55
Susan
Wednesday
I feel sick. I’m going to throw up. The receipt shakes in my hand. Two espresso martinis, a bottle of rosé, and a note about a customer.
*Tree-nut allergy*
And the pieces fall into place. Savannah Holmes.
Jesus Christ, I’ve been tracking him on my phone for the last two days for no reason. He’s not seeing her any more because she’s gone. Lying in a morgue. And now it dawns on me. Is Savannah dead because someone thought she was me, or is Savannah dead because she was seeing my husband? And there’s only one place that thought leads…No. I put my head in my hands to stop it. Jon’s a lot of things, but he’s not a killer. Then again, I didn’t think he was a cheat either.
OK. Stop. Take a breath.
It might not be her.
Itisher.
I try to reason with myself. Lots of people have tree-nut allergies. Nika Geary in my tutor class does. And no, Jon isn’t seeing a seventeen-year-old; I know that better than I know he’s not a killer. But…there are toomany coincidences. Links that can’t be ignored. I sent him to her…a package that came here, back when Bella was tiny. I hadn’t the bandwidth to contact the courier company, so he said he’d drop it to her. He told me he’d left it on her porch. But what if he called in and they hit it off, and what if she was far more interesting than the post-partum baby-blues sob-fest that was waiting for him at home? OK, OK. Another breath. This still doesn’t mean I’m right. I need to think this through rationally. All I know for sure is that Jon is cheating—the bracelet tells me that. His credit card statement backs it up. This receipt in my hand tells me that someone he had dinner with has a tree-nut allergy. And this is not a work dinner. This is not dinner with his dad. This is dinner for two in the oldest story in the book.
I need to go through everything, sort the facts from the guesses. More deep breaths.
Savannah had a tree-nut allergy. It’s something she talked about on her Instagram, I know it for sure, and it’s one of the reasons I followed her account in the first place.
Savannah had a link with me. We lived at the same street number and street name and our packages got mixed up.
Jon has been to her house, re-delivering a package.
Jon has been cheating on me; the bracelet is proof of that.
Jon has been weird for the last few days: wary, hovering, on edge. I thought it was because I was being distant with him. But is it because his girlfriend was murdered?
On shaky legs, I get up and go to my night-stand. The bangle is still inside. I take it out now and run my thumb across the inscription. “Happy one-month anniversary, all my love, Jon.”
I really am going to throw up.
How the bracelet got here is a mystery, but the rest of it makes sense. Jon is cheating on me with Savannah Holmes. Correction, Jonwascheating on me with Savannah Holmes, but not any more because she is dead. Which brings me right back to my earlier question. Why is she dead, and is it somehow down to me?
