Just Between Us

“I don’t understand why you’re even asking this,” I said during the long pause that followed. “I thought Viktor was killed during a carjacking.”

The two men exchanged a look before Kasper said, “So you didn’t know about Dr. Lysenko’s marriage?”

“What about it?”

“He consulted a divorce lawyer.”





chapter thirty-three





ALISON


Julie was a thief? This news made no sense at all to me, coming as it did in drunk and hysterical messages from Sarah. At first I thought her voice mail might have been some alcoholic hallucination, but then I’d Googled the news about the gun, and by the time I actually spoke to Sarah she sounded less hysterical, if not sober. Yes, yes, Julie was a thief, she insisted, detailing her drive to the subdivision and how Julie had admitted that she’d stolen the gun.

“She stole from me, you know,” she said. “I thought about it—remember that time I couldn’t find my pen? I bet she has it.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” I protested.

“Wouldn’t she? Are you kidding me? She stole from clients, for God’s sake.” This came out as “gosh shakes.” “Of course she’d steal from me!”

Then I found myself remembering a little wooden bird that had gone missing a few years ago and how I’d blamed the children, assuming one of them had taken and broken it, although they’d vehemently denied any knowledge of it. And then I recalled Heather’s missing sugar bowl. Maybe these things weren’t missing; maybe Julie had stolen them.

As much as I was thrown by this revelation, I was more concerned about what she’d say when the police questioned her. She expected that to happen—she’d told Sarah as much. I was sure the police knew more than was being reported. What if they had more than the gun? What if at that moment they were looking at photos sent by the blackmailer?

A day passed, then another. I wondered if Julie had already been arrested and pictured her sitting alone in a cell. No one wanted to call her, just in case the police were somehow tapping her phone. I’d gotten one slightly cryptic text: Everything’s good here. Hope you’re well, too, which could mean any number of things. Everything’s good, as in “I’ve been arrested but won’t talk”? Or, everything’s good, meaning her old client hadn’t remembered that she’d taken his gun?

I wasn’t doing well. I was still grappling with what I’d learned at the hospital, struggling to understand why Heather would lie to us about how Viktor’s first wife had died. She had to have known it was from cancer, unless Viktor had concealed that fact from her as part of some manipulation. Maybe he’d told her the story about the fall? Maybe he’d wanted her to believe that he’d gotten away with killing one wife and he could do the same to another?

And what about the other details his assistant had revealed? Was it true that he’d been having an affair? Not that it made any difference—I already knew he’d been a shit. I kept seeing that young woman’s eager, beady eyes and the calendar on the wall behind her desk. Something about all those color-coded lines marking when the doctors were out of the office. All those blue lines for Viktor. Why was it nagging at me? I couldn’t stop hearing the assistant’s whispered “a-ffair,” or seeing Tedesco’s feigned surprise as he said, “You didn’t know about the prenuptial agreement?”

Suspicion is insidious; it grows like a weed, climbing and twisting and wrapping everything in its path. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, but I couldn’t talk to Julie, not with the police around her, and I couldn’t risk confiding in Sarah given how much she’d been drinking. I was already worried about what she might accidentally let slip.

Heather wasn’t home. I called her landline and heard Viktor’s slightly accented English cheerily telling callers to leave a number. I called her cell phone multiple times, but always got her voice mail. I pictured the Nordstrom bag and Heather’s smiling face. Was she out shopping again? When she called back, I asked if I could come over. Part of me wanted to talk over the phone because I was embarrassed to ask her these questions, but I knew that I needed to see her face in order to believe her.

“I’ve got to drive to my mother-in-law’s to fetch Daniel,” she said. “She sets the schedule, of course. I don’t know why he can’t just stay the night if she’s that desperate to have his company.”

“I guess she’s concerned about him missing school.”

“Would it hurt him to miss a day? This is elementary school, not Harvard.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve got so many things to do—meetings with the lawyers, trying to clear the house out.”

“Can’t the cleaners help with that?”

“I fired them—I never liked them. They were Viktor’s choice, not mine.” She sighed. “That’s just one more thing on my to-do list—I have to find somebody, the house is a mess.”

Couldn’t she clean it herself? I heard a funny sound and realized she’d started to cry and I felt bad for even thinking that. “I just want to be done with this,” she said. “He kept all the money so tightly locked up, I can’t get to it without help from the lawyers, and his mother is sniffing around for her share, believe me. Of course she doesn’t trust me and I don’t think his lawyers do either.”

I saw Tedesco’s grin, heard him say “prenup.” A sob slipped from Heather and I tried to push away my suspicion. “I’ll come over and help you,” I said on impulse.

“What about the police? What if they’re watching my house?” Heather said, but was that a little bit of hope in her voice?

“It’s not against the law to help a grieving friend,” I said, as if that were my sole motivation. Of course I would help. But I would also ask her the questions that wouldn’t stop hammering away inside me.

Heather’s sigh held relief. “Okay, what about coming over tonight? About seven P.M.? I should be back by then.”

*

Even as I drove to Heather’s house, I told myself there was no reason to go so early. It wasn’t even five P.M. She wouldn’t be home. As I turned in to her drive, I worried about running into the police again, but there were no cars parked out front. What was I doing here? Even as I parked, I couldn’t admit it to myself. Heather had said that Viktor disabled the security cameras so the police had no record of the comings and goings, but what if she’d hooked them back up? I rang the doorbell first, just to make sure no one was home, standing on the front steps through four rings before walking over to the keypad next to the first bay of the garage.

I’d kept the text with the four-digit code, but thought she might have changed it and was both startled and pleased when it whirred into action, lifting into the ceiling. Ducking under the door, I hastily pushed the button to lower it again. The door into the house was unlocked. I stepped quietly inside, feeling horribly nervous, afraid I might set off an alarm, but the only sound was that of my footsteps echoing on the marble tile.

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