CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 41

NEENA

Over the last sixteen years, I had seen Matt run through every gamut of emotion. Pride. Fear. Pain. Love. And he had been mad, even furious upon rare occasion. But I’d never seen the look of hatred he wore when we stepped into the office and closed the door.

“Did I just hear you tell her that you think I invented this entire thing?” His voice was very calm, but the glint in his eyes was that of a man pushed to the edge.

“That wasn’t what I was saying to her,” I protested. “I was just saying that I was tired and that I didn’t see anything. That for all I knew, there wasn’t anyone in our room.”

“Look at me, Neena.”

I did. I looked into the eyes of the man I had married at nineteen and wanted to divorce by twenty-two. It wasn’t his fault. Over the past twenty years, he’d gained an extra forty pounds and lost half of his hair, but he was the same guy. Loyal. Dependable. Hopelessly in love with me. I was the one who’d changed.

“Have I ever made anything up?”

No. He was annoyingly honest. Once, when he’d bought a used car and found a hundred dollars tucked in the manual, he’d tracked down the prior owner just to return it. It was freakish and unnatural, and I couldn’t help but think that some of it was guilt over a then-five-year-old crime.

“I didn’t say you made it up,” I insisted.

“Yes, you did. That was exactly what you were saying.”

“They’re going through all our stuff, Matt. I’m exhausted, and I’m ready for them all to leave, and there’s a big difference between a psychopath standing in our bedroom versus a thief. If someone was in our room, it wasn’t to kill us. He was robbing us. You’re being overdramatic, and it’s causing them to look at this in the wrong way.” To look at me in the wrong way.

“I came this close to dying.” He held his thumb and his forefinger a hairbreadth apart. “You haven’t even reacted to that. You haven’t even asked if I’m okay. To be frank, I’m not sure you even care. You’re exhausted? Could you make this any more about you?”

I flinched at his words, the hatred delivered with a spray of spit, his face turning red as his voice rose in volume. When he stopped, I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, sorry. Please keep your voice down. You want all these people here? Fine. Let them cover our house with fingerprint powder. But don’t forget what’s in that safe upstairs.” I stepped forward and hissed out my words at a volume that only he could hear. “We cannot let them search the house. Do you understand me?”

A conversation sounded from the hall, and I stiffened, holding up a hand to stop his response. Listening closely, I recognized the voice and pulled open the door, a tremor of excitement zipping through me.

William was here.