Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
HAVEN
THE DAY BEFORE
I’d imagined what Frederik’s reaction would be to that statement multiple times in my head, running through every possible scenario I could think of ahead of the difficult conversation in which I called his wife a killer.
From him getting angry and denying it, to him breaking down in tears when he realised he was married to a monster, I thought I’d envisioned and prepared for it all. But I wasn’t ready for what came next.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ Frederik had said, looking like a man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Scott and I had shared a look as Frederik had taken a seat, looking sad but also stoic, like this was cutting him up but he was also prepared for it, in a strange way.
‘I could see that her mother’s death hadn’t affected her in a normal way,’ he had said. ‘She acted sad. But she wasn’t. I knew there was something. I just…’
Scott and I waited for him to finish.
‘I just never imagined it could be this bad.’
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ Scott had said as he took a seat next to his father and offered some support. ‘But I was there just after Grandma died. I saw Mum. I saw how she was. I knew something was wrong too.’
Still, Frederik had not got angry and started shouting or got upset and started crying. Instead, he just looked like a man who always knew the day would come when his wife would blow up his family’s world.
‘I was wrong to accuse Scott,’ I had said for clarity then. ‘I should have been looking at Liane instead.’
‘Now that you are,’ Frederik had said, looking up at me. ‘What do you intend to happen next?’
‘She has to pay for what she has done,’ I had replied, wondering if the worn-down husband would choose to defend his wife in that moment. But he just looked at his son.
‘How do you plan to do that?’ he asked.
‘We need your help,’ Scott replied, and this was the real moment of truth.
Would Frederik do what we needed him to do? Or would he say no and leave us with nothing?
Would he do the right thing?
Or would he let his wife get away with murder?
Until Frederik spoke again, I had absolutely no idea.