Chapter 62

62

Ever since they released Irena, Catherine has been on edge. They’d never found out why they arrested her, or why they let her go. Irena isn’t answering her calls, or her front door, which is unnerving. And they had taken DNA from all of them, two days ago.

Catherine hears the doorbell ring and rises quickly, startled. She feels dizzy, suddenly. Are they here to arrest her now? They can’t be. She hasn’t done anything. But she feels the panic rising in her chest. Fear for her unborn child.

She reaches to open the door, a deep dread in the pit of her stomach. “Audrey,” she says in surprise. Her voice turns icy. “What are you doing here?”

“May I come in?” Audrey asks.

Catherine hesitates, then steps back and opens the door wide. Ted has joined them now, and he’s got that expression on his face that she has come to hate—a look of fear. It makes her want to shake him. They make their way into the living room and sit down.

“I’ve been talking to Irena,” Audrey says.

Catherine stares back at her, her heart in her throat, and steels herself. Why would Irena talk to Audrey, when she won’t talk to them? She’s afraid to look at her husband. “Why would Irena talk to you?”

Audrey says, “Irena and I have known each other for a long time. We understand one another. I took care of her cat while she was arrested.”

Catherine looks back at her in dismay.

Audrey explains about Irena’s car being seen. She adds, “Irena says that someone else must have used her car that night.”

Catherine tries to speak, but her mouth is dry.

Then Ted says, his voice flat, “That’s—that’s ridiculous, surely?”

Audrey replies, “Actually, they know someone else must have used her car that night, because she was at home, on the phone. They have records.” She pauses, clearly delighting in passing on this information. “She says that all of you kids knew that she kept a spare set of keys in the backyard.”

Catherine doesn’t respond, but she glances quickly at Ted and registers that he has gone a shade paler.

“And I know something else. They found DNA evidence—a hair—from someone else in the driver’s seat of that car, even though Irena says none of you have ever been in her car, as far as she knows.”

“How do you know that?” Ted asks, his voice accusatory, as if he thinks she’s making all this up.

“I know a newspaper reporter who’s friendly with someone in the lab. She told me, hoping I would give her a story.”

“Whose DNA was it?” Catherine asks, her mouth dry. She can barely get the words out.

“Jenna’s.”

Catherine sinks against the back of the sofa, a tumult inside her. Jenna. She takes a deep breath. Jenna knew that night that their father was going to change his will. Jake told the detectives. Catherine had been troubled when Irena was arrested; it seemed to turn the world upside down. She’d thought all along that Dan had done it, that he was the one most like their father. She’d always worried about his strange, stalking behavior; she knows about his habit of driving around alone at night. He inherited their father’s worst impulses, she thought, but not his genius for business. “So they think Jenna did it?” she says finally. “Are they going to arrest her?”

Audrey shakes her head, clearly frustrated now. “My reporter friend says it won’t be enough to arrest her for murder. Apparently they interviewed her and let her go.”

Catherine doesn’t want the family name dragged through the mud. She wants it all to go away. She realizes, almost with a feeling of surprise, that it’s going to be okay. Nothing terrible is going to happen. Jenna won’t go to prison; she won’t even be arrested. And neither will Dan. Everything is going to be fine. They can breathe again, now that they know. Life will go on. The scandal will recede, eventually. And they’ll all be rich. The only one going to jail is Rose.

She suddenly feels as if a terrible burden has been lifted from her shoulders. She has to stifle the impulse to smile. Instead, she looks appropriately grim and says, “Thank you, Audrey, for letting us know.”

“I thought I should tell you. I wasn’t sure anyone else would.”

Catherine narrows her eyes at Audrey. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You’ve always disliked Jenna the most.”

Audrey gets up to leave. “Fred should never have been murdered at all. I should have got my rightful share whenever he died of cancer, which would have been soon enough.” She strides to the front door and turns around for a final comment. “You know what I’d really enjoy? Seeing Jenna convicted.”

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•   •   •dan is at home when he gets a call from Catherine. He feels his body flood with adrenaline as Catherine explains everything. He closes his eyes in relief for a moment. The detectives will back off him now. And it’s good to finally know. It’s good to know which of your siblings you have to keep an eye on. How odd that he has Audrey to thank for it. “What should we do?” Dan asks. “I mean, do we tell her we know, or what?”

Catherine is quiet on the other end of the line for a moment, thinking. “I don’t think we can let her get away with it with us, you know?”

Dan is silent. He doesn’t want her to get away with it at all.

Catherine says, “Can you come over tonight? We have to let Jenna know we know and reassure her that we’re never going to say anything.”

“Okay,” Dan says reluctantly. “If you think that’s wise. You know what a temper she has.”

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•   •   •the atmosphere is palpably tense in Catherine’s house that evening.

Now that the moment has arrived, Catherine finds that she’s nervous and glances at Ted for support. He looks on edge too. She doesn’t know exactly what she expects—some sort of cold denial from Jenna—but they must reveal to her that they know. She and Dan will have to keep an eye on Jenna and hope she will never have any cause to murder anyone else.

Irena, who had finally answered her call, had declined her invitation. She didn’t want anything more to do with them. Irena told her she had decided to retire and move south when she got her bequest, that she would send her a Christmas card. And then she hung up. Catherine could hardly blame her. Her loyalty only went so far; she’d almost been framed for murder.

They are all here—except for Audrey—she and Ted sharing the sofa, Jenna in one armchair and Dan in the other, Lisa sitting beside him in the other chair Catherine has pulled up. Catherine has already poured everyone a glass of wine, and is nursing her fake gin and tonic.

Catherine aims to make her voice as neutral as she can and says, “We found out, Jenna, that the detectives found your DNA in Irena’s car, that they think it was you who murdered Mom and Dad.” She watches Jenna’s expression grow cold, her mouth taking on an angry shape. “But it’s all right,” Catherine continues. “Because nothing’s going to happen. That hair in Irena’s car—it’s not enough to arrest you. It’s going to be okay.” There’s a moment of loaded silence.

“How dare you,” Jenna says in a menacing voice.

Catherine recoils. She’s seen her sister like this before; she’s frightening. Catherine glances at the others for support. “We know, Jenna. There’s no point in denying it to us. We’re not going to do anything.”

“They don’t know anything,” Jenna says icily. “They found a hair of mine in Irena’s car. They don’t know how it got there—but maybe you do.” She looks nastily back at Catherine and Catherine feels sick. She can’t mean to put this on her. She glances up quickly at Ted, but he’s staring at Jenna as if there’s a snake coiled in the chair.

“Or maybe it was you, Dan,” Jenna says, turning to him.

Dan gapes at her.

Jenna says, “I don’t know who, but one of you killed Mom and Dad and put my hair in Irena’s car.”

“No one else put it there,” Catherine says quickly, as the situation becomes clear to her and her nerves lurch crazily. This is what it has come down to—Jenna murdered their parents. But now Catherine’s own husband will never be entirely sure that it wasn’t her. She glances at Lisa, and she sees the desperate uncertainty there as Lisa stares at the side of Dan’s head. Who will she believe? Then Catherine turns back to Jenna—but Jenna is looking at her more calmly now, her confidence restored.

Jenna says, “I never left my house that night, although I can’t prove it. But we all know each of you were out for hours.”

Catherine, silently panicking, thinks, This fucking family.