Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Thirty minutes later, my kitchen looked like the receiving line at a funeral. Vero had called my sister in a panic as soon as the police cars had swarmed Mrs. Haggerty’s house. My sister had called our mom. My sister’s girlfriend, Sam, had called Nick. Nick had called Joey, and just when I thought we couldn’t fit one more person in my kitchen, Javi and Ramón had come bursting into my house wielding crowbars, determined to save us from some unspecified danger after they’d heard the police broadcast our street address over the scanner at the garage.
The only people who hadn’t yet shown up at my house were Steven’s parents and his sister, and I had no intention of calling them. The only call I’d made since Steven had been carted off by police had been to his attorney, and since Guy was practically family to the entire Donovan clan, I didn’t imagine it would take long before they all heard the news. My only comfort was that none of them lived within easy driving distance of South Riding.
I scooped up Zach as he raced past me, once again wearing no pants. I handed him to Vero. She passed him to my mother. My mother passed him to my father, who held Zach at arm’s length, unsure of what to do with him.
“Why won’t he keep his pants on?” my father asked.
“Probably something to do with the apple and the tree. Too soon?” Vero asked when my sister shoved her.
My mother took Delia’s hand. “Come on, Paul. Let’s take the children to the park so the grown-ups can talk.” She kissed my cheek and whispered, “When we get back, I’ll have Vero pack their overnight bags. The kids can spend the night with us. I’ll keep them as long as you need. You have enough to deal with right now.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back. She gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze and led my children and my father out of the kitchen.
“So let me get this straight,” Javi said when the kitchen fell quiet. “The dude stepped out on his pregnant wife, messed around with the dead guy’s woman, then lied about it when the cops asked him if he knew them?”
Ramón shook his head. “He sounds like a first-class tool.”
“You have to admit, it doesn’t look good,” my sister said to Nick.
“I can’t believe he’d do something that stupid,” Sam said.
“I can,” Vero and Georgia said in unison.
“What now?” Vero asked. Everyone turned to me, as if I should know the answer.
I left the room, sick of the gossip and speculation. If they all knew so much about my former husband, let them figure it out.
Joey talked on his cell phone as he paced in the living room. He dropped his voice when he noticed me listening in the foyer. “How long?… Are they filing charges?… Who’s lead on the case?… What have they got?”
I grabbed my coat off the rack and walked out the front door, suffocating under the sympathetic looks everyone was giving me. The crowd had finally cleared from the street. Only a handful of stragglers remained, chatting on a neighbor’s porch.
A car stereo thumped in the distance, the bass growing louder as it came into view. I squinted to see who it was as the car rolled slowly toward my house. There was no way Steven’s sister could have made it here from Philly this fast. Mrs. Haggerty was due back from her book club any minute, but I didn’t imagine any of her friends listened to their music loud enough to wake the dead.
I cringed when the squared-off hood of an ancient-looking sedan cruised toward my driveway. Cam sat proudly behind the wheel. Mrs. Haggerty was riding shotgun. Neither of them looked as nervous about this as they should have as the front tire of her Lincoln Mark V rolled up over the curb and then bounced back down onto the asphalt. Cam put the car in park, reaching around the massive wheel and jamming the lever into place. Grinning like an idiot, he wrenched the stiff turn crank on his door. When his window refused to roll down farther than an inch, he rolled it back up and heaved open his door.
The hinge creaked as he flung it wide and got out. He looked at the car like it was a thing of wonder. “She’s a beauty. Am I right?” He ran a loving finger down the length of the rusted hood. “We picked it up from the police impound lot. They said we just needed a licensed driver to sign for the keys. I guess it was leaking some oil. They were so happy to get rid of it, they didn’t even charge me for the damage to the fence.” He used his sleeve to wipe a few fresh scratches in the paint. “Those gates just aren’t wide enough for such a commanding turn radius. Right, Mrs. H?” He turned to find she was still sitting in the passenger seat. “Oh, shit, sorry!” He scrambled around the front of the Lincoln and opened her door. He called out to me over the smoking hood as he helped her out of the car. “Mrs. H said if I take her to her meetings and stuff, I can drive it when she’s not using it.”
