For a big man he can move quickly. He’s halfway to the door before I call out desperately.
“But if you did”—he pauses at the door, his back to me, and a loose floorboard groans under his weight—“would you tell me, Dan?”
Slowly, he looks over his shoulder at me. His eyes are sad. He looks at me the same way Kay Potts did. Like they have terrible news for me but they don’t want me to know. I shiver at the window, rub my arms to get the chill off me. Who warned him not to speak? “Dan, you coming?” an annoyed voice calls from downstairs.
Dan steps forward, half disappearing into the dark hallway until all I see of him is the silvery hammer. Abruptly, he turns around, half-hidden in the dark. Nervously, he transfers the hammer from hand to hand. I can’t see his face, only the whites of his teeth in the darkness.
“Darren Foster,” he says low as if someone’s eavesdropping. “Find Darren Foster. He knows about Amanda.”
And before I can even open my mouth, he’s gone.
Chapter 15
May 28
SarahSlays.com
It’s Friday night, and there are three things I want you to know:
1) I googled “Darren Foster” for hours and didn’t find shit.
2) I’m so drunk I can barely type this.
3) I think my fucking husband’s having an affair.
I chug the rest of the wine straight from the bottle. The cold liquid spills out the corners of my mouth right onto my darling pink cardigan. The same one I was wearing when Kay Potts lied to my perfectly made-up face about what happened to Amanda. The woman who…
a) lived here before me
b) somehow disappeared without anyone investigating or giving a shit
c) is making me wonder if I might be the next to wind up missing or dead in this fucked-up murder house
I slump back onto the couch like a corpse, and the blood rushes to my head, making the cold room spin. I sigh loudly, pressing my face into a couch cushion. I could bang on Kay’s spotless door with my grubby wine-stained fingers and demand answers. But if I make a scene, she might call the police. And if my drunk ass gets arrested for harassing my elderly neighbor, no one’s going to buy my next self-help book.
I throw the empty bottle over my shoulder, and it lands with a delightful crash. I’d throw the other bottle, but it’s all the way in the kitchen, and I’m so drunk I’d have to crawl there.
I roll over slowly, the room spinning in wild circles. I breathe through my mouth and glare at my phone tucked tightly into my fist. Nobody’s going to come to me for marriage counseling if they know my idiot husband is having an affair.
I swipe open the text message he sent me three hours ago. The text message that set off my two-bottle binge.
Staying at Andy’s for the weekend
Liar. I drop the phone, and it lands with a heavy thud. I hope I haven’t broken it. Then I burst out laughing, because it doesn’t matter. Everything else in my life is irreparable. Why not my phone too? I roll over and hope I don’t vomit. The words spin through my drunken mind, over and over again.
I swipe at my eyes with the back of my forearm because I’m crying and hate myself for it. Hate him. Did Joe forget I can log on to his bank account? I know every damn purchase he makes. Always have.Controlling,he used to spit at me during our worse fights.You’re too damn controlling.
I’m only controlling because you lack control!I’d shoot back.
Fucking Joe. He’s been so lost since we left our hometown,someonehad to take over.Someonehad to make plans while he stared into the distance with wet eyes and a heart crammed with regret.
Idrove us all the way from Scarbour, north Queensland to NewSouth Wales, and then the nine hours down to Melbourne.Iwrote up his CV, complete with two fake references because no one in our hometown would give him one.Isent his fake CV to Seventy-Seven, the bar he’s been working at for two years, while he wept on the couch and wrote groveling letters to my sister. I read every one of them. In my quiet moments, his aching words come roaring back like I just read them yesterday.
Biggest mistake of my life.
I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
I hate what I’ve become. Hate what she made me.
