Chapter 28
Before
Confrontation. In the movies, it’s an exhilarating scene to watch unfold.
The determined detective confronts the conniving criminal. The heroine regains control of her life. The audience finally determines why the deceitful villain does what he does. Or she does. Women can be villains, too.
It’s far less satisfying in real life.
Part of me—the sensible, tame part—wanted to cut and run away from the situation. I could pack a bag and be gone by morning.
I thought of Danielle. If my suspicions were correct, and Oliver was somehow involved with her death, she’d receive no justice. The only way I could find any real evidence against him was to provoke a confession, but first, I’d have to confront him with undeniable proof of his crimes.
Oliver was manipulative, charming enough to trick me and everyone in my life.
Of course, he’d had practice. I thought of the happy photograph from his first wedding I saw on social media, the joyful couple emerging from the church doors.
Oliver’s conniving wasn’t something that happened by chance or coincidence.
He likely sought Danielle out with the hope of draining her accounts for his own financial security.
And now he was trying to do the same to me.
If we went through with the wedding, how long would it take for his stealing to become more blatant? And if I became too much of a problem, would a tragic death befall me just as it had Danielle?
Danielle had put herself at risk for me.
She tried to warn me, and I unknowingly delivered her to the hands of her killer.
Oliver had gotten enough out of her financially, and then she posed a problem.
The only benefit in killing her when he did would be to keep her silenced so he could complete his next fraud. Me.
The idea I’d been so easily fooled and seduced by this man soured my stomach with sickness, and yet, with each passing second, that disgust was morphing into something else. Rage. Wrath. Oliver’s lies would stop with me, but first, I had to confront him with everything I knew.
Oliver and I shared locations on an app.
It wasn’t something I used often; like Marmee, I preferred a world where knowledge wasn’t at the tip of my fingers.
Now, I was grateful for the convenience of tracking him.
As I suspected, he wasn’t heading toward the airport.
He was traveling along the highway in the direction of Marmee’s house, about to reach the precise area where service would drop altogether.
I recalled the most recent email I’d read.
If Oliver was planning to sell more of Marmee’s jewelry in Atlanta, he’d have to obtain the pieces tonight.
I rushed out of my apartment and toward the parking garage where I stored my car. Normally, I relied on the ease of subways and Ubers, but Marmee insisted I keep a car in the city for emergencies. This qualified. I sped in the direction of Marmee’s house.
When I reached the gates, I pressed my birth date into the keypad. The wrought iron bars opened wide, as they had so many times before. My car swerved along the familiar driveway leading uphill, the dipping sun drenching the landscape with a dreamy orange glow.
When I reached the house, construction materials from the newly revitalized crow fountain blocked the stone awning where I normally parked.
I veered to the left, and that’s when I saw Oliver’s Alpine hidden in the shadows.
My heart dropped into my stomach. He was here.
Part of me still hoped I’d been wrong, and an even smaller part said I still could be, but now I had no choice but to walk inside.
The house was quiet. Marmee had been going to sleep earlier and earlier, and I didn’t want my presence to disturb her. I climbed the carpeted stairs. Marmee’s bedroom door was shut, but the door to the room beside it, her walk-in closet, was open just a crack. I stepped inside.
Someone was already in the room. Their back to me, the person stood in front of the floor-length safe. I cleared my throat, prompting them to turn.
The face of the man I loved stared back at me. Oliver. In his hands, he held a black backpack. The smile on his face was slow to spread.
“Tippi,” he said, his voice as cool as a late-night breeze. “You scared me.”
“What are you doing here, Oliver?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” The way he was able to turn on his charm was frightening. If I didn’t already know his true intentions for being here, he could have fooled me into believing anything.
“You said you were going to the airport.”
“I am.” He didn’t volunteer any more information. “After I leave.”
“What’s in the bag?” I asked him, growing impatient.
He zipped it shut.
“I’m afraid you’ve caught me. Another surprise for the wedding,” he said, closing the safe door. “You know me. Always planning something special.”