A cloud of foul-smelling fumes wafted from the engine, and I waved it from my face. “I’m surprised it still runs.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Haggerty said. “In my day, things were built with sturdier stuff. They don’t make cars like they used to. This one will probably outlive you!” At the rate I was going, that wasn’t really saying much.
The front door opened. Javi came out of my house with a tire iron in his hand, wearing a dark look. He crossed the lawn toward us with Vero’s cousin in tow. They both slowed, raising eyebrows at Cam and his smoking car as they strolled toward it to get a closer look.
Cam eyed Javi cautiously. Their first meeting back in January hadn’t been the ideal meet-cute, and I’m pretty sure Cam was still scared shitless of him. He frowned at the tire iron as Javi peeked in the Lincoln’s window.
“Seventy-eight?” Javi asked.
“Seventy-nine,” Cam said.
“You mind?” Javi asked, reaching for the door handle.
Cam gave the impression of a careless shrug, but his expression was wary. “Be my guest.”
Javi opened the door and popped the latch under the dashboard. He settled into the driver’s seat, inspecting the car’s interior as Ramón looked under the hood. Cam came up beside him, peeking over Ramón’s shoulder as he inspected a few connections and checked some of the fluids. They huddled close, talking about the car in low tones as they exchanged contact information on their phones. Javi joined them, the conversation turning to bodywork and paint. I tuned them out, wishing everyone would leave. I had far bigger problems to deal with than book club meetings and automotive repairs, and Mrs. Haggerty’s damn hoopty was leaking black and green fluids all over the street. The HOA would probably fine me for that.
Javi and Ramón bumped knuckles with Cam. They called out a goodbye to me and got into Javi’s Camaro. The engine roared, and Cam watched them drive off. He snapped Ramón’s business card between his fingers, then tucked it in his pocket.
“Why are there so many people here?” he asked me, as if he’d only just noticed the other vehicles. “Looks like one hell of a party. What are we celebrating?”
“We’re not celebrating anything,” I said irritably.
“I assume refreshments will be provided,” Mrs. Haggerty said, scrutinizing me over her glasses.
Cam’s face lit up. “You should have been at the party I threw in Atlantic City, Mrs. H. You would have loved it. We had champagne and shrimp… the works! I ordered every party favor you could think of,” he said smugly. “We even had a few lovely ladies in attendance.” I remembered the lovely ladies he was referring to; he’d paid them by the hour. Cam dug his phone from his pocket. “Maybe I should call them and see if they have any friends in the area.”
I swiped it away from him before he could dial. “We are not calling any escorts and this is not a party! Steven was taken to the station for questioning about the Dupree murder. That’s the only reason these people are all here. And no, I don’t plan to feed anyone!”
Cam gave Mrs. Haggerty a playful chuck on the arm. “Did you hear that, Mrs. H? If they arrest someone else, you’re probably off the hook. That’s something to celebrate, right?”
I shoved his phone back in his hand and stormed off to my minivan, hiding behind it where I could be alone so I wouldn’t be tempted to murder anyone myself. I leaned back against the door, taking a deep slow breath as Mrs. Haggerty and Cam retreated to the house. The front door shut behind them, muting the cacophony of voices inside. It was too cold out for the chirps of crickets or the tiny frogs Delia and Zach liked to chase in the spring. The only sound was the quiet tink of Mrs. Haggerty’s cooling engine and the laughter of children playing in a neighbor’s yard. I tipped my head back and shut my eyes, savoring the silence as footsteps approached from my garage. I held my breath, hoping it wasn’t my mother or Vero telling me I had to come back inside the house.
“Hey,” Nick said softly. I opened my eyes to find him peeping around the side of the van. “I hoped I’d find you out here, but if you’d rather be alone—”
“No.” I took his hand, holding it like a lifeline. “I just needed some air.”
He brushed a tender kiss to my head. The look on his face told me he wasn’t just here to check on me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Joey made a few calls,” Nick said, tucking my hair behind my ear. He kept his voice low, conscious of the bystanders lingering on my neighbor’s porch. “He used to work in Loudoun before Internal Affairs reassigned him. He knows a lot of people in the department over there.”
“And?” I pushed when Nick hesitated. “What did he find out?”
