike it. There was a delicious freedom in having all the attention and respect and the ability to write all the rules.
The easy thing to do would have been to leave. Her prenup agreement was skinny, but it would have given her enough money to get an apartment and tide her over until she found a job.
Not the happy ending she had hoped for, planned for, worked for.
No. Every man had something wrong with him. If she knew the worst in Mark and could use that to her benefit, then she could stay in this life and make it even better, both for her and for their daughter.
And if one day Willow popped back into their lives, or if Mark stopped being a good husband, Katie could always pull out the file, dig deeper into the past, and make sure they both paid for whatever they’d done to David.
Maybe. But not today. Today, as a bird chirped from the nearby live oak tree and the breeze carried in a whiff of honeysuckle, she had everything she wanted.
A beautiful baby, a husband who worshipped her, and absolute control over their lives and future.
She took a deep sip of wine and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun and savoring the moment.
No. Today was definitely not that day.