Chapter 55

55

That evening, Jenna visits her sister.

Catherine lets her in and they settle once again in the living room, curtains drawn. “You want anything?” Catherine asks. “Wine? Gin and tonic?”

“Sure,” Jenna says, sitting down in one of the armchairs. She sees Catherine’s already got a gin and tonic on the coffee table. “Wine, please.” Ted is hovering in the background the way he does, as if he’s not certain he’s welcome. But he obviously wants to be there—he wants to hear what she has to say.

Jenna has noticed a change in Ted. He’s lost some of his assurance. You’d expect him to be basking in the glow of all the money coming from Catherine’s inheritance, Jenna thinks. She studies him silently while Catherine is in the kitchen getting her drink. Ted doesn’t give a shit about Dan, or care about the family reputation the way Catherine does—why, then, is he looking so distressed? It strikes her, like a revelation; maybe he doesn’t believe Dan did it at all. Maybe he thinks Catherine did it.

“You okay, Ted?” she asks.

Ted says, clearly on edge, “They found some earrings of your mother’s here, in Catherine’s jewelry box. Catherine borrowed them, but the detectives don’t want to believe her.”

“What earrings?” Jenna asks.

Catherine comes back in from the kitchen and says, “The antique diamond studs, with the screw backing. You remember those? I borrowed them a while ago, and now they’re giving me a hard time about it.” She hands her a glass of red and then sits on the sofa, folding her legs underneath her. “So, what’s happening?” she asks.

Jenna gives her sister a long, contemplative look. Then she says, “The detectives want to interview me again tomorrow morning. I wanted to talk to you first.”

Catherine leans forward a little, reaching for her glass. “Why?”

Jenna hesitates for a moment, then says, “Jake changed his story and told them he wasn’t with me that night.”

Catherine goes still, her glass interrupted on its way to her lips, and says, “Was he or not?”

“No,” Jenna admits. “I asked him to lie for me.”

There’s a long silence. “What a bunch of liars we all are,” Catherine says finally, and takes a sip of her drink.

“I was home all night. I didn’t kill them,” Jenna insists. “I just don’t need the grief.”

“That makes two of us,” Catherine says.

“I’m taking an attorney with me.”

“And what will you tell them?” Catherine asks, looking into her glass.

“Nothing.”

Catherine nods. “Look,” she says carefully. “We all know Dan probably did it. But they don’t seem to have any hard evidence. Even the witness that puts Dan in Brecken Hill that night—so what? It’s not enough. It’s nothing. It’s not like he was seen at Mom and Dad’s. We should all just try to relax. We need to hold our nerve.”

Jenna looks up from her wineglass. “I had an argument with Dad that night, after the rest of you left. He said he was going to change his will, give Audrey half. He was fed up with all of us. Jake heard all that—and he told the detectives.”

“He was really going to do that? Are you sure?” Catherine asks.

“That’s what he said.” She looks hard at Catherine and asks, “Did you know?”

“What? No, of course not.” There’s a taut silence. “Jesus,” Catherine says, and finishes the rest of her drink in one go. Then she says, “That doesn’t look good for you, does it?”

---

•   •   •later that night, after Jenna is gone, Catherine sits up in bed, pretending to read a novel, while Ted does the same beside her. It’s a good thing he can’t read her mind. Because as the page blurs in front of her, she’s seeing something else—her mother’s pale face, her eyes open and staring. She’s remembering kneeling down, bending closer, as if to kiss her cheek. But instead, she reaches for the diamond earring in her mother’s earlobe. Sheila is wearing the antique diamond studs that Catherine has long coveted. She must have them. Her mother had been wearing a different pair at Easter dinner. Catherine can say she borrowed these. No one will know.

---

•   •   •dan and lisa sit on the sofa in the den, watching television. They have been awkward and tense with each other. That ease they’d always shared is long gone. Dan isn’t sure what Lisa thinks about the murders. Maybe she thinks he did it, he doesn’t know. But he’s pretty sure she doesn’t love him anymore.

Unable to concentrate on the show, he finds himself thinking about how it’s all gone to shit so fast. And none of it’s even his fault. It’s everybody else’s fault. His father’s, for selling the business and ruining his career. Rose Cutter’s, for pushing that investment on him and defrauding him. His sister Catherine’s, for suggesting Rose talk to him in the first place. He fidgets as his mind runs away with him, his leg jumping up and down on the couch. He can tell he’s annoying Lisa.

He gets up. “I’m going out for a drive.”

She looks up at him. “Why? Where are you going?” As if she’s suspicious of him.

He doesn’t like her tone, so he doesn’t answer. He leaves the den, half expecting her to get up and follow him to the door, ask him to stay home. But she doesn’t. She stays in the den, as if she no longer cares what he does. He grabs a denim jacket—not his usual windbreaker, the police have that—and leaves the house. He has to get out. He can’t sit still another minute with all this tension coursing through him. He needs to drive.

He climbs into Lisa’s car. It pisses him off that he hasn’t got his car back yet and no one can tell him when he will. Everything seems to be getting taken away from him. He turns off his cell phone and backs out of the driveway. He drives aimlessly at first, along familiar roads. Driving helps him think. It usually calms him. But lately it hasn’t, and it’s not working tonight either. His anger is festering, growing.

His mind settles on Rose, whom he blames for everything. She stole from him and now she’s getting an equal share of the family inheritance—money that was supposed to go to him and his siblings.

He knows where she lives. He’s looked it up. It was inevitable—he finds himself driving to her house. When he gets to her street of modest starter homes, he parks across from her house and stares. The lights are all out, except for one over the front door. There’s no car in the driveway.

He’s so angry at her. He clenches the steering wheel so hard that his hands begin to ache. But still he sits there, watching.

---

•   •   •rose arrives home shortly after 11:00 p.m., having had dinner with friends. She hadn’t enjoyed it. She’d been quiet and distracted throughout, enough that her friends noticed. She denied that anything was wrong. They’ll find out soon enough. She hasn’t told anyone about the will, and it looks like the Mertons haven’t either. It hasn’t yet made the news. But it’s all going to come out any day now.

The street is dark as she pulls into her driveway. She’s glad she left the light on over the front door. As she parks her car and gets out, she notices the small car across the street. There’s a man inside, and she thinks he’s watching her. Instantly, her heart begins to race. She can’t tell who it is—it’s too dark. She doesn’t want to stop and get a good look. She has to get inside. She rushes up the steps to the door and fumbles with the key, listening for the sound of a car door opening behind her, footsteps on the pavement. Once inside, she locks the door and throws the deadbolt. Then she leans against the door in the dark, breathing fast.

She desperately wants to turn on all the lights, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to be able to see her inside the house. She sits in the kitchen in the pitch dark with her cell phone in her hand, poised to hit 911.

Finally, around one in the morning, she gets up the nerve to creep out to the living room and look outside from behind the curtain. The car is gone.