“They’re looking hard at Steven for this, Finn. They’ve got means and opportunity. All they need now is proof he had a motive. Given Steven’s history with Mrs. Dupree, it won’t be hard for Tran to come up with one.”
“But what if Steven’s telling the truth? What if he doesn’t even know that woman?”
Nick clenched his jaw, probably to keep himself from pointing out the glaring fault in my argument. “I’m not saying Steven is guilty. But it might not be a bad idea to distance yourself from him until he’s cleared.”
“He’s my kids’ father, Nick! I can’t distance myself from that!” The neighbors’ chatter quieted at my raised voice, and I threw them a scathing look.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He took me gently by the shoulders, ducking to meet my eyes. “That’s not what I was suggesting,” he said quietly. “But this investigation is circling too close to you, and I don’t like that there’s nothing I can do to keep you out of it. Maybe I’d have some sway if it was happening in my own department, but the most I can do is keep an ear to the ground. Joey’s feeding me all the news he can, but the cops in Loudoun know he was working with IA, and no one trusts him enough to let him get close. I’m afraid Mike Tran is going to drag you into this investigation before I can get ahead of it.”
“This isn’t about me!” I cried.
“This has everything to do with you!” he whispered, gesturing for me to keep my voice down. “I know there are things you’re not telling me, Finn. About the Mickler investigation and Ike Grindley and the bodies they found on Steven’s farm last fall. I know—” He held up a finger as I opened my mouth to protest. “I know you were involved. And I know it wasn’t your fault and you probably got mixed up in things you didn’t want to be part of, and I don’t want you to tell me how or why because once I know, I have a duty to act on that information and I don’t want to do that.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if speaking those words had cost him something. He shook his head and blew out a breath. “I told myself we could let the truth die with Zhirov’s case and we could move on with our lives. But Mike Tran is a bulldog, Finlay. He knows he can’t detain Steven for long. He’s found a thread of a motive that connects back to Steven and his farm, and he’s going to pull that thread hard to come up with a charge. I won’t be able to protect you once that rug starts to unravel.”
I blinked up at him, head tipped. He couldn’t protect me from Mike Tran’s investigation, but what if we could stop it from getting that far? “Unless we can figure out who really had a motive to kill Gilford Dupree.”
Nick looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “No! Whatever you’re thinking, Finlay, shut it down right now!”
“Why not? It wouldn’t be the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
“It’s definitely the worst idea you’ve ever had! Did you not hear what I just said about keeping your distance?”
We both fell silent as my parents emerged from the house. My mother took the children’s hands and walked them toward the playground at the end of the block. My father followed behind her, carrying a picnic cooler and a diaper bag.
One of the older children playing soccer on the street corner paused his game to watch them. He called out to his friends, “Check it out. Those are the kids whose dad slept with the dead guy’s wife.”
My mother covered Delia’s ears as my father nudged the children along. My face heated with rage. The rumors about Steven had gone too far. I couldn’t care less if my neighbors wanted to gossip about my ex-husband, but I drew the line when it hurt my children. I was determined to get to the bottom of this once and for all. If Gilford Dupree’s wife was lying, she’d better be ready to set the record straight.
“Where are you going?” Nick called after me as I opened the door of my van.
“To Penny Dupree’s,” I snapped, “to ask her if she slept with my husband.”
“Finlay, stop!” He put a hand on the window when I slammed the door between us. “You can’t just show up at her house asking her those kinds of— Christ ,” he said as I started the engine.
I put the van in gear, leaving Nick standing in my driveway as I peeled out.
I drove with one hand, googling Penny’s address with the other. Before I made it out of the neighborhood, Nick’s Impala rolled up behind me. My cell phone rang in my lap. His name flashed on the screen. I ignored it, pulling a hard right out of South Riding and hitting the gas, not bothering to check my blind spots as I merged into oncoming traffic.
Nick’s face was livid in my rearview mirror when he caught up to me again. He grabbed the mic from the radio under his dashboard and put it to his mouth, his voice booming from the speakers. “Pull over, Finlay,” he said in his cop voice. “Please,” he added when I didn’t comply.
I accelerated through a yellow light. He rolled through it as it turned red, sticking close to my bumper. “Pull over so we can talk about this like rational adults.”
I was too angry to be rational. I shifted over a lane, putting distance between us.
