I play the conversation in my mind over and over again, and it never sounds like anything less that the fantasies of a deluded, lonely, pathetic woman. Which is who I am. Who I’ve always been.
And then there’s the doubt. It seeps under my skin, crawls all over my body. What if Olivier lied to me? What if he never intended to kill her at all? What if he was so unhappy with the way things had panned out that he took his own life? Cassie is not telling the truth, but there’s still the possibility thatsomeof it is true. And that’s enough to keep me away from the police.
Which means I have nothing else to do but stir in my despair. Cassie and I have barely been alone since the officers left us two days ago. People, neighbors and friends, have been dropping by to pay their respects. They come armed with casseroles and condolences, sharing platitudes about a man they didn’t even know.
Every time someone rings the bell, Cassie uses the occasion to show off one of her new black dresses—straight from Paris—in which she looks a little too good. She stares at my red puffy eyes. I take in her perfectly applied makeup. We say nothing.
And no one speaks to me.She’sthe bereaved widow and she loves it. Parades around, pretending to blow into a tissue every now and then. Marvels at the flowers they brought, swearing they didn’t need to, while displaying the arrangement front and center with a smirk on her fucking face. The attention makes her glow like a neon light; it’s Rae’s funeral all over again.
Madeline comes by and, thoughsheasks how I’m doing, Cassie overhears it and quickly brings the conversation back to herself. Her grief, her husband, her utter and total shock. I picture my own two hands around her neck, pressing hard, watching her choke. Slowly. Then I walk away.
It’s another two days before the police come for me. Not literally, but the detectives call and ask me to come by the station. Alone, they insist. As soon as possible. I’m grateful for the escape, though it feels a little like I’m sending myself off to my own slaughter.
The station is a twenty-minute drive and I blast the radio all the way, drowning my thoughts.
He loved me. Did he love me?
I read the few articles I could find online, hoping my French was good enough to make sense of what they said. A man died in the suite of a luxury hotel, where, strangely, he used to work. Was it suicide or overdose? His wife—they called her Carrie, she would have hated that—had left him hours before. She knows exactly what happened in that room. The rest of us will probably never find out.
Inside the police station, the air-conditioning makes me shiver and I almost go back to the car to retrieve my leather jacket from the trunk, but I want to get this over with as quickly as possible. Unbelievably, it’s still only August, the height of summer. The red dress I bought in Paris pops into my mind; I didn’t need to get rid of it after all. Didn’t need to worry about Amir telling anyone I was there. Didn’t even need the fake boyfriend.
Detective Jackson comes to greet me, then leads me to an interrogation room, where she offers me coffee. I decline. I can’t take anything from them because whatever they want from me, I won’t give it away.
We sit on opposite sides of the table. There’s a camera in the top-left corner of the room, and I bet this one works.
After a few words of introduction and more condolences, the detective gets right into it. “So your sister goes off to New York City for her father’s funeral, and she comes back with a husband.”
I wait for a question, but it doesn’t come. So I nod. “I didn’t know they were married. They kept it secret.”
“Even from you, the sister? You lived with them.”
“They kept it a secret.” My voice sounds robotic. I’ve cried all of the tears over the last few days. I have none left.
“Okay. So Cassie comes back from a few days away with a brand-new boyfriend. Did you find that strange at all?”
“My sister has always been impulsive. Though I think she’d call it spontaneous.”
“Can I get a yes or no?”
“No, I didn’t find it that strange. Cassie has had many boyfriends. I was a little surprised, but I got over it quickly.”
“And they seemed happy?”
Did they? Did I ever believe, from the moment they arrived, that they loved each other? The truth is that I don’t remember. I tried so hard to block them off, to not see anything.
“Cassie and I aren’t very close. I can’t say I paid too much attention.”
“But you welcomed Mr. Laurent into your home and you two became friendly. At least that’s what your sister said.”
Except it’s not my home. It never was. I nod. “Olivier was a great guy.”
That’s when I allow myself to think what has been burning inside me all along. He died because of me. He’d still be alive if he hadn’t met me. Or if I hadn’t gone to Paris. Or if I hadn’t walked into their hotel room that night. Or if I hadn’t let him go back to her. I could have stopped this so many times, in so many ways. I did this. I lied to him about the fact that no one knew I was in Paris. I let him believe he could still get away with it, and then I sent him off to die.
“Allegedly, they agreed to separate that night. It might have been tense, heated. Do you have any reason to believe that Cassie and Olivier may have been fighting? I mean, beyond a few harsh words, maybe physically?”
“No.”
“That was a fast response. Did you ever witness them fight?”
