Chapter Thirteen Barb
Chapter Thirteen
Barb
When I arrive at the café, Tessa is waiting in the back corner, her face turned down, her finger worrying a spot on the table.
I study her, trying to determine whether she’s harboring any suspicions about her husband.
Sensing she’s being watched, she peers up, then smiles when she finds me by the door.
If Tessa had any inclination her husband was having an affair with Regina, that he might have murdered her, she never would have befriended me.
Befriend. Is that what we’re doing? I barely know Tessa, yet I feel a gravitational pull to protect her. I can’t tell her about the affair, not until I have proof. If I try to explain now, she’ll blame me instead of her husband. I refuse to be her husband’s scapegoat.
I drape Regina’s leather jacket across the back of the chair beside mine and hold the box on my lap as I slip into the seat across from Tessa. She hands me a disposable coffee cup. “I got you an oat milk latte. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s perfect,” I say, even though it’s a little too California for my taste. “Where’s Jasper?”
“With his nanny.” I hear what she doesn’t say. Jasper won’t be a part of this anymore. “How was your morning?”
“Weird? I met Regina’s girlfriend. Ex.” I tell her about Maisy, how broken she was, not just over Regina but in every way a person can be broken. My story has too much detail. I’m hoping if I get lost in the minutiae, I won’t have to tell Tessa the only part that will matter to her.
“When did they break up?” Tessa asks, twisting the coffee cup in her hands.
“It seemed fresh. Regina was cheating.” I won’t tell Tessa about her husband. I won’t lie either. She’ll have to tease it out of me, to decide how close we’ll inch toward the truth.
Tessa perks up. “At the Brig, they said she was there with a woman. Maybe she was seeing someone new?”
Of course Tessa assumes it’s another woman.
Of course her mind doesn’t tilt toward her husband.
Tessa had said that her husband thought she was making something out of nothing, which had sounded patronizing.
Sexist, not sinister. What kind of father isn’t terrified that his son may have known the woman who died right outside their home?
“Did you learn anything else at the bar?” I ask.
Tessa hesitates, then admits, “No. That’s all they knew.”
“We should find her. If she was the last person who saw Regina—” I scoot my chair toward the table, causing the small box of Regina’s belongings to slide off my lap and scatter.
The tangle of jewelry spills from its plastic baggie, the shampoo bottles lie capsized, the self-help book flips open where a piece of paper is lodged between the pages.
The barista, who’s wiping down the table next to us, notices the items fall to the floor.
“Here, I’ve got that for you.” He bends down with the cartilage of someone in their twenties and swoops everything into the box, putting it on the table between us.
“Regina left these at Maisy’s,” I tell Tessa as I retrieve the sheet of folded paper from the hardback book.
Tessa leans toward me to survey the list of dates, times, and locations scrawled across the crinkled sheet: Expo Hall, Downtown Lofts, Rabblerouser’s, Contessa’s, Lollygag, South Sea, Love Self-Tape, Starfish.
“What do you think they were?” Tessa asks.
“AA meetings.” Immediately, I know I’m right. Regina was still in treatment, still judicious about her sobriety.
Tessa motions to the baggie of jewelry. I nod my approval, and she riffles through it.
“Alexis Bittar.” Tessa holds up a neon-green plastic earring, the bottom curve shaped to look like it’s dripping gold paint.
“It’s plastic, Lucite, but it’s not cheap.
” I must be making a confused face because she clarifies, “I’m a jeweler.
” But really I’m wondering how Regina had earrings that Tessa, with her band of sapphires and an engagement ring that must be three carats, would describe as not cheap.
Regina’s leather coat is draped over the chair beside mine like she’s stepped away momentarily and will soon return with a logical explanation for how she paid for these earrings. I reach into the pocket of her jacket, remembering the other earring I found, one that was certainly not cheap.
I place the earring on the table before Tessa. “What about this?”
Tessa stands so forcefully, her chair falls behind her, clanging on the ground.
“Where did you get that?” she asks breathlessly.
“It was in Regina’s coat pocket.”
My body grows ice cold. I know what she’s going to say before she utters, “It’s mine. I mean, it’s one of my designs. I made it.”
It’s Tessa’s design? Now I’m confused. Well, not confused. Disgusted. What kind of sick, twisted monster gifts his girlfriend a pair of earrings his wife designed?
The kind that kills.
“I’ve got to go.” Tessa squats to pick the chair up from the floor, then grabs her purse from the back of it.
“Tessa, are you okay?” At last she’s putting the pieces together. I stand, too, start returning the jewelry to the baggie. “Let me come with you.”
“It’s better if I go alone.”
“Tessa, please, I don’t think it’s—”
“I’ll call you later,” she says, halfway to the door.
I dart after her. She’s faster than I’d expect. Outside, I scan the crowds congesting the sidewalks, not seeing her anywhere. Every fiber in me knows it was her husband. She can’t confront him alone. But she’s already gone.