He shifted over, too, blue lights beginning to flash in his front grille.
My phone vibrated again. This time, Vero’s name appeared on the screen. I connected the call.
“Finn? Where the hell did you and Nick go racing off to? One minute you were practically making out behind the van in the driveway, and the next both your cars were gone.”
“We were not making out! We were just talking.”
“Mrs. Haggerty says it looks more like the two of you were arguing. So does your sister. Cam thinks so, too. Wait—” she said, muting the phone against her body, “your mom wants to know what you and Nick were arguing about. She’s very concerned. She wants to know if this means she should plan Georgia and Sam’s wedding first.”
“There is no wedding!” I snapped. “Were you all watching us?”
“Not all of us,” Vero clarified. “The rest of us were too busy starting a pool about whether or not Steven is lying. I hate to break it to you, but the odds don’t look good.”
“I don’t care what it looks like! I’m going to Penny Dupree’s house to find out the truth!”
“You can’t go to that woman’s house!” Vero cried. “If a sharp object accidentally impales her and she dies a slow horrible death while you’re standing in her living room, who do you think is going to get blamed for her murder? The scorned then-wife of the douchebag she was sleeping with. That’s who! You’re not going there alone, Finlay!”
“I’m not going alone. Nick’s right behind me.” His siren whooped twice in warning. “Shit,” I murmured, catching his eyes in my rearview mirror. “I have to go. I’ll be home before the kids’ bedtime. There’s leftover meatloaf in the fridge. And don’t worry,” I said before she could ask, “I don’t have any sharp objects in my purse.”
“That’s probably smart. Also, remember to tuck your thumb under your fist before you—”
I disconnected the call and tossed my phone in the drink holder. My van shook as it struggled to meet the demands of my angry foot. It’s not like I didn’t already know Steven was a cheater before today’s shiny new revelation. Hell, apparently everyone did. But I was sick of people talking about me and the kids as if Steven’s mistakes defined us. I didn’t want Delia to grow up as the cheater’s kid or the murderer’s kid . Or the daughter of the woman who’d had no idea what her husband had been doing under her own damn roof . Every bet against Steven felt like a bet against me, like I was too foolish or too naive to have seen through all of his lies from the beginning.
Nick’s Impala surged after me until he was right on my bumper. He eased his car a few feet to the left, making sure I could clearly see his police lights in my driver’s side mirror.
He lifted the mic to his lips. “Finlay, please. This is a bad idea.” I shook my head, certain he could see me, too. He was going to have to arrest me for evading a traffic stop or wait until I was done confronting Penny. Either she was lying or Steven was, and there was only one way to find out who.
I turned left onto Mrs. Dupree’s street, temporarily losing Nick to the rush of oncoming traffic. I slowed down, angling forward in my seat to search the mailboxes for her house number. It didn’t take me long to find it.
I pulled over and shut off the engine while I glared at her front door. It was the same one I had remembered from the images on the news. I tried to picture Steven’s truck parked in her driveway. His hand on her door as he knocked. I had hoped it would be harder to imagine than it was.
Nick’s car screeched to the curb behind me. He killed the blue lights and got out, jogging to intercept me as I opened my door. “Stop,” he said, cornering me as I got out of the van. “I know you’re hurt and you’re angry, but you don’t have to do this.”
“Neither do you.” The look on my face told him he was welcome to go.
“Can you at least tell me what you plan to do?”
“Why? So you can arrest me for intent?”
“If it’s for your own good, yes.”
“You’ll just have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
Nick swore under his breath as I turned toward Penny Dupree’s house. He put a hand on either side of me, boxing me against the side of my hood before I could start walking. “Just promise me you won’t do anything that will give her grounds to press charges. Whatever she says, violence is not the answer.”
“Except when it is.”
“Finn!”
“Fine, I promise.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” When I didn’t object, he let his arms fall. “We’re going to identify ourselves. Politely ,” he emphasized, keeping pace with me as I stormed up the walkway to her door. “We’re going to tell her why we’re here and ask her if she’d be willing to step outside and talk to us. We’re not going in,” he said firmly as I smacked her doorbell. “And if she asks us to leave, we’re going to respect that decision and—”
Mrs. Dupree’s door swung open.
