Games We Play (Thistle Cove 2)

With surprising strength, the slim woman reaches in the car and unlatches the seat belt. Before I can react, she yanks me out.

“What are you doing?”

“Walk,” she says, pushing me forward. We’re in an area of pitch-black dark, her phone the only light. I take a step forward out of fear of what she’ll do to me if I don’t, and stumble down a path.

When we’re su

rrounded by thick brush, I ask, “Mrs. Chandler, what are you doing?”

“Cleaning up Jason’s messes. Like always.”

“What?”

“This is what being Jason Chandler’s wife means, Kenley. He gets the glory. I get to clean up his mess. It’s not new. I’ve been doing it for decades. He fucks around, screws up, and then comes crying to me to solve his problems. You, Kenley Keene, are a problem, which means it’s time for me to come up with a solution.”

My head pounds and it’s so dark that it’s very hard to focus on walking and talking at the same time. What did Monica just say? She cleans up Coach Chandler’s problems? And she considers me one?

I twist around. “Was Jacqueline a problem?”

“Jacqueline was his first,” she says, nudging me forward with the barrel of the gun. I try not to recoil. “Not his first first…that was me. He was sweet, gentle, and respectful. But there’s another side to Jason. The competitive, win-at-all-costs guy that sees everything, including sex, through a lens of victory. Jacqueline was independent. A spitfire. Loved to argue. And the minute Jason saw her, he wanted her.”

“And she didn’t want him?” I’m trying to follow.

“Oh, she did. It was one of those opposites attract, hate-fuck situations. She liked it as much as he did, more actually. She had no plans on staying in Thistle Cove, and he couldn’t handle that and took it out on her during sex. Nearly choked her to death and left an ugly mark. She was upset. I’m the one that picked her up off the road that night under the guise of talking about what a jerk Jason was. We went down by the water, and we got in a fight. I punched her in the face and jumped on her, wrapping my hands over the marks Jason had already given her. I strangled her and left her there.’

My heart hammers at the confession. It’s bold and unremorseful. I remember the bruise. “You were wearing his ring.”

“The ring that signified that he was mine, something she didn’t give a shit about.”

“So all of this is Jacqueline’s fault?”

“Jason is flawed. He may have strayed, may have had desires I couldn’t—wouldn’t—fulfill, but he’ll always be mine.”

We turn a corner on the path and a small clearing is up ahead. Suddenly it becomes obvious where we are. Monica’s light flashes a few feet away, and I see the wooden staircase leading to Rose’s cottage.

With the gun aimed on me, she climbs the steps and opens the door. Using the gun to direct me, she urges me inside. I climb the steps, and she reaches around me to turn on the light. We haven’t been out here since Rose’s memorial service and it doesn’t look like anyone else has either. I flip on the light, casting a glow over the miniature-sized room.

“Sit.”

I drop into one of the armchairs. Even if I could use my hands, there are no weapons here. An almost empty bottle of whisky. The small box that contained Ezra’s last stash of weed. Harry Styles smirking down at me from the poster on the wall.

Rose’s murderer sits across from me, gun pointed at my chest.

“I wonder if he fucked her here?” she asks absently. “Jason and Rose. He’d had his eye on her from the moment she turned sixteen. I could see it on his face. I warned her, but she didn’t care. Rose was like Jacqueline, a challenge. She loved the adventure, the risk. They were the perfect match—or so he thought—except also like Jacqueline, Rose had bigger dreams than fucking a high school coach. She wanted money. Independence. A life outside of this small town, and when she tried to break it off with him and he didn’t handle it well, she threatened to expose him.” She pushes back her hair. “Getting caught with Jackie would have been social suicide, but he was a jock. He could get away with it. Sleeping with Rose? A student? His best friend’s daughter? That’s a different ball game, a career ender. And I’d worked too hard to establish our life here—Juliette’s life here—for Rose to destroy it.”

“So you killed Rose? To protect his reputation?”

“To protect our lives.” Her eyes glaze over slightly. “She almost made it. Skipping school. Avoiding her friends' and family’s calls. Fate made me come upon her alone on that bridge while the rest of the town was at the bonfire.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you want to know. She jumped.”

The fall is long. There are rocks at the bottom and the current into the bay is swift. She wouldn’t be the first to jump off Carter’s Bridge and not survive.

“And the money?” Ezra reported that she had money—most likely given to her by BD.

“It’s hidden.”