The End of Her

She tilts her head at him. ‘You know, Patrick, we could pick up where we left off …’

He smiles – as if with regret – and shakes his head firmly. ‘No. It was a long time ago.’ He exhales heavily. ‘I’m not going to cheat on Stephanie.’ He leans back, putting distance between them.

‘Really?’ She raises her eyebrows at him as if she doesn’t believe him.

‘Yes, really.’

‘Why not? It didn’t bother you to cheat on Lindsey.’

It hits him like a blow. ‘That was different.’

‘How was it different?’ Her voice has surprise in it, and a bit of an edge.

He hesitates. ‘I was younger then – I was only twenty-three, for Christ’s sake. I was a kid. I only thought about myself.’

‘Aren’t you going to order a drink?’ she asks.

He hadn’t been planning on it, but now he changes his mind and beckons the waiter over. He orders a Scotch and they both wait until the server is out of earshot.

She considers him for a moment. ‘Do you love her, your new wife?’

‘Yes, I do. With my whole heart.’

‘So that’s what’s different,’ she says. ‘You didn’t love Lindsey.’

‘That’s not true,’ he says quickly. ‘Of course I loved her.’

She watches him closely and says, ‘That’s not how I remember it.’

He looks back at her, feeling a chill.

He’d slept with his wife’s best friend. He had behaved badly, but so had Erica. He had betrayed his wife, she had betrayed a friend. He studies Erica sitting across from him in the dimly lit bar. He has to put this to rest once and for all.

‘Look, Erica …’ He tries to read her expression as she looks back at him. She’d avoided him after the accident. He thought it was remorse for what they’d done. He remembers how she’d caught his eye across the room, the casket between them, and pushes the memory away. ‘I’m married, with newborn twins. I’m not looking to have an affair. I should have made that perfectly clear yesterday. I came here today to make sure you understand that.’

She answers him. ‘I see.’ Her mood seems to have changed on a dime.

For a moment he simply stares at her. She can’t seriously be hoping to rekindle what they had. What is she doing here? His uneasiness grows.

‘It’s been almost ten years,’ she says. ‘A long time to think.’

‘About what?’

‘The accident.’ She looks at him intently. ‘Do you still think about it?’

‘I try not to. But sometimes.’

‘I do, a lot.’ A silence descends between them.

‘You miss Lindsey. Of course you do,’ he says finally. ‘I do too.’

She looks up at him. ‘That’s not what I mean. I think about how she died.’

He stares back at her, unnerved. ‘You blame me.’

‘Of course I blame you. Everyone does.’

It’s like a punch to the stomach. ‘I blame myself too,’ he says. His voice is bitter. ‘Every day. But it was an accident.’

Into the fraught silence Erica says, ‘Just because they said it was an accident doesn’t mean it was.’

He recoils in surprise, his heart pounding. ‘What?’ When she doesn’t respond, he says, his voice low, ‘Are you saying – are you accusing me of killing my wife on purpose?’

‘It’s crossed my mind.’

‘Why – why the hell would you think that?’ he asks. His heart is racing now. It had been ruled an accident. There was no question. No suspicion at all. It was a sad, tragic event. At the time, everyone had shaken their heads, looked at him with terrible pity, but no one had suggested that he’d done it on purpose. That he’d deliberately murdered his wife.

She spells it out for him now, and there’s cold calculation in her voice. ‘You remember. You told me you felt trapped, you were unhappy. I thought you were in love with me. Imagine what it was like for me when she died. I thought – I was afraid – that you’d done it on purpose.’ She adds, ‘And I’ve had to live with that ever since.’

Patrick’s mind reels. Where was this coming from? He’d told her no such thing, and they both know it. He remembers again how she’d spurned him at the funeral, turned her back on him. ‘You’re out of your mind,’ he says shortly.

‘Am I?’

