I cross the kitchen and wrap my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his chest. He holds me tentatively, almost like he’s afraid to trust it. Maybe we both are.
This is the safest place I know. But the safety is faltering under the weight of everything we’re not saying.
I pull back, and so does he. And the silence rushes in again.
Beau rubs at his temple. “We’ll figure it out. Okay?” he says, but I can’t tell if it’s true. “Ardell wants to talk at eleven.”
I look at the oven clock. Half an hour from now, Beau will be at the police station.
“My attorneys have agreed to the interview under the condition that we meet in a conference room, not an interrogation room. I’ll stick to the script they wrote, nothing extra. If Ardell pushes, my lawyers cut it off. Their whole job is to make sure I don’t hand the police anything they can twist.” He laughs, but it’s humorless. “Basically, I sit there looking like a good citizen with nothing to hide while they run interference.”
The rich-person playbook. Don’t say a damn thing.
Beau’s attorneys will carry the narrative while he sits there looking respectable in a button-down that probably cost more than their monthly mortgage.
But how does that help Gemma?
I study his face, wondering who this man with the scripts and the lawyers is. Or is this who we are now? Burying the consequences of our choices under our piles of money?
“I want to talk about the surveillance footage.” I shifted, unable to conceal my impatience.
He’s been dodging my questions about the video since last night, an act that’s been helpfully aided by the nonstop calls from his lawyers.
Being an almost–murder suspect has made him very popular.
“Did you know you were on it?” I press.
“Marcus told me.”
“Funny.” I sniff, and my throat burns. “When I asked him about it at the dinner party, he swore the footage was nothing but shadows.”
Beau stretches his neck like this conversation is starting to chafe. But he doesn’t try to deny the implied accusation. They had discussed this. Had planned what they would say if I asked. Had carefully negotiated the right flavor of vanilla to infuse their coordinated responses with.
“Just read the script and keep your mouth shut. That’s what they told you, isn’t it?” I dig.
He raises a hand to silence the accusation. “Este—”
I slap an exasperated hand on the counter. “Stop acting like I’m crazy for asking.This”—I gesture around the space between us and the state of our lives—“is crazy. Gemma isdead.And you’re on your way to the police station with a gaggle of lawyers to babysit your every word. We’re so deep into crazy, we’ve franchised crazy and opened three new locations. So what else aren’t you telling me?”
He holds my gaze for a second, the weight of the world lost behind his eyes. And then he clams up again. A retreat so familiar at this point it’s almost more predictable than the man he wasbefore Gemma died. The man I knew and trusted and believed above anyone else.
Breaking my heart one lie at a time.
“I can’t do this right now,” he says. “I have to go get dressed for the interview.”
He takes off toward our bedroom, leaving me in the kitchen. My cheeks burn red with anger, but I don’t waste one second coming apart in the kitchen. Even though I wouldreallylike to.
Storming toward the garage, I snatch my purse off the hook in the mudroom and pull out my phone. I can’t tell if I’ve lost my mind or suddenly tuned in to a level of extreme focus when I pull up the 310 number, and my thumbs start flying as I type out a message.
10:32 A.M.
Where are you?
If Beau won’t talk, I’ll take my chances with the man who taught me information is leverage.
A thought bubble appears almost immediately, and then I have my answer.
10:32 A.M.
