“You think he’s gay,” Charlotte says. Paige responds by slamming her hand down on the table, folks around them turning to look.
“Do you have any way to remember if you were with him?” Paige hisses, and Charlotte fumbles with her phone and opens her calendar. She scrolls months of pages to find last January.
“I was in Denver for a work thing that weekend,” she says. Paige grabs her hand and closes her eyes. She doesn’t thank her or explain further, she just quickly lets go and says, “When you see Finn, I highly recommend you leave him. You owe his wife an apology, but since she’ll never get that, you should know that he’s probably dangerous. I don’t need to hurt you or ruin your marriage. I don’t care enough because I don’t even know you, so I have no plans to tell anyone about this, but you’ll do a few things for me in return.” Paige stops and waits for a response.
Charlotte nods. “Of course,” she says, but her words barely come out as her voice cracks. She clears her throat. “Of course, anything.”
“First, do not tell him you saw me. Do not mention my son. If I find out that you did, I’ll go to your husband with these photos. So deal with your own shit, and keep my name out of it. Yeah?” Paige says. “Also, cut it off with him. Now. He’s not yours. He has a family, and he’s a fuckface. If you’re gonna cheat, trade up.”
Charlotte nods vigorously and gathers her things. She stands up and leaves as quickly as she can without causing a scene.
Paige is surprised at how long it’s been going on. Certainly the other women Cora was worried about were valid concerns. It’s impressive how he’s done this for so long without Cora actually getting proof. She decides to follow Charlotte. If it’s been a two-year relationship, if she thinks he’s possibly a killer and she has just been threatened—warned to cut things off with him—she’d have questions. Where else would she go but straight to him for answers?
As she drives she thinks about how she assumed it would be easier to get close to Finn the way Charlotte has—easier to get information out of him without breaking windows and stealing laptops—but she couldn’t get close. It’s only because she was too much of a risk for Finn, being so close to Cora. That, she’s sure of. She thought about using Charlotte to somehow get him talking about that night or why he has Caleb’s number in his phone and a history of text exchanges with him. Then, she’d threaten to reveal the affair if she didn’t get the information Paige needed. But there are a few things wrong with that. It would take too long, and she doesn’t know if she can trust Charlotte, despite what the woman has to lose. Plus, Finn might get suspicious, and she needs to build her body of evidence before that could happen. Anyway, she really has everything she needs at this point. She’s almost ready to make her move.
Before she does, though, it would tickle her to see him get a small taste of his own medicine on Cora’s behalf. She signals right and pulls into the parking lot of Finn’s office building. She parks close to where she did last time she was here and watches the door. After five minutes she sees Char pull in. Of course she does. A few minutes after that, Finn comes out the front doors with a scrunched-up forehead, looking around until he spots Char’s car. She gets out, and they are talking. There are no dramatic hand gestures or yelling. She has kept her side of deal, it looks like, and has not confronted him about Paige or her threats or accusations he’s dangerous. She might have, but Paige had to take that chance. She had to know whoCwas. Those texts tell her he knew Caleb more than a grown-ass man should know the teenage kid next door. Yes, he was twenty-two when he died, but those texts show that they had communicated for a few years. Cryptic texts. She can’t figure that part of this puzzle out yet, but she needed to eliminate a part of the equation, and she has.
Finn reaches his arm out to touch Char’s shoulder, and she pulls away. It’s the body language that tells Paige what she needs to know. She’s ending it, and he’s not letting that happen. She’s calm and sad-looking. He’s desperate but trying to stay subtle about it in the middle of his work parking lot. She can’t hear the words, but he’s practically begging. That’s clear. Charlotte’s hands go up in front of her, an I’m-done-with-this gesture. She backs away; he moves to her. She gets in her car and shuts the door. He calls after her, tries to block her driving away for a minute and even knocks on her window. She looks away. He gives up. She drives off. He punches a brick column in front of the building and walks inside with bloody knuckles.
“Well, then,” Paige says out loud and then drives away herself. That was slightly satisfying, but now she’s ready to nail him to the wall. Before she goes to the cops, she needs to show Cora all the evidence. She needs to tell her everything. She’s so sorry to betray her dear friend, but it was the only way.
20
CORA
Finn is acting like a moody teenager. I think he’s actually pouting, and I have no idea why. It’s Friday afternoon, and he’s supposed to be leaving from his office for a weekend trip for work. Now he’s suddenly home early and has let me know the trip has been canceled but he’s going out for drinks with his coworker Buddy LaFond tonight.
We’ve barely said a word to each other for a couple days, and now I see his missing laptop is sitting on the counter. That’s curious, isn’t it? I unload a bag of groceries and realize I forgot coconut milk for the curry I was going to make for Mia and me tonight.
“Holy shit. Your hair,” Mia says, coming into the kitchen in her perpetual pajamalike outfit. She was at a friend’s overnight, so she hasn’t seen it.
“Yeah, I thought it was time for a change,” I say.
“Daaang. You never let me get extensions,” she whines.
“When you can pay for them yourself, you can get ten-foot-long hair if you want.”
“I like it. It’s, like, so blond. You look like the chick fromGame of Thronesif she were old,” she says, then grabs an apple from the fridge.
“Thanks,” I say, patting my hair, and she bounces off to her room. She seemed almost...like her old self instead of a gloomy recluse for a minute there. I put bran flakes and peanut butter into cupboards with a lighter heart.
My phone rings for the second time today with a number I don’t recognize. There was no message after the first call, so I don’t answer because it’s spam as far as I’m concerned.
Finn comes into the kitchen. He opens the fridge, and again, like a teenager, he stands hunched in front of it, looking for a snack.
“Your missing laptop reappeared,” I say, against my better judgment, but I am starting to really not care anymore.
“Yeah. Wonder how that happened,” he says, curtly. I stop in midreach from the counter to slide a box of pasta on a shelf, and my back tenses, and I freeze a moment. I should just leave the room and avoid a repeat of yesterday. I should sit and explain in all sincerity that I promise I had nothing to do with it, but instead I say, “Maybe you lent it to one of your girlfriends and forgot.”
I can feel an electricity in the air—a palpable tension all around me. Then I hear the cover of his laptop slam shut.
“Are we doing this again? Cora, fucking really?Really?I am not in the mood for this bullshit today,” he hollers, and I shush him and look down the hall, making sure Mia doesn’t overhear.
“Why are you in such a foul mood?” I ask, because even in one of these old infidelity arguments, he never raises his voice when Mia is home. That’s an unspoken rule, so something is going on with him.
“How would you feel,” he says, “if I were constantly accusing you of something you weren’t doing? Oh, and who’s the new Barbie hair for? Some drunk guy at the piano bar who comes in to see you?”
“What?” I say.
