Chapter 7
My hidden room is still hidden, despite the close call of Wren nearly stumbling on it.
So my secrets are still safe… for now. But once she disappears down Hemlock Drive after a torturous hour-long session of her insisting that high-angle selfies make better portraits—ignoring my well-supported point that too-close angles can exaggerate features like noses and foreheads—I slam the front door shut.
Pressing my forehead against the wood, I try to staunch the thrumming behind my eyes and in my temples. Two pain pills later, Zoomie barks at the bookshelf, reminding me to slip inside and investigate.
A small table is knocked over, but that’s the worst of the damage.
A metal chest has been pushed aside but otherwise looks untouched.
I pop it open just to make sure everything is still there, and a quick peek reaffirms me.
I don’t know how I managed to keep Wren from uncovering this, but I’ll be more careful from now on.
The last thing I need is someone discovering what’s back here.
My nerves are shot, but I need to do something about the Fred and Ivory situation. It’ll haunt me until I do. There’s only one person I want to talk to right now.
It’s twilight with the temperature hovering just above freezing, so I slip on my coat and cross the street with no preliminary phone call, like I have a hundred times before.
One car is missing from the driveway—the one I had hoped wouldn’t be here.
I stand on the doorstep and jab the doorbell.
The shrill chime pierces the quiet suburban air while I pace the porch like a caged animal until the door finally opens.
“Hey, Shar,” Ivory says, her expression unruffled.
She’s a vision of domestic tranquility in a soft gray sweater and leggings, her braids now undone in ringlets that skim halfway down her back.
“You busy?” I can’t believe what I’m about to do to my closest friend.
“I just finished cleaning up after dinner,” she says, then steps aside for me to enter. “Everything okay?”
“No,” I blurt unedited, then I slip past her into the pristine sanctuary of her home. “I need to talk to you.”
She doesn’t ask questions. Not a single, probing query.
She’s patient that way. Instead, she silently leads me into her kitchen, pops a coffee pod into the coffeemaker, and pushes the brew button.
When it’s done, she places the mug in front of me with the gravity of a cop presenting evidence and makes a tea for herself.
“So, what’s going on?” she asks as she sits down across from me at the island.
And then I burst, because I can’t hold it in any longer. “I saw Fred with another woman.”
The ugly statement hangs in the air between us. Ivory doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cry, doesn’t even widen her eyes or mouth in shock. She simply takes a slow, deliberate sip of her tea. Earl Grey, I think, or perhaps chamomile—something soothing and incongruous with the bombshell I’ve just dropped.
“You’re sure it was him?” she asks in a flat, even tone.
“Yes.” My voice breaks. At least I’m pretty sure. Ninety-nine percent sure it was Fred. Or maybe more like eighty percent. Suddenly I regret being here, telling her this horrible thing that I might have gotten wrong. What if it wasn’t Fred?
“When?” Her questions barges through my uncertainty.
“Earlier today, at the waterfall.”
She sets her mug down gently, the faint click of ceramic against granite the only sound. “Did you see the other woman’s face?”
“No,” I admit.
“So I’ll never know who she is unless Fred tells me, which let’s face it, he’ll deny until his last breath.”
The calm way she says his last breath feels ominous. Ivory vowed never to let another man destroy her like her first husband, not without destroying him back. This betrayal… this could warrant nuclear-level destruction.
“Maybe it’s best not to know who she is,” I say.
“Why? So she can go around homewrecking without guilt? No, she should be held accountable, and I want the truth. I deserve the truth, Shar.”
I wish I could help Ivory, but the truth is I can’t be certain about anything I saw. I can’t even with one hundred percent certainty guarantee it was Fred. Unless…
“I was taking pictures and have the roll of film. Once I develop it I’ll see if I can find out.”
Ivory nods slowly, a measured, almost dispassionate gesture. This doesn’t feel like a heart-to-heart with a best friend, rather a business transaction. Ivory is way too clinical and detached considering what she just found out.
I stare at her, bewildered. “How can you be so calm right now?”
She glances towards the hallway, where the mint-green walls of her daughter Freida’s room peek through her open door. A portrait I took of Freida and framed as a gift for her eighteenth birthday adorns the wall.
“Because we have a child together,” she says, “and I don’t want to ruin all of our lives over this.”
Though Freida is not really a child anymore.
She’s technically an adult and college-bound after this year, her senior year of high school.
Part of me wants to remind her that Freida’s old enough to know what’s going on, but the other part of me knows that I don’t have kids and therefore I know nothing about parenting and should keep my mouth shut.
“I don’t want to blow up her life without concrete proof,” she adds. “I need to be sure. See what you can find in your pictures, and then I’ll figure out what to do.”
“What about Fred?” They’re supposed to be coming over for dinner next week. I can’t stomach the thought of pretending all is well when it isn’t.
“We act like everything’s normal,” she answers, and rises from her seat with her empty tea mug.
She places it in the sink and flips on the light switch that swathes her backyard in a bright floodlight.
I follow her with my own mug, rinse it, and place it in the dishwasher along with hers.
She stands by the sliding glass door that leads onto the patio where trays of chrysanthemums, asters, and other fall flowers are lined up in a long row.
Fallen autumn leaves dot the grass in colorful patches.
At the edge of the floodlight I spot a fresh mound of turned-up dirt prepped for a new garden bed, roughly eight feet long by three feet wide.
Interestingly, it’s the size of a standard grave plot.
“I’m not sure I can act like all is fine,” I admit.
“Shar.” Her eyes firmly fix on mine. There’s a flicker of frostiness I’ve never seen in her before. “You absolutely cannot let him know what you saw. Not yet. Not until I know exactly who the mistress is.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want.” I nod like a bobblehead toy. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
But something is profoundly wrong.
She walks me out to the porch and offers a slight almost perfunctory hug, then pulls back. “Let me know what you find on the film,” she reminds me.
By now the sky is black. My skin feels too tight, stretched taut over my buzzing nervous system.
I walk back to my house more concerned than ever.
I don’t know what I expected—screaming, tears, a smashed cup or two in a fit of rage.
But this eerie acceptance? This chilling, almost pre-ordained calm?
It feels more disturbing than any death threat Ivory could have thrown at Fred.
I thought I was doing the right thing by telling her the truth. I thought I was being a good friend. But now a heavy, gnawing dread has taken root in the pit of my stomach. I can’t shake the sensation that I made a terrible mistake.
I’m halfway across my front yard when I stop short.
For a full five seconds, I stand there in the grass unable to make sense of the slit of yellow light pouring out from my open front door.
It’s been forced open. I know this because I always lock every opening to the house—windows, doors, even my fireplace flue.
Ever since I was released from prison, locking all potential entrances comes as natural as breathing.
The lock—my expensive, triple-deadbolt lock—appears busted clean through.
My biggest fear surfaces: It’s him. I imagine him roaming the streets, one of my kitchen knives in hand, plotting his revenge. But that’s not possible… is it?
I tiptoe to the house, every sound amplified—the crunch of dead leaves under my feet, the soft creak of the porch step, the long groan of the door being pushed open.
Only three people know how to find me here in Doomwood Falls: One of them is presumed dead.
The other hasn’t spoken to me in years. And the third is in jail.
It’s anyone’s guess which one might be inside.
When I realize Zoomie isn’t barking, I know exactly who it is, which leaves me with only one other question: Can I make it to my lockbox in time to get my gun?