The baby had to be Ethan’s; Kate and Griff weren’t sleeping together as far as Aubrey knew. Aubrey had figured out, from her clandestine monitoring of Ethan’s texts, that Kate was begging him to run off with her. This must be why—because Kate was pregnant. This made everything so much worse. The betrayal was greater, and yet so was the tragedy of Kate’s death. Aubrey had tried to live with their affair, she really had. But the humiliation had been too great, the betrayal beyond what she could tolerate. She had to take a stand. Yet—an innocent child had died. Aubrey felt feverish, light-headed, sick at the thought of the baby.
When Aubrey emerged from the bathroom, Mikayla took one look at her and decided that she was coming down with something and needed to be driven home immediately. Aubrey went to her room, got in bed, and pulled the covers over her head. The kids fended for themselves for supper—there were enough organic veggie pizzas in the freezer to keep them for a week if need be. Lilly came by with a mug of tea but Aubrey sent her away, saying she was contagious. When Ethan came home, Aubrey first pretended to be asleep, then instructed him to sleep on the couch in his study so he wouldn’t catch what she had. Instead of asking after her symptoms, he jumped at the chance to be away from her and alone with his grief for his mistress. He thought she was too stupid to understand. He still thought that. But that was fine now, it was all right. Aubrey had a plan. Ethan would get what he deserved.
The next day, Aubrey went through the motions of her day as her mind raced. She went to work, came home, fed the kids, helped with homework, washed the dishes. She told everyone that she’d had a bout of food poisoning, but it was over now. She told Ethan he could come back to their bedroom. When he resisted, she bullied him into it, and forced herself to lie beside him no matter how much she despised him, so she could know for sure when he fell asleep.
Ethan wasn’t sleeping well; imagine that. Poor thing tossed and turned and got up more than once to go to the bathroom. Around one thirty, when his breathing finally quieted, Aubrey swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet gingerly. She tiptoed to the door, closing it softly behind her, and made her way down the stairs in the dark. By the glow of the appliances, she hurried through the kitchen to the laundry room. The laundry room was Aubrey’s turf, even more so than the yoga studio. Nobody came in here but her, and if she wanted to hide something, this was the place. There was a tall cabinet with louvered doors to the right of the washer-dryer. It normally squeaked to high heaven when you opened it, but she’d gotten out the oil can today, and now the hinges flowed like silk. Wrapping her hand in a dish towel to avoid leaving fingerprints, Aubrey reached into the cabinet with her long arm, all the way to the back, behind the Tide and the dryer sheets, and pulled out a small purse. It was a pretty thing, a little black shoulder bag with a long gold chain. Kate didn’t stint: it looked expensive. Her things were still inside—wallet, keys, lipstick, hairbrush, compact, a miniature atomizer of perfume. Aubrey raised the bag to within an inch of her nose and breathed in. It smelled like Kate, which made her feel a rush of love. And of hatred, and grief, and victory. Every emotion at once.
From the laundry room, Aubrey had to pass through the kitchen to get to the garage. On the way, she stopped at the basket to retrieve Ethan’s car keys. A noise made her jump, but it was just the cat. He meowed. She ignored him. Aubrey stepped into the garage, where the comforting smells of rubber and gasoline soothed her fraying nerves. Aubrey opened the passenger door of Ethan’s Audi and shoved the handbag as far under the seat as it would go, then stepped back to check. Good. The handbag was invisible, but not if you knew where to look for it. She’d kept the police chief’s card. She would make the call anonymously, and Ethan would finally learn that actions had consequences.
30
Jenny woke up a minute before the alarm was set to go off, her chest tight with anxiety. She was scheduled to deliver Kate’s eulogy from the well of Mem Church in a matter of hours. Lines from her speech rattled around her brain all night and kept her awake, but delivering the eulogy was not her biggest worry this morning. Just as Jenny had feared, somebody leaked the search warrant to the press, and she was expecting an onslaught of cameras and TV trucks at the funeral. The warrant named Griff as the prime suspect in Kate’s murder and gave salacious details about the crime. The beautiful blond wife goes missing on the day she files for divorce, the same day her trust fund vests, leaving her with two hundred and fifty thousand that would now go to the husband. The wife is found washed up by the side of the river with a fractured skull. The husband—whose father is a notorious fraudster once worth hundreds of millions—hides a bloodstained Brooks Brothers shirt at the bottom of the laundry hamper. It was catnip, and Jenny had no hope of containing the story now.
Keniston Eastman’s voicemail from last night still rang in her ears. He wasn’t just irate over the leak; he was distraught over his daughter’s death, and beside himself at the implication that his son-in-law was involved. Jenny would have to face Keniston this morning, and she dreaded it.
Then there were the problems closer to home. Tim slept beside her, his face in repose exhausted and troubled. He’d been out of sorts for days now. They hadn’t made up. Jenny kept her distance, walked on eggshells. She had enough trouble, between the funeral and trying to keep a lid on the publicity surrounding the murder case, to face another argument.
She got out of bed with a sigh and went downstairs to start the coffee. The boys would be up in half an hour, but before that she had time to check the news and review her speech. She threw a coat over her nightgown, stuck her feet into her UGGs, and went out to collect the Belle River Register from the curb. Overnight, snow had fallen, and the driveway was slick. White clouds of breath trailed behind her. She shook the snow from the paper in its plastic wrapper. The sky was pink and brightening rapidly, and the air was sharp as crystal. Kate would have a pretty day for her funeral, at least. But of course, Kate hated the cold.