In her sleep, Dr. Blackwell had said, of natural causes. No reason for concern.
But what if something else happened to her?
Olivia hated the awful thoughts that resurfaced—if it weren’t for the missing money, she never would have considered it—but if Simon was desperate for cash, would he have done something to harm her aunt? To permanently remove the opposition?
“He wasn’t kind to her,” Jillian said. “I heard him call her an old bat.”
Olivia groaned. Was she the only one who’d been so blinded by Simon’s charisma? Perhaps the entire church knew he’d married her for all the wrong reasons.
“I wish I could go back in time,” she said quietly. “Make some changes.”
“We all wish we could go back and do things a little differently. I guess the big question is: what changes are you going to make now?” Jillian nodded toward the window. “There’s the bus.”
A splotch of yellow paused at the end of their long drive, then five children jogged together up the lane, Eli in the center. Jillian slid a dozen cookies onto a plate and poured fresh milk in seven glasses to share with Olivia. Then her brood tumbled into the house, laughing and chattering and greeting the women before digging into the treats.
This farmhouse, in its simplicity, overflowed with the best kind of love.
Olivia enjoyed another hour with them. Then she kissed her friend’s cheek and forced herself to drive the rest of the way home, locking the front door behind her. As she stood in Hattie’s old bedroom, the decor untouched after her aunt’s death, her imagination ran amuck.
She’d waited to answer Simon’s proposal in hopes that Hattie would change her mind. Had he decided to eliminate their one obstacle to marrying? She didn’t want to think it, hated even more that she believed it could be true, but she could see what might have happened in the theater of her mind. Simon stealing into the house with the key Olivia had loaned him. Borrowing a pillow and sneaking up the stairs, thinking Olivia would marry him once Hattie was gone. Which she did, after grieving for eight months.
Dr. Blackwell had seen no need for an autopsy, but what if Simon had smothered her aunt? Then stolen the envelope money since Mr. McLean refused to let him into her accounts, pretending to comfort Olivia in her loss while secretly capitalizing on it.
Olivia had thought her clear communication, her suggestion that they continue their separate lives, would keep things healthy and strong between them. Create a partnership, of sorts, to support each other. She’d thought, in their early days together, that his devotion must be incredibly strong since a man sacrificed much to have his wife so far away instead of meeting his needs at home.
Somehow, she’d skewed this into a virtue when all along, Simon had been baiting her. Making her think she was getting exactly what she wanted when he was leading her through every turn of his maze.
In hindsight, she should have seen the clues.
In hindsight, she should have run like some of her heroines in the opposite direction.
She backed away from Hattie’s room and then rushed up to her office, removing her heavy diamond ring and slipping it into a desk drawer. Positioning her hands over the keys, she paused in the silence.
Often in the past few years, she’d thought God was silent, but perhaps He had been speaking quite loudly through her aunt. And quietly when Olivia had pushed away her doubts.Pride,Hattie had said. And Olivia hated, even now, that her aunt had been right.
She’d wanted to be loved, but more than that—how she hated to admit it—she had wanted admiration. Or respect, at least, from a man she’d wrongly deemed respectable.
Simon had charmed her with his phony praise, and she’d soaked up the flattery like a sunbaked sponge. Flattery from his lips, but mockery, she suspected, in his heart.
If she hadn’t been blinded by her own pride, Hattie might still be alive.
She relocated the partial manuscript from her desktop to an end table. Then she threaded a clean sheet into the typewriter and began to write. One sentence at first. Then a paragraph and full page as the story poured out.
It was different than any story she’d ever written, the plot about a man—a scoundrel—who prowled on people’s dreams, jilting them when they dared trust. Jude, she named him. A shortened version of the disciple who’d attempted to deceive Jesus when the God-man already knew everything.
Jude thought no one knew what he was doing, but someone was watching. And she was no fool. Even in the darkest hours, this woman—Laurel was her name—knew the truth.
As the night darkened her desk, Olivia switched on the lamp, but the clattering of her keys didn’t stop. Olivia may never see Simon again, but Laurel spoke the words that Olivia wished she could say.
By a moonlit lake, so similar to the lake below Olivia’s window, Laurel told Jude that he was a fraud. He hated Laurel for exposing his lies, tried to kill her, but in the end, Jude’s deception was his demise.
If Simon returned from war, if he ever read this novel, he’d realize that she, like Laurel, knew exactly what he’d done.
Olivia stretched her arms and wandered to the window. Beyond the trees, ringing the south end of the lake, she saw the faint glow of moonflowers that Eli helped her plant. The flowers had thrived in the past month, lighting the night, seeing things that others kept hidden. A beacon, of sorts, to those who wanted to follow their light. Deadly for anyone who tried to destroy them.
Her arms folded over her chest as she watched the white blaze. Was anything true in her relationship with Simon or was it all a lie? From the moment he’d told her that he lost his wife, she had felt the depths of their common bond. In hindsight, he never told her how Ruthie died, and she feared now the truth.
If he’d taken Hattie’s life, what else had he done?
