Chapter Sixty-Three
Marni
The flood of questions and worries refused to stop. Stella wouldn’t answer my texts. Hanna warned me about what happened after she gave me the good news about Jeremy returning home. A bright spot in an otherwise dismal, draining few days.
I’d tried meditation and yoga. Deep breathing. Polished off a pint of cookie dough ice cream. Wrote in my journal. Nothing a prosecutor could use against me, of course. Just general thoughts but none of it brought my job back or erased the scarletAbranded on my chest for cheating on my best friend while her husband cheated with me. My reputation took a pummeling around town, but prison remained my biggest concern. Being threatened with it or confined in it.
The evidence on Patrick’s body pointing to me hadn’t vanished. It sat in a police locker somewhere, a blaring reminder of its existence. Every day I waited for a knock on the door. For police cars to crowd my driveway.
The sound of the doorbell startled me out of my self-indulgent internal whining. The chime sounded innocent. Light and carefree. Nothing like a death rattle or the harbinger of bad news that it was.
My legs shook as I stood. I debated packing a bag but doubted prison operated like a hotel with check-in and a self-chosen wardrobe. I tried to breathe through the panic. Inhaling. Counting. I failed at all of it.
The noise rang out two more times before I finally circled my couch and reached the door. A quick look through the peephole showed a surprisingly friendly—usually—face. I opened and said his name at the same time. “Cam?”
“They found another body.”
No preamble. A verbal shot but not the one I expected. “What are you—”
“A woman.” Cam put a hand on my arm and guided me back from the door. Closed it behind us. The hint of concern in his voice and note of caution in his eyes suggested he was trying to be careful while he blurted out the soul-crushing news. “Likely Victoria.”
My legs picked that moment to stop functioning. The room shifted. Cam stepped in and hauled me up before my knees hit the plush carpet I loved. The one the color of storm clouds.
By the time my brain rebooted, I was sitting on my couch with Cam brooding beside me.
“I’m going to need you to hold it together,” he said.
That was the Cam I knew. Gruff and practical. Never in the mood for emotional outbursts or shows of affection. He referred to both asNew Age nonsense.
I tried to focus and failed miserably. I could see Victoria on that last day, all put together and regal. Beautiful in her light blue suit. Only she could wear the pastel-bordering color in the fickle weather of early March and look like perfection.
I swallowed enough times to choke out the necessary words. “What happened?”
“The divers found the body about an hour ago in Xavier’s pond. Clearly an adult.”
Denials begged for attention. Wishful thinking took over. “Maybe it’s not—”
“Let’s be serious here. If the professionals found anyone in that water it was always going to be either Noah or Victoria.”
Victoria’s face flashed in my head. The way she threw her hair back when she laughed, letting control abandon her for a precious second. How she loved to sneak out of meetings and get coffee. A skim vanilla latte. That was her drink. I hadn’t had one since she disappeared.
A sad, lonely part of me had always known she was dead. She wasn’t the type to slink off in silence. She would have gone out screaming. If alive, demanded money and support from Xavier. Rightly lectured him on his responsibilities as she searched for her kids.
She was bold. A woman who’d grown into her social status and donned it like the finest jewels. My friend and my biggest regret. I wept over her on and off for years. I’d remember a good time, then be slapped with guilt over my betrayal.
How did I let a man come between us?
I’d also mourned that man, Patrick, in private, for months at night, alone in the bed we once shared as we quietly pickedapart the stitches holding his family together. I’d compartmentalized my life back then and we all paid the price for my shitty behavior.
“Anything I should worry about with this body?” Cam asked.
The question shook me out of my conflicted memories. “You think I killed Victoria?”
“I don’t think you killed any Tanner. That wasn’t my question.”
“There’s nothing.” But someone planted my bracelet on Patrick. I thought I’d grabbed it that day and didn’t realize I’d run out without the bracelet until it was far too late to fix the issue.
“My former colleagues say it will take longer to formally identify her remains. Patrick’s implant made him easier.”
