“The water?” She’s standing very still, her dark eyes fixed on me. “It probably soothed sore muscles, but that’s about it . . . Are you okay, Bryn? You look pale suddenly.”
“Actually, I started to feel kind of claustrophobic when I was wandering around all those little rooms. I need to get a breath of fresh air.” I shift my body to the left a little, readying myself to edge around her. Please, I pray, don’t let me spook her.
“I doubt that’s going to help on a day like this one,” she says, cocking her head to the side. “It’s too muggy out. Here, have a sip of water.”
My dread mushrooms. I can tell she senses that something’s up. She takes a step toward the table and reaches for an unopened bottle of water.
“Thanks, but I really should go.”
“I thought you wanted my help on a matter.”
“It wasn’t that important.”
“Well, it sounded important on the phone. What’s going on, Bryn? I can tell you’re fretting.”
“It can wait, really. There’s no urgency.”
“Something’s come up, hasn’t it? Since you first arrived. Did you get a call when I was on the phone? Did the person tell you something?”
“No, it’s nothing. I just need air. I can always come back.”
She snickers. “Please, Bryn. What do you take me for? I’m a better reader of people than that.”
She takes a small step to the left so that once again she’s squarely in front of me. She smiles, but this time it’s malevolent, the grin of a fairy-tale witch. I realize she’s got no intention of letting me leave. Her plan was always to lure me here.
“You know, I like you, Bryn,” she says, “though I must admit, I wasn’t expecting to. We’ve actually got a lot in common.”
“You mean professionally?” I need to humor her, force her guard down and then, at the right moment, tear around her.
“Please,” she scoffs. “That’s a given. I’m talking about Guy.”
So it’s true. She knows Guy. Has she really slept with him?
“My husband?”
“Yes. He’s been a cad to both of us, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Guy seems so fucking solicitous, so eager to please, but at the end of the day he’s looking out only for number one, isn’t he, Bryn?”
“You . . . you had an affair with him?”
“You make it sound like such a cliché. It wasn’t just an affair. You need to know that Guy and I had something very, very special.”
“Sandra, you can be with Guy if you want. I’ve already moved out.”
She smiles again. I let my gaze sneak over her shoulder, calculating the distance to the corridor. I have to pick the right moment to flee, when she least expects it.
“I know that, Bryn. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. But you were never the problem, really. Guy was going to leave eventually; he needed to take it slow, though, especially after your mental meltdown.”
As much as I need to escape, I feel desperate as well to know the truth.
“Did you leave the matches in my drawer?”
“Oh, don’t seem so stern about it, Bryn. I was simply having a little fun, messing with your head. I planned to leave the matches in your mailbox, but when you hobbled upstairs, you gave me the perfect opportunity—and the cash was just a nice bonus for my efforts.”
“How did you know about the accident?”
“Guy told me, of course. About how you went all Miss Mopey on him. Guy’s a doer, and no offense, it’s hard for him to relate to someone whose go-to stance after a trauma is the fetal position. You really shouldn’t take these things so personally, Bryn.”
Even through my fear I feel a stab of deep sadness. Guy not only betrayed me, but he shared private details about me with this horror show of a woman.
“And you tried to get into the house one night?”
She shrugs. “I realized Guy had moved out and was back in the apartment. Again, I was just having a little fun. Like I said, you were never the real problem, Bryn. That bitch Eve was. She was the one who needed to be dealt with.”
My breath catches. She did it. She killed Eve. Panic floods me, and the bones in my arms and legs seem to dissolve. Sandra rears her head back and looks at me dismissively, as if I’m just not getting it.
“He was sooo fucking obsessed with her,” she says. “I could see it at the events she catered for him—he was practically drooling over her. When he told me we had to cool it for a while, he said it was because you were coming up here, that you’d absolutely insisted on living here this summer, but I could tell the real reason. He wanted to be with Eve. She was toying with him, working him into a lather, and it was only a matter of time before he got his way. Guy always gets his way, doesn’t he?”
She’s becoming more agitated. I can’t fathom how I’m going to dodge around a woman who is strong enough to kill another person with an ax, but I’m going to have to do it—and bolt for the door.
“I don’t care, Sandra,” I say. “It’s between you and Guy.”
“You don’t care, Bryn? You found the body that day, how could you not care?”