Fullepub 
Chapter 13
13
Jenna has had the entire drive up from New York City to think. Her parents are dead, and this changes things profoundly. For all of them.
She thinks about how it will affect her first. She will get a third of her parents’ estate. It’s a lot of money. She doesn’t know how much exactly or how long it takes to settle an estate and get it paid out. She knows it takes a bit of time, but how much time? Presumably the allowance she is currently receiving will continue until she gets her share. She’s going to be rich. She can buy a place in New York, a studio maybe, on the Lower East Side.
She thinks of Dan next. Of the three of them, he is the weakest. Emotionally, mentally. She has always wondered if it’s because of how they were brought up, or whether he was just born that way. They’re all so different, and yet they all grew up in the same fucked-up family. But they weren’t treated the same, so there’s that. Maybe Dan’s scars run deeper. But now their father can’t hurt him anymore. He’ll be rich. He won’t have to work at all if he doesn’t want to.
It’s funny how they all turned out. Catherine, the oldest, is the most conventional. Hardworking, conservative, not wanting to rock the boat. Of course she became a doctor. Of course she wants the house. She wants to become their mother. Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh.
People think there’s no harm in Catherine, but Jenna knows better.
People also think that Dan was given every opportunity to succeed, but Jenna knows that isn’t really the case. It was more like he was sabotaged by their father at every turn. Their mother wasn’t that interested in them. She could be warm sometimes, and occasionally fun, but she would also simply disappear whenever things got demanding or difficult or tense. Not that she’d go anywhere, she just disappeared inside herself. She could detach herself from any situation. Poof, and she was gone. She never stood up to their father; she failed to protect them and they resented her for it. It was pathetic really, Jenna thinks, how much they all craved her attention, how they continued to turn to her, knowing she’d let them down. They all hated their father. She’s glad he’s dead. She’s certain the others feel the same way.
It’s awful, the way they died. But it’s for the best really. It’s a lot of money, and it’s theirs now. If their parents hadn’t been murdered, they would probably have lived for a long time.
As she drives north on the highway toward Aylesford, the city falling behind, her thoughts turn to Jake. She and Jake hadn’t left the house right after the others on Sunday. They’d stayed longer, and there had been an argument. She’d called Jake while leaving his apartment on her way to her car. She’d cried down the line, made a big deal about how her last words with her parents had been harsh, and how much she regretted it. Then she worked in that it would be best if nobody knew about that argument, better to say, if anyone asked, that they’d left right after everybody else, and that he’d been with her all night. It would just be easier.
Jake had been supportive. He told her not to worry. He has that manly, protective streak in him, and she kind of likes it.
She remembers the night they met, about three weeks earlier—in a loud, pulsing, underground nightclub. She’d gone into the city to party with friends. She was spaced out on Molly, drinking heavily, but she looked good on the packed dance floor and she knew it. She likes to enjoy herself; she’ll admit she’s a bit of a hedonist. She caught him watching her from the sidelines. She stumbled over to the bar. He bought her a drink. She guessed from the smell of him—paint and turpentine—that he was an artist, and she found herself attracted to him right away. He was sexy and brooding and didn’t talk too much and he wanted to take her home with him. She was more than willing, but she wasn’t ready to leave. She told him to wait for her and went back out onto the dance floor with her friends, where she proceeded to strip off her tight T-shirt and dance topless. She likes to push the boundaries, likes to get a reaction. She’s an artist, after all; she’s supposed to challenge the status quo. She knew he was watching her. Everyone was watching her. When a bouncer tried to give her a hard time, Jake made his way over to her, wrapped his leather jacket around her—her T-shirt was lost somewhere, trampled underfoot—and took her home.
She’s so lost in thought that she arrives in Dan’s suburb in Aylesford before she knows it. And maybe she’s been pressing the gas to the floor, anxious to get there. She sees Catherine’s car in Dan’s driveway and spots Ted’s on the street—they must have arrived separately. She recognizes another car parked on the street—Irena’s old clunker. But then she sees another car she recognizes and feels a stab of annoyance. It belongs to her aunt Audrey, her father’s irritating sister. What the fuck is she doing here? They don’t want her here. Not yet.
She parks her own car on the street and walks up the driveway. She can see them all gathered in the living room through the large window. She doesn’t bother to knock, but walks right in. They’re expecting her.
As soon as she enters the room, it’s obvious she’s interrupting something. Catherine is seated in an armchair, her face strained; Ted is by her side, on a dining-room chair that’s been pulled up next to her. Lisa and Dan are on the sofa together, united in a look of dismay, and Irena is sitting in another armchair, her face set like stone. Audrey, who is in another dining-room chair that has been brought in, appears to have just broken off in the middle of saying something.