He looks back at her in growing horror. So this is why she’s here. Then he takes a deep breath and speaks, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘You’re wrong. I was a bad husband, and you were a bad friend, but that’s it,’ he assures her. ‘I didn’t kill her so that I could be with you, and you damn well know it.’

‘And I’m supposed to just take your word for it?’ Her voice is sly.

His uneasiness spikes; he can feel his heart pounding hard in his chest. He says, trying to keep his voice even, ‘I don’t know what else to tell you, Erica. It was an accident. The police thought it was an accident. The press thought it was an accident. You’re the only one who seems to think otherwise – and we both know you’re pretending.’ He tells himself that he has nothing to be worried about.

But he still hasn’t told Stephanie the truth about what happened to his first wife. He wants to tell her at some point, he always meant to. And he will. He’d told Stephanie that his first wife had been killed in a car accident. But Erica knows what really happened. What if she tells Stephanie? Now, when she’s so worn out and frazzled with the twins? It wouldn’t be the best time – it would be the absolutely worst possible fucking time. Stephanie wouldn’t be able to deal with it rationally. She wouldn’t understand.

Why the fuck had he come here today? He should have known better.

As if reading his mind, Erica says, ‘Does your wife know about what happened?’

He feels himself colouring. He must not give himself away, but he’s afraid he already has.

‘Ah, she doesn’t,’ Erica says, confirming his fears. ‘You never told her.’ She’s goading him now. ‘I mean, who would marry a man who cheated on his first wife? A man who killed her – even if it was by accident?’ He stares back at her stonily, saying nothing. ‘I wonder if I should tell her?’

‘Why the hell would you do that?’ he asks.

‘Maybe she should know who she married. What if you have something like that in mind for her?’

He’s struck with a sudden fury. ‘You miserable bitch,’ he says. ‘You have a twisted, fucked-up mind.’ They eye each other in silence. He feels sick. ‘What’s going on here, Erica?’ he asks coldly. ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’

‘Money.’ Her blue eyes stare back at him, cool and unwavering.

It hits him like a blow. That’s what this is. She’s blackmailing him. She wants him to pay her so that she won’t say anything to his wife. Why didn’t he see this coming? How could he have been so naive? He snorts. ‘Well, that’s too bad, because I don’t have any.’

‘A successful man like you?’

So that’s what she’s been doing, snooping around the edges of his life. Coming to his office, trying to get an idea of what he’s worth. He can feel himself sweating with nerves. ‘Look,’ he says, trying to sound reasonable, ‘business has been bad lately. I haven’t got any spare cash to give you, even if I wanted to.’

She leans in closer to him. ‘Who do you think you’re dealing with? I’ve done my research. I know your business is doing just fine. And I happen to know that your wife is loaded.’ She pulls back and looks at him, very matter-of-fact. ‘Money is not one of your problems.’

He feels his stomach drop. How does she know about that? Now he’s truly frightened. He sees it all, how his future might unfold – so very differently from what he’d planned. He must shut this down. He musters every ounce of resolve he has and says clearly, ‘I’m not going to pay you anything. You need to understand that.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes. I’ll tell Stephanie everything.’ He’ll tell her as soon as he gets home today, and then Erica will have nothing to hold over him. He has to hope – to believe – that Stephanie will stand by him, even after he admits to cheating on his first wife, even after he tells her exactly how she died.

‘Everything?’ She looks at him, disbelieving.

‘I’ll tell her the truth,’ Patrick says. ‘And I’ll tell her about you and what a liar you are and what you’re trying to do. Because I don’t lie to my wife.’ He leans forward so that he’s right in her lovely face and says, ‘I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not paying you a fucking cent.’

She says, ‘Maybe it’s not your wife you have to worry about.’

‘What?’

‘Maybe I’ll finally go to the authorities and get them to take another look at the death of your first wife.’

‘Why the fuck would you do that?’

‘Because I can.’

He stares at her in shock, finishes his drink in one go, gets up, throws some money on the table and walks out. He doesn’t look back.

CHAPTER EIGHT