Chapter 10 Selene
SELENE
“Was he still fucking her?”
Monique slams her hands on my desk, open palms landing with a slap that makes me jump.
I close my laptop with a heavy sigh that’s meant to relieve some of the tightness in my muscles but somehow only adds to the tension that’s been building in my shoulders and neck since she entered my office five minutes ago.
In that small amount of time, my best friend has subjected me to an interrogation that has left me with the distinct feeling that I’m sitting in front of a congressional committee.
There have been a lot of questions aimed in my direction in the two weeks since the news of Sutton Ellsworth’s death broke.
I should probably be grateful to the former speechwriter for succumbing to her severe peanut allergy when she did.
Her going into anaphylactic shock in the middle of her parents’ anniversary dinner on the night of the State Dinner ensured that the abrupt end of my dance with President Tao barely registered on the press’ radar.
They were much more interested in dredging up the affair and analyzing every photo taken of Aubrey since to try and answer the question Monique just asked me.
“I don’t know.”
She squints like there’s a problem with her vision when really the issue is with my answer. It doesn’t mesh with the lies I’ve been telling her for months about the state of my marriage.
“You. Don’t. Know?” She drops into the chair opposite me. “How can you not know, Selene?”
“Because I don’t spend my days monitoring Aubrey’s dick, Mo. He could be fucking someone right now, and I wouldn’t have any idea.”
“Oh, no, don’t do that technicality bullshit with me, Selene!
” The excess fabric of her lavender wide-leg trousers swishes through the air as she crosses her legs and then her arms. “I know you’ve asked him.
I know that after the first affair you can smell his bullshit a mile away, so tell me the truth even if you won’t tell anyone else. ”
“There’s no truth to tell. I don’t know if the affair was still happening, and to be frank, I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” She twists her lips to the side.
“You don’t care if your husband, who you are supposedly happily married to, was fucking someone else?
Did you open up your marriage without telling me because you know making that decision just because your partner has cheated isn’t always the smartest thing. ”
“Are you done?”
I trace the lines of the nondescript black computer in front of me, anxious to get back to the many, many articles and photos I’ve compiled related to Sutton’s death. Monique follows my fingers, watching absently at first and then more intently. With her brows knitted together, she leans forward.
“What’s that?”
On instinct, my hands spread over the laptop protectively, but it’s too late. I’ve already drawn her attention to it, and just like everything else today, she’s not letting it go.
“A computer.”
“No shit, Sel.” She reaches for it, and I pull it back, which of course makes her more suspicious. “When did you get a new laptop?”
“I didn’t.”
The computer is almost as old as AJ would be today, and it doesn’t take long for Monique’s eyes to go wide with recognition. “You’re working on a project?”
“Yes, I guess you could say that.”
“And you’re far enough along on it to need that?
” She nods her head in the direction of the computer.
Air-gapped and as immune to hacking as anything in this world can be, it’s the device I use when I’m working on a project that needs to be protected from any and all outside influences.
When the initial framework for Smart Sight was done, I put everything on an encrypted USB and moved it to this old beater, writing and workshopping everything on the worn out keys, only allowing it back onto networked computers once the patents and copyrights were in place.
Precautions like this aren’t uncommon in my line of work, and knowing how to take them is coming in especially handy now that I need to find out if my husband killed his mistress.
While everyone else in the world, including Monique, is preoccupied with questions like whether Aubrey was still fucking Sutton, I’ve been wondering if she’s the key to my freedom.
At first I wasn’t convinced her untimely demise was an unfortunate accident.
A sous chef who mistook peanut butter for tahini.
An Epi-Pen missing from Sutton’s purse.
A delayed ambulance response because of traffic caused by construction.
So many small things that when looked at separately seem like lethal coincidence. But when you put them together, and combine them with Cordelia’s stressful phone call and the tension between her and Jordan minutes later, it feels like it could be something more.
“Don’t you think that’s something I should know, Selene?” Monique asks, her voice pulling me out of my wandering thoughts.
“What?”
