Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

William

W hen the officer first took Carlotta away, I was deliriously happy. So happy that I didn’t even feel the need to drink. She was in jail and I was free. It was going to be okay. I wasn’t going to take the blame for any of this. I mean, Carlotta’s words rang true to some extent, but even if I had pushed Candy, it was all Carlotta’s fault, anyway.

If she hadn’t driven me into Candy’s arms in the first place, none of this would have happened. If she didn’t go out of her way to emasculate me and make me crave affection, then none of this would have happened. If she’d even just quietly accepted the affair and pretended not to know about it like she had every other time she had driven me into the arms of another woman, then none of this would have happened.

I decided against bailing her out. It wouldn’t look good for my story. I had told the detective that Carlotta was guilty. If that were true, I would hardly have been rushing down to the precinct to free her, would I?

I went to bed happy, but I woke up in a slightly melancholier frame of mind. What I was doing to Carlotta was wrong. She had known all along that I was the guilty one, and she had risked everything to cover for me. But all the same, the police weren’t going to just let this go until they had found someone to blame for Candy’s murder, and I wasn’t about to take the fall for it. So it had to be Carlotta. I had no other choice. I wasn’t the bad guy here. The damned detective who just wouldn’t give up was the real villain, turning Carlotta and me against each other like this.

I was also a little nervous about what Carlotta might tell the police once she found out she was in the line of fire. Would she tell them what had really happened? The more I thought about it, the less worried I was about that part. Even if she did tell them the full story, they wouldn’t believe her. They would assume she was backtracking and trying to save her own skin now that she knew I had come forward. In this scenario, it definitely paid to get in first. I just wished I had thought to do it sooner.

The same thoughts echoed in a constant loop around my mind, haunting me, and I did the only thing I could think of to silence the voices. I went to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a large drink. I didn’t even bother lying to myself and telling myself I was only having one. I took the bottle with me to the couch and proceeded to get stinking drunk.

I was well on my way to incoherent when I heard the front door opening. I didn’t attempt to get up, and a second later, the lounge door slammed open and an enraged-looking Carlotta stood in the doorway. She stormed into the room and grabbed a glass, pouring herself a gin and tonic. She took her drink to the couch opposite me and shook her head.

“What sort of a fucking lame excuse for a man are you, William? Not only are you happy for me to take the fall for a crime you committed, but you didn’t even have the common decency to come and bail me out,” she shouted.

Her loud, high-pitched voice instantly grated on my last nerve .

“Don’t start, Carlotta. I’m really not in the mood for this,” I slurred.

“Don’t start?” she snapped. “You’re kidding me, right? How did you expect me to react to any of this, William? And I have news for you. I wasn’t in the mood to spend a night in a stinking jail cell because of your fucking lies.”

“I expected you to react exactly like this, all shrill and hysterical. Why do you think I didn’t come and bail you out? I figured at least this way I’d get one night without you on my case.”

Carlotta drained the rest of her drink and stood up. She looked at me with such contempt that if I wasn’t too drunk to stand up, I really would have gone for her.

“You’re a joke, William. I don’t even want to look at you right now,” she said.

She stormed back out of the room and I breathed a sigh of relief. Soon, I wouldn’t have to hear her nagging voice any longer. She had spent the night in a cell, and surely, that meant she had been officially charged with the murder. They had obviously let her out until the trial, and I could only hope they had that on some sort of fast track route.

I finished the rest of my own drink and poured another one. I swallowed it down in one go. I started to reach for the bottle again, but I could feel my eyelids growing heavy and my head spinning, and I decided to close my eyes for a moment instead.

I stood beside the bed, my eyes fixed on Candy as she rants at me, the knife blade gleaming in her hand.

“I don’t want a fucking abortion. I want us to be a family. You, me, and our baby. How can you just write our baby off like this?” She pauses and smiles knowingly. “Is it because Carlotta is here? You can drop the act, William. Just tell her you love me, and we can start our life together.”

“For the last time, Candy, he doesn’t love you. He loves me. He wants nothing to do with you or your bastard child,” Carlotta snaps.

Candy’s attention snaps to Carlotta, a manic gleam in her eyes. She starts to stalk toward Carlotta, the knife coming up, and for a second, everything goes into slow motion as I watch, dreading what’s going to come next. Candy keeps walking toward Carlotta. Carlotta backs up, but within a few steps, her back is against the wall and she has nowhere left to go.

I know what’s going to happen. Candy is going to kill Carlotta. She raises the knife right above her head, and Carlotta looks across the bed at me, a pleading look in her eyes. I can almost taste her fear. She knows she’s going to die.

As suddenly as it started, the slow-motion stops. Now everything is moving fast, too fast. I don’t think, I just react. I jump across the bed, putting myself between Candy and Carlotta. I push Candy hard to one side.

She stumbles but she doesn’t fall, and she keeps her grip on the knife. Time slows down again, and a thousand thoughts tumble through my mind, but only one is useful to me, and I grab it like a drowning man grabbing onto a life jacket.

I know in that moment what I must do. I have to give Candy another little shove. She’s already off balance, and the window is right there behind her. Another little shove and she’ll go through it, and my problem will be solved. No crazy stalker. No more baby. I can have my life back.

I advance on Candy. For a split second, I see the fear in her eyes, and I almost reach to take the knife away from her instead, but I ignore the fear on her face and the fear that’s threatening to overwhelm me, and I strike out with both hands and push her as hard as I can.

She goes flying backward, her feet coming off the ground. Still, she grips the knife. Her back hits the window, and the glass breaks, a musical tinkling sound that’s out of place in a scene so violent.

Candy disappears out the window, and the last word out of her mouth is my name as she plummets to her death.

I jumped awake, and for a second, I didn’t know where I was. I blinked as I sat up, ignoring the pain in my head. I was in the lounge at home. Alone. Still more than a little drunk.

It all came flooding back to me. Carlotta had been charged with Candy’s murder, kept at the station overnight because of what I told the police. But now she was back here and being her usual irritating self, lecturing me, moaning at me, squawking her demands and complaints, and driving me to drink.

That thought reminded me of the bottle and glass beside my feet, and I poured myself another large measure of whisky and sat sipping it, trying and failing to not think about my latest dream.

I’d pushed Candy away from Carlotta and saved Carlotta’s life. I guess that bit was nothing to be ashamed about. But then I’d pushed her again, making damned sure she went out that window. That part wasn’t so good, and if I let it come, I knew I would feel ashamed of that part of the night.

I tried to tell myself that I really had no choice, that she wouldn’t have stopped coming for us until we were dead, but I knew that wasn’t true. I could have talked her down. I could have at least tried. All I would have had to do was tell her what she wanted to hear—that we could be a family. That would have calmed her down, and once I took the knife away from her, we could have called the police and just kept her at arm’s length until the police arrived. It wouldn’t have been that difficult, really.

But the second time I pushed her, I wanted her to go out that window. I wanted her to die. I had no idea why I had done it, but I knew this—I was a killer. A cold-blooded killer. I hadn’t accidentally killed Candy in order to save Carlotta. I had killed her intentionally for some reason I didn’t even have the decency to remember.