If I had seen her face on the news I hadn’t bothered to remember it, but seeing it now stole the words right off my tongue.
Penny’s blond hair hung in casual waves. She wore close-fitting jeans that showed off her long, toned legs and a deep V-neck sweater that revealed a hint of cleavage. Steven definitely had a type, and Penny was it. She wasn’t a young woman, by any stretch—maybe ten years older than me, if I had to guess—but her similarities to Steven’s ex-fiancée were undeniable. I could tell by the sudden shift in Nick’s posture that he noticed them, too.
“Hello, Mrs. Dupree. I’m Detective Nicholas Anthony with the Fairfax County Police Department, and this is—”
“Finlay Donovan,” I said, once I’d managed to recover. “My ex-husband is Steven Donovan, the landscaper who delivered your mulch the summer before your husband went missing. I’d like a word with you,” I said, taking a step closer to the threshold.
Nick cut his eyes to me, a warning in them.
Penny held the door open and stepped aside. It took a moment for my brain to catch up. I had fully expected her to tell us to leave. Had visions of throwing a foot in the door to keep her from slamming it in my face. But she just stood there, politely waiting for me to enter her home. “I figured you might find your way here eventually. You’re welcome to come in.”
Nick’s hand tightened against the small of my back. “Maybe it would be better if we speak outsi—”
I walked through the door, forcing him to follow me into her home.
“Sorry for the mess,” Penny said, leading us into an immaculate living room. Every surface was spotless. Every magazine and coffee-table book felt intentionally placed, every potted plant and flower vase perfectly staged, every book on her elaborate shelves organized by color and height. I skimmed the spines as I walked past them on my way to her designer sofa. The books were all popular bestsellers, a curated collection of commercial Oprah-and-Reese–approved titles that had probably been chosen as much for their shelf appeal as their content. Her interior could have been showcased on a Home & Garden TV program.
“Please, sit down.” She gestured to the sofa, taking the love seat for herself.
Nick sat beside me, close enough for our elbows to brush.
Penny sat at an angle to face us, her legs crossed at the knees, her fingers laced and resting loosely atop them. “I’m assum ing you’re here because you want to know if your husband was unfaithful. You want to know if he slept with me while he was married to you.”
The casual way she said it took me off guard, and frankly stole some of the wind from my sails. I had expected her to be defensive. To be offended. To refuse to discuss it. But Penny didn’t seem to mind.
I nodded once. Then again, more certainly this time. “Steven was taken to the station a few hours ago for questioning,” I said. “The police seem to think he knows you.”
“He does.”
“Because he delivered mulch to your home five years ago,” I suggested.
“Because I invited him inside when he was done, so I could write him a check. It was hot. I offered him a cold beer, we talked for a while, and one thing led to another.” There was no shame in the woman’s confession. Only an elegant shrug. She wasn’t outraged or emotional the way Steven had been when he’d sworn up and down he’d never touched her. Her reaction was all painfully matter-of-fact. It was also suspiciously vague.
“What if I don’t believe you?”
Her smile was both sympathetic and sad, and not nearly guilty enough. “You don’t have to believe me. The police do, and Steven knows the truth. I suppose that’s all that matters.”
“Prove it,” I said.
“Excuse me?” She batted a set of perfectly false lashes at me, as if she must have misheard.
I leaned forward, perched on the edge of my seat, fully intending to press my advantage. “If you and my ex-husband were as intimate as you’re suggesting, tell me something you could only know if you’d been with him.”
A nervous smile broke over Penny’s face. It cracked in tiny lines at the corners of her mouth, revealing the truth of her age. It wasn’t the fact that she was significantly older than Steven that made me think she was lying—I’d be a hypocrite to assume that after my fling with a twenty-two-year-old law student last fall. Julian Baker and I had only briefly dated, but those few short weeks had been fiery enough. It wasn’t Penny’s age. It was something else. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
She looked back and forth between Nick and me. “I don’t think you really want me to do that.”
“Oh, but I do.”
“Finn,” Nick whispered. I held up a hand, holding Penny Dupree’s stare. Steven was as average as they come, in every possible way. If you were to strip him naked and stick him in a lineup, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything uniquely memorable about him.
“Well,” she said with a hesitant look between us, “there was that one thing…”
“Go on,” I prodded. She was bluffing. I had her on the ropes.