“The project. You don’t think you should have told me that you’re working on something?”
“Oh.” I bite my lip. “You’re right. I just didn’t think it was ready for anyone else’s eyes yet.”
Skepticism dances on the lines of her curved brows. “Bullshit.”
She lunges for the computer again. This time I’m too slow to stop her, so I have no choice but to watch her pull it to her side of the desk and study the screen, imagining what exactly she’s seeing.
The screen is divided into two sections.
On the left-hand side is a window with a notes app that holds all of my thoughts about Sutton’s death.
On the right, there’s a gallery of photos from the day in question.
I scoured the internet for hours on end for those, trying to get every possible angle inside of the restaurant and on the street outside of it
If I recall correctly, the last picture I was looking at was taken by Sutton herself.
It was posted on Instagram moments before her throat began to close up.
There are others of course, some I acquired in less-than-legal-ways.
I know the exact moment when Monique comes across one of those because she covers her mouth and gasps, pushing the computer away.
“How the fuck did you get pictures of her body?”
Ashamed.
That’s how I should feel. That’s what I should have felt when I asked for the crime scene photos from AJ’s school.
And maybe I do feel it a little. Maybe it’s a thin thread running through me, stitching my organs together.
But it’s not enough to silence my need for information.
Monique doesn’t understand that. Most people wouldn’t, which is why my answer feels like it’s not good enough even though it’s the truth.
“I needed to see for myself.”
“That she’s dead?!”
Monique is standing now, pacing in front of my desk with trembling hands. She’s trying really hard not to look at me with disgust. I admire her effort, but it’s not necessary.
“That she died the way they said she did. I needed the pictures to make sure the coroner didn’t miss anything.”
“Anything like what, Selene?!” she shrieks, her voice loud enough to drown out the sound of the TV playing behind her.
“Like a puncture wound of some sort.”
Monique pauses, turning her head in my direction slowly. “You think someone did this to her on purpose?”
It feels like forever since I’ve given my best friend a truth.
So long that I can’t seem to say the words.
I nod, relief and regret hitting me at the same time.
It feels so good to be honest with Monique, but I know this one truth will pour into others and then it all unravels.
The lies, the secrets, everything. She’ll be angry with me for keeping so much from her, and it won’t matter that I only did so to keep her safe.
Pressing my lips together, I choose my words carefully. “I think it’s highly unlikely that Sutton left home without her Epi-Pen. I think it’s even less likely that a trained chef would mistake peanut butter for tahini.”
“I think that part is bullshit too,” Monique says, a bit calmer now. “I just thought the restaurant was throwing him under the bus to avoid being sued for his unauthorized substitution. But you think it’s…you think someone did that to her on purpose?”
“No, I think Aubrey had that done to her on purpose. He sent someone to kill her. I just can’t prove it yet.”
I’m not sure if Monique’s knees have given out or if she’s grown tired of pacing, but she sinks into the chair across from me with her mouth agape. “But why? And how? How would he even pull something like that off?”
“He’s the President of the United States, Monique. Do you really think it’d be hard for him to get rid of someone if he wanted them dead?”
A shiver runs through her. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s your husband! The man you love. You can’t be in love with someone who would do something like that.”
And there it is. The unraveling. The tugging of a thread that undoes the entire web of lies I’ve strung together since signing that contract and agreeing to sell a lie to everyone including the people closest to me.
I have a choice in this moment. I can either grab my scissors and cut the thread, minimizing the damage, or I can place my hands over each of hers and pull.
I choose the latter.
“I’m not,” I tell her, shaking my head for emphasis. “I’m not in love with Aubrey, and I haven’t been for a very long time.”
Monique is quiet, listening intently as the truths pour out of me.
One after another, after another until I’ve told her everything including how Cal, Beck and I had a threesome in the Oval Office.
When I’m done, she doesn’t say anything for a long time.
I sit in the silence with her. The only sounds besides our breathing and the anxious flicking of my fingers is the evening news.
“Say something,” I plead when a full five minutes has gone by.