THE CALLER
The house is empty, and I have no idea where Margaret and Aurelia are.
Victor and I sit in my office. He’s always eating something, yet nothing ever sticks to him. The man is tall, broad, all muscle, but he eats like someone who’s been starved his whole life. This time, he’s grinding pistachios between his teeth, cracking them open one after another like it’s a full-time job.
We went to the ocean to see if there was any way to dive down and pull Daniel’s body from the depth near the cliff, but he was too far under. So we left him there. His father already had him pronounced dead anyway.
At this point, the sea can keep him until it decides to spit him back out.
“You know what keeps eating at me?” Victor says, dropping an empty pistachio shell onto my wooden desk.
“Yeah?” I ask, my eyes drifting to the window just as Aurelia walks slowly toward the house.
“Your little lovebird,” he says. “She keeps saying she doesn’t remember, but she somehow remembers everything at a very convenient time.”
A laugh slips out of me. I take a sip of whiskey.
“Whatever, man,” I say, exhaling hard. “After all these years of wanting to be with her, I don’t give two shits if she was the one who strangled Lilibeth.”
He lifts his brows. “Maybe your brother did it, and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I saw her that night in the house. She was walking out when we were coming in. Margaret said she’d come for her cup of tea, because she loves the herbs Helena picks from the garden.”
“Richard?” I ask with a smile, “he’s an asshole, but he wouldn’t kill her. In his own weird way, I think he loved her.”
His eyes widen, like it surprises him that I know.
“Come on,” I say. “You really think I didn’t know my own brother was fucking my wife?” I take another sip of whiskey. “I never touched her, you know.” I drag my lower lip between my teeth. “But I never cheated either.”
“Don’t tell me,” he says, turning his head toward the window, “your broken pianist is your only one.”
“No.” I laugh. “I fucked Vivian, but never Lilibeth.”
“I don’t blame you,” he says, grabbing more pistachios and cracking them open. “She was a very odd woman.”
“The only one I feel sorry for is Helena,” I say, draining the rest of my glass. “She was betrayed by too many people. Her own father, her mother, even Lilibeth. I didn’t believe her. She came to me worried because she read the diary right before I was supposed to leave for England.”
“Something tells me Aurelia did it,” he says, pushing to his feet. “Just a hunch.”
A laugh leaves me as I slide my hand toward the safe beneath the desk. It’s time I finally pay him.
“You know too many things, Victor,” I say with a smirk.
“I keep an eye on people,” he says.
“I do too,” I murmur with a quiet chuckle, my hand hovering over the two choices inside.
The gun on the right side of the safe, or the envelope stuffed with cash I set aside for him.
“Just be careful around her,amigo.“ He smiles. “You might be head over heels, but the way she cold-bloodedly got rid of her ex, you might be next.”
I made my choice.
I smile. “I will,amigo,“ I say, dragging the word across my tongue. “I just can’t have you telling everyone what you know.”
I lift the gun and aim at him.
The shot tears straight through the space between his eyes.
His body drops to the floor.