My throat wobbled in pain. I so badly wanted to believe he was telling the truth, that he was here in an act of love for me, but I knew he wasn’t, and I couldn’t play along with his charade any longer.
“I went through your emails,” I say. “I know everything.”
His left eye twitched briefly. If I hadn’t been studying his face for a reaction, I’m not sure I would have noticed.
“You’re going to have to be more specific, Tippi.”
“I know you’re lying about work. There is no sales position.
No record of you ever working for some company in Midtown.
And I know what you’ve really been doing on your trips away.
” My heart cracked with each allegation, and I had to force myself to keep going. “You’ve been selling Marmee’s jewelry.”
“Tippi, you’ve worked yourself into a frenzy. Listen to what you’re saying.”
“I know about the condo in Florida, too,” I added, before he was able to throw out another lie. “I read through all your emails.”
Oliver smiled, laughed even. “Since when did we start going through each other’s things?”
“After I found out the truth about Danielle.”
He hadn’t expected me to say that. His reaction was less controlled.
“What is that, exactly?”
“She didn’t kill herself,” I say. “She died from an insulin overdose.”
“I never said—”
“You told me Danielle killed herself. You said her mother called and told you the news, but when I spoke with her, she said she hadn’t talked to you in years.”
“When did you speak to Danielle’s mother?”
I ignored his question. Focused on what mattered. I strode closer to him, the marble-top island between us for protection.
“She told me Danielle died from taking too much insulin, even though she’d been self-administering for twenty years. She said you made Danielle’s life miserable.”
“Danielle was a troubled woman,” he said. “I told you all this.”
“But I’m never getting the full story, am I? You say she’s crazy and killed herself. Her mother says that isn’t true. You say you tried working out your marriage, her mother said you took everything from her,” I said. “And she had just started to rebuild before she died.”
Oliver opened his mouth to speak but stopped. He looked down at the bag in his hand as if searching for excuses. I’d bombarded him with a heap of information, and he was at a loss for how to respond.
“I can’t get over the similarities between us, either,” I continued, gliding closer. “We both come from wealthy families. All Danielle had left was her mother. All I have left is Marmee.”
“What can I say?” He grinned, his charm magnetic. “I have a type.”
“And then I find out you’ve been stealing my grandmother’s jewelry. That you’re planning to buy a place in Florida I know nothing about.”
“I told you already. It was supposed to be a surprise—”
“I don’t believe you! Everything is a lie.
There is no sales company, no conventions.
” Fists clenched at my sides, my body fighting to keep composure.
“You married Danielle and started taking her money. Even the fucking car belonged to her! When there was nothing left to take, you got with me. You’re repeating the cycle. ”
“That’s ridiculous. Tippi, you know me.”
“The emails aren’t the only thing I found,” I said, reaching into my bag. I pulled out the syringes. “How do you explain this?”
Another twitch of the eye, but he recovered quickly. “When I was married to Danielle, I always kept an emergency kit on me. I still have it.”
“All the times we’ve talked about Marmee’s medication, you’ve never mentioned having supplies at the apartment. I don’t even have them.”
“I forgot.”
“When I told you Danielle contacted me, you promised I’d never have to worry about her again.”
“Tippi, that’s an expression.”
“I think you plan on doing the same thing to me you did to her, and when she tried to warn me, you believed the only way to shut her up was to kill her,” I said. “You had everything you needed to make it look like an accident. You knew how much of a dose would be lethal.”
He laughed again, a hurtful sound. “I think you’ve been watching too many movies.”
The overhead lights poured over the jewelry on display, creating a kaleidoscopic, glittering backdrop.
“Maybe it’s you who’s been watching too many movies, Oliver. You expect whatever you want at the snap of a finger. Your lifestyle, your luxuries. Travel and riches. But instead of earning any of those things on your own, you steal off the women in your life.”
That comment did it. For the first time during our conversation, the smile dropped. Anger turned his face into a grimace, ugliness and beauty clashing before my eyes.