“There was that noise he would make… right before he… you know…”
The air left my lungs as Penny looked away.
I did know. On the rare occasions when Steven and I did have sex, I used to have to close our bedroom windows to keep the neighbors from hearing him. The only way Penny could know that about him was if she had heard those sounds, too.
I stood up and pointed a finger at her. “Just because Steven screwed you once doesn’t mean he murdered your husband.” At the very least, she could acknowledge that accusation against him was bullshit.
Her face flushed with shame. “If it had only been once, I might agree with you.”
Nick put a steadying hand on my back. “We should probably go,” he said quietly. He stood, but I couldn’t make myself walk out with him. While none of this was sitting right with me, there was one thing about her confession that felt entirely wrong.
“If you suspected back then that Steven had something to do with your husband’s disappearance, why wait until now to tell the police?”
Penny shook her head, confusion knitting her brow. “I never told them about my tryst with Steven.”
I frowned. “If you never told them, how did Detective Tran find out?”
“I asked him the same thing. He told me he heard it on a podcast, some true crime show run by a couple of local college kids. They said they got an anonymous tip from someone who claimed I’d been cheating on my husband. Detective Tran came to my house a few days ago and asked to see my financial records. That’s where he found the check I had written to Steven for the mulch. He noticed the address on Steven’s invoice—that it was on the same street where Gilford’s body was found. He confronted me about it once he made the connection. I never told him about my fling with Steven until he asked.”
The podcasters had to be Riley and Max. But who had been their anonymous source?
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Dupree.” Nick nudged me again.
I didn’t look at her as I stood. Penny Dupree had been courteous enough, but she’d slept with my husband while I’d been eight months pregnant, and I didn’t owe her any pleasantries. I stormed past her and out the front door.
“I’m sorry,” she called after me. “I know what we did was wrong. But maybe you’re better off without him.”
I didn’t give her the satisfaction of admitting she was right.
Nick jogged after me as I tromped over her lawn to get to my van. “Finn, wait. I’ll follow you home.”
“Don’t.” I stepped out of his reach, unable to stand the sympathy in his wince. This was nothing I hadn’t been through before. “I don’t need a police escort. I’ll be just fine on my own.”
I got in my minivan and slammed the door.
Nick’s Impala had followed me most of the way home, though he’d been careful to maintain his distance. I hadn’t tried to shake him, but I hadn’t slowed down for him either. His headlights disappeared from view once I made the turn into South Riding, flashing twice in farewell before he continued on.
My street was dark, my driveway vacant except for Steven’s abandoned pickup. The barrage of cars that had flanked both sides of the driveway when I’d left the house earlier—my sister’s sedan, my mother’s Buick, Joey’s Explorer—were all gone when I finally pulled in.
Vero had texted me an hour ago to let me know the house was (mostly) empty, my parents had taken the children to their place, and there was a hot meal and a stiff drink waiting for me when I was ready to come home.
Mrs. Haggerty’s ancient Lincoln loomed like a ghost in her driveway, which meant Cam was probably still in my living room.
Sure enough, I unlocked my front door and was greeted by a barrage of gunfire and squealing tires. The house smelled faintly of garlic and pepperoni. Cam and Mrs. Haggerty sat shoulder to shoulder in the dark, their oddly matched shapes silhouetted by the bright light of the TV screen. An empty pizza box sat on the coffee table in front of them. Neither of them looked up from their game as I came inside and shut the door.
Grateful not to have to talk to anyone, I slipped off my shoes and headed upstairs.
Vero’s door was shut. I listened before knocking, hoping she was awake, but her low voice suggested she was on the phone, probably with Javi. I retreated to my bedroom instead, not bothering to interrupt her.
The room smelled slightly of Mrs. Haggerty’s arthritis cream. I switched on a single lamp by the bed and then closed the door, muting the sound of the TV downstairs while I hunted in my dresser for clean clothes for the morning. I gathered a pair of clean underwear and some pj’s, too, not caring if any of my selections matched. My hand paused on the red negligee. The silk and lace spilled like water through my fingers as I dropped it back in the drawer.
When I had everything I needed for the night, I switched off the lamp and turned to go.