“Jenna!” Catherine says, standing up. She comes over and gives Jenna a quick hug. “You got here fast.”
Irena rises and hugs Jenna as well. Audrey folds her arms across her chest. She looks like she’s irritated at the sight of Jenna, but still, she seems—triumphant. What’s going on here?
Lisa brings in another chair from the dining room, and Jenna sits down.
A tense silence has fallen over the room. Catherine says, “Audrey was just telling us that Dad changed his will before he died.”
• • •audrey stancik looks around the room at all these spoiled children, so smug, so entitled, so sure they’re going to get what they think they’re owed. But now it’s her turn. She’s the one who’s going to get what should be coming to her. Despite the circumstances, she can’t suppress a smile.
Jenna is now regarding her with open hostility. They were all unhappy to see her, even if they initially made a feeble attempt at pretending otherwise. But Fred was her only brother. He was all the family she had left, other than her own daughter. She doesn’t consider the rest of them family.
Now Jenna says, her voice cold, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Audrey regards her with dislike. She has never got on with Jenna, who does whatever the hell she wants, with flagrant disregard for how it affects anybody else. Now she enjoys taking some of the wind out of her sails. She doesn’t bother to hide her glee. “In fact, he did it last week.”
She watches Jenna’s eyes flicker to Catherine, then Dan. She’s already dropped this little bombshell on the others, and it got a similarly disturbed reaction from them.
“What the fuck is this?” Jenna says to Catherine.
Jenna doesn’t even have the decency to direct the question to her, Audrey thinks sourly. Well, it’s always been that way, hasn’t it? They’ve always treated her as the unwanted outsider, the hanger-on, the poor relation outside their little club. It infuriates her. They don’t have any idea what she and her brother went through, what she did for him. They’ve never had to grow up. They have no clue.
Catherine turns to her. “Tell her, Audrey, what you told us.”
Audrey sits back in her chair and crosses one leg over the other. She’s going to tell them again, for Jenna’s benefit this time. Although it’s shocking and upsetting, what’s happened to Fred and Sheila, she can’t help smiling a little—this is her moment, after all. She says, “I visited your father just over a week ago, on Monday. He called me and asked me to come to the house. We had a long discussion. He told me he was going to change his will—that he would see Walter and do it later that week. Sheila already had a significant amount to live on until she died, and to leave as she wished, but regarding the bulk of his estate—half would go to me and the rest would be split among the rest of you.”
“I don’t believe that!” Dan exclaims vehemently, from the sofa. “Why would he do that?”
“It’s what he wanted,” Audrey says firmly, turning on Dan. “There’s still plenty to go around.” But she knows they’re greedy and they want as much as possible for themselves. And they don’t want her to have any of it.
“I don’t believe it either,” Jenna says. “You’re just making this up! You’ve always wanted Dad’s money.”
Audrey wants to hiss back at her, Look who’s talking,you greedy bitch, but instead she takes a deep breath, allows her smile to widen, and says, “Your mother was there too. She didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She’d already signed a postnup agreement for what she got years ago; he could do what he liked.”
“This is fucking unbelievable!” Dan bursts out angrily, standing up suddenly. Audrey jumps a little in her chair.
Catherine interjects. “Let’s just all calm down, please. Dan, sit down.” He sinks back onto the sofa. Catherine says, “As far as I know, I am the executor of our parents’ estates. I will call Walter and find out what the wills contain. I’m sure there will be no surprises,” she says meaningfully, looking at Audrey. “But I’m not going to do it this minute. Our parents have just been murdered—how would it look?”
That’s Catherine for you, always concerned about how things look—the complete opposite of her sister, Audrey thinks. But she’s right—it would be inappropriate to call the lawyer a couple of hours after the discovery of the bodies. She surveys them all with distaste. They were always brats as children, and they haven’t changed any as adults.
Fred could be cruel; she knows that as well as anyone. Audrey, his little sister, is probably the only person alive who really understood him, knew what he was made of. She looks around the room at each of them—Catherine, Dan, and Jenna. The news on the radio suggested that it was a violent robbery, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was one of them?
She sees them now through new eyes. She’s never really had to consider it before. But now she thinks about the family taint—the streak of psychopathy that has run through the Merton family. She wonders if it lurks hidden inside one of them.
Perhaps she should be more careful, she thinks uneasily.