“Be careful, Tippi. You don’t want to say something you can’t take back.”
“You should be careful, Oliver. You’ve been doing this for a long time.
You’re good at it. But I know what I’m talking about.
I’m sure if I presented this information to the police, they’d be able to uncover the rest on their own.
How many crimes could they nab you for, you think? Burglary? Extortion? Murder?”
Sweat glimmered along his hairline, his cheeks bruised with redness.
“Let me get this straight. You think I only formed a relationship with you to take your money. You think I’ve been stealing from your grandmother to purchase a getaway pad in Florida.
You think I murdered my ex-wife to keep her quiet and conceal this wild plan.
” He paused, a terrifying seriousness on his face.
“I’m capable of all that, and you think it’s in your best interest to threaten me? ”
“I’m not trying to threaten you, Oliver,” I said, not even caring that my voice shook. “I just want you gone. Out of my life for good.”
He wasn’t expecting that. The finality of my words. His entire plan was unraveling before his eyes. He looked down, tightening his grip on the backpack.
“We’ve both gotten carried away. I’m offended and not acting like myself.” His posture softened. He tried reaching for my hand. “We need to cool off and start over.”
“There is no starting over. No wedding. You’re a liar, Oliver.” I almost couldn’t bring myself to say the last word. “A killer.”
“Don’t call me that—”
“You are! Danielle would be alive if I hadn’t mentioned her to you.” This thought, once theoretical and abstract, had calcified into an undeniable knowing. “And I have to live with that.”
“This is insane. Everyone loves me. I’m a charming guy. Your friends think so. Marmee thinks so. She said I’m like the son she never had. The son your dipshit father could never be.”
“They don’t know you,” I said, overcoming his insults. “From the looks of it, I might be the only one who has seen the real you.”
Danielle saw him for who he was, I told myself, but it was too late.
“You’re not leaving me, Tippi.”
He slung the backpack onto the countertop and reached inside. He pulled out another syringe, the sight of the needle injecting me with fresh fear.
“You pointed out some interesting similarities between you and my first wife,” he said, twisting the syringe in the air, “but you forgot one. I mean, what are the odds both Danielle and Marmee rely on this little medicine to survive? It’s such a fragile line, isn’t it?
The right amount keeps them living. Just a little bit more, and they could die. ”
Hot tears stung my eyes, singed the back of my throat.
“Don’t you dare threaten her.”
The sight of the syringe almost paralyzed me, the idea he’d come to the estate with it already in his possession. Maybe his plan went far beyond stealing. Had he planned on hurting Marmee? Killing her would leave her entire fortune to me, his new, grief-stricken wife.
“If Marmee were to die in her sleep, no one would even question it. Accidents happen all the time.” He paused. “I’m not someone who likes to lose, Tippi. Especially after all the time I’ve put in.”
I thought about all that Oliver had taken away from me, everything he’d intended to take. I’d fallen for this man. Allowed him into the furthest recesses of my life and heart and soul. Brought him around my friends and family. Prioritized him over my career, over everything.
It was all a lie, and the shame was too much to bear.
And now he’d threatened Marmee.
She was my weak point, my Achilles’ heel. I would do anything to keep her safe, even carry on this ruse with him, but what kind of life would that be? Forever groveling at his feet in fear?
There was no time to process what happened next.
I grabbed one of the marble statues on the dressing room island and struck him over the head.
The stone met his skull with a sickening crack.
He remained motionless for several seconds.
Blood poured from his scalp. His mouth shuddered, as though he was trying to say something, but no words came.
He stumbled, his legs incapable of supporting his weight.
Oliver fell forward, the syringe dropping from his limp fingers. Wide, gleaming eyes stared back at me, his body overcome with a fatal stillness.
The moments blurred together. The confrontation. His threat. My decision to attack.
I stared at the marble statue in my hands, sprayed in blood, then again at the body on the floor, the reality of what I’d done sinking in. Oliver was dead.
I was a murderer.