Light flashed through the blinds, twice in quick succession, the burst of it casting shadows over the wall.
Hugging my clothes to my chest, I walked to the window and peeked around the blinds, wondering if Nick had changed his mind and followed me the rest of the way home.
A car idled at the foot of my driveway with its headlights off, and though I couldn’t make out the model or color of the small hatchback in the dark, I was certain it wasn’t Nick’s Impala. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat, pointing a flashlight at my window. The driver lingered in front of my mailbox before slowly driving off.
Just like Friday night, when Mrs. Haggerty had gone on her patrol of the neighborhood.
I set my clothes on the dresser and hurried down the stairs, careful not to attract Cam or Mrs. Haggerty’s attention as I slipped on my shoes on my way out of the house. I opened the mailbox and found a folded note inside it.
I’m ready to join the club. See you on Tuesday.
I sighed at the ridiculousness of it all. Here I was, trying to keep my ex-husband out of prison for a crime that had happened in Mrs. Haggerty’s backyard. Meanwhile, she was playing video games in my house, oblivious to everything, sneaking out in the middle of the night to deliver secret messages to her friends and scheduling social calls she couldn’t even drive herself to. It was like living with a teenager.
I carried the note back up to my room and set it on my nightstand, beside Mrs. Haggerty’s cell phone, where she’d be sure to see it. The image of the cell phone and the book club message sitting side by side struck an odd chord in my brain. I paused there for a moment after switching off the lamp.
Why were these women delivering handwritten notes? Mrs. Haggerty had a cell phone, and she knew how to use it. Why hadn’t she and her friend simply called each other?
“Where the hell have you been?” Vero whispered behind me. “I was getting worried.”
I clutched my chest and whirled around to find her standing in the doorway.
“And what are you doing in here in the dark?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Nothing.” I collected my clothes and met her in the hallway.
“How did it go?” she asked. “Are the neighbors going to post reels of your catfight on Instagram tomorrow?”
“There was no catfight. Penny was perfectly pleasant about the whole damn thing.”
Vero dragged me into my office and shut the door. The rollaway bed was neatly made up for me and she sat down on the edge of it, pulling me down with her. “What did you find out?”
I flopped back against the pillow. “Steven and Penny were definitely involved. She knew something about Steven. Something she only could have known if they’d slept together.”
Vero’s nose crinkled with disgust. “Like that crazy noise he makes right before he—?”
I sat up and gasped. “How do you know about that?”
“Are you kidding? The playground moms were all talking about it for months last year after you two split up. Mrs. Zimmerman heard him and Theresa going at it one afternoon while she was walking her dog past Theresa’s town house. She told Reanne, and Reanne told Stacey, and Stacey’s got a big mouth so she told everyone. Paula said there were some nights she could hear him from her—”
“Wait…” I said, getting up to pace the room. Theresa’s town house was only a few blocks down the street. I turned back to Vero. “If everyone in the neighborhood knows Steven is noisy in bed, who’s to say Penny wasn’t lying about the whole thing? What if she was just repeating something she’d heard to make her story more convincing?”
Vero pulled a face. “Why would she lie about sleeping with Steven?”
“Maybe she’s trying to deflect suspicion from someone else.” Vero listened while I told her about the podcasters who’d broken the news of the affair. “Don’t you think it’s a little convenient that as soon as the police found Penny’s husband, some anonymous person tipped off a podcast, claiming she cheated on her husband five years ago? And suddenly Steven’s a suspect because she happened to hand over a receipt for some mulch?” If someone needed a patsy to take the fall for this murder, Steven was the perfect choice—he lived directly across the street from the place where they’d found the body. He had a reputation for being a cheater, he had worked on Mrs. Haggerty’s garden just before Gilford went missing, and only a handful of months ago, he had been all over the news because five bodies had been exhumed from his farm. “What if Penny killed her husband and she’s framing Steven to cover it up?”
“But if she killed Gilford, how did his body end up in Mrs. Haggerty’s backyard? The police said they couldn’t find any connection between the Duprees and the Haggertys.”
“The police missed a connection before,” I pointed out. “Who’s to say they didn’t miss another?”
Vero looked doubtful. “If they missed a lead, how are we supposed to find it?”
“I think we need to figure out who placed that anonymous call.”