“You’ve been speaking to Henry?” Elsie blinks in disbelief.
Beverley’s mouth gapes wordlessly.
“No, she hasn’t,” Margot snaps. “Tell her you haven’t, Bev.”
Beverley turns to face her and watches Margot’s expression shift as she realizes she has been lied to.
“How could you do that?” Margot hollers, incredulous. “How could you be in the same room as him?”
“I thought he could help us,” Beverley replies hurriedly, glancing at Elsie’s uncomfortable posture. “With what’s at stake, I thought it would give us an insight into how these sorts of people think…” Her head swivels between them as she waits for them to soften, to realize that she was right to visit him at San Quentin.
Margot scoffs. “When are you going to get a backbone, Bev?”
“We all agreed,” Elsie says quietly, “that the only way to move on is to not see them. We made a pact.”
Beverley feels guilt slice through her stomach. She has betrayed her friends, but she has a right to visit her ex-husband if she wants to, doesn’t she? It’sherchoice. They don’t need to know that she regrets it, that she has had nightmares about it ever since. All she has to do is blink and her vision is scarred with the empty line of chairs, the long glass windows, the arrogance seeping from Henry’s skin.
“How could you see him?” Margot won’t let it go. “Even from prison, he’s still controlling you, Bev. It’s pathetic.”
“He’s still the children’s father,” she says weakly. “Just because you don’t have kids—”
“Don’t use that against us!”
Elsie’s eruption shocks Beverley.
“Don’t use the fact that we don’t want children as evidence that we don’t know what it’s like to be a woman.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Beverley shakes her head, her thoughts clunky with panic.
“I can’t believe you could even look at him,” Margot spits, “after what he did.”
“I thought it would help us narrow down who the killer is, okay?” She’s growing frustrated at her friends’ judgment. She was only doing what she thought would help them track down the killer. “Not everyone’s perfect like you, Margot.”
It’s cheap and Beverley knows it.
Elsie stiffens in her seat.
“Oh, here come the accusations,” Margot jabs.
“You think you’re better than the rest of us because you’re not affected by anything that’s happened to you,” Beverley replies. She’s a cornered rat. She’ll have to bite her way out. “You don’t give a shit that your husband killed himself in prison because of you.”
“Beverley!” Elsie’s eyes are wide.
But Beverley is on a roll. Panic has taken over; she no longer really knows what she’s saying. “You think I’m weak because I have worries and feelings and fears.”
Margot’s face has hardened.
“But you’re the one who’s in denial, with your parties and your jokes.”
“Denial?” Margot’s voice is shrill. And loud. Too loud. “Are we really going to talk about denial? You still wear your wedding ring.”
“I need people to respect me.”
“Respect? You can’t move on from a guy who killedseven women. How’s anyone going to respect you? You still have his goddamn photograph on your fridge.”
“What?”
“Elsie told me. She saw it. It’s sick, Beverley. He’s a murderer.”
