The End of Her

‘He might see it as a betrayal,’ Hanna says uneasily.

‘Maybe. And he’s already really depressed. It’s all been so horrible, Hanna.’ She bites her lip so that she won’t cry. She pauses and grabs a tissue from her diaper bag. ‘It was so awful when he was arrested. He won’t even talk about it.’ She pauses to gain control of herself. ‘I thought that when the police let him go, he would get past it. But Niall dumped him. He doesn’t have his business, and how is he supposed to start over? His reputation has been destroyed, even though they dropped the charges.’ She knows how bleak she must look. ‘It’s so unfair. And when I tell him I’m going to leave him—’

Hanna looks back at her helplessly and says, ‘Stephanie, God, I don’t know what to say.’

Stephanie continues, ‘He’s not himself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He blames himself for everything that’s happened. He’s moody, depressed, he says things.’

‘What things?’ Hanna says, leaning forward anxiously.

‘He says we’d be better off without him.’ She turns worried eyes on Hanna. ‘I’m afraid that if I leave him he might do something. Something drastic, harm himself.’

Hanna says urgently, ‘Forget about him. I’m worried about you. Stephanie, you should leave him. Take the twins and move out. Now.’

Should she tell Hanna about the gun? No, that would be too much. She shakes her head. ‘I’m going to see the divorce attorney first.’

‘That’s good.’

‘That might make things clearer,’ Stephanie agrees.

‘But what if he – what if he hurts you, and the twins?’ Hanna says, clearly worried.

Stephanie shakes her head. ‘He would never do anything to hurt me or the twins, I know that.’ She adds, ‘But if I tell him I’m leaving him, he’ll feel utterly abandoned. I feel so guilty. I – I’m not sure I can do it.’

‘You have nothing to feel guilty about, Stephanie,’ Hanna says strongly. ‘You have to do what’s right for you and the girls.’

Stephanie looks back at her only friend. Hanna thinks her husband is a murderer. Hanna is right. She probably thinks that if her husband were to kill himself, it would be the best thing for all concerned. She’s right about that too.

Hanna looks back at her anxiously. ‘Seriously, Stephanie, I think you have to leave him, if that’s what you want, regardless of how depressed he might be, or how he might take it. Think of yourself for a change. Think of your babies.’ She glances anxiously at the twins on their playmats. ‘What if he’s dangerous?’

Stephanie shakes her head again. ‘He’s not. We’ll be fine. He loves me and the kids. He won’t do anything to us. It’s him I’m worried about.’

Patrick slumps at the kitchen table while Stephanie is at Hanna’s with the twins. He drinks cup after cup of coffee, thinking. He’s told Stephanie that he had an extended affair with Erica, that he didn’t love her, that what happened to Lindsey was an accident. He doesn’t think she believes him.

He’d been lucky enough to meet a woman who had inherited a lot of money. If Erica hadn’t come back into the picture, things would be very different.

When he thinks about Erica his entire body tightens with rage. He realizes that he’d gladly kill Erica Voss. He should have done it when he still had the chance, before she went to the police. But he hadn’t acted decisively, he hadn’t had time to come up with a sufficiently good plan, one that he was sure he could get away with.

But now, the damage is done. There’s no point in killing her now, and besides, everyone would think he did it. They already think he killed his first wife. Even if he made it look like an accident the knives would still be out for him. Making it look like an accident is his modus operandi, they’d say.

And Stephanie would know what he’d done.

Stephanie is going to leave him. He’s sure of it. He can tell that she’s afraid of him. Her leaving him is the worst possible thing that can happen to him now.

Everyone will think she left him because he killed his first wife.

He needs to see a lawyer. He needs to know what his rights are. How quickly can she divorce him? If they’re separated, but not yet divorced, would he still get her inheritance if she were to die?

He broods into his coffee. But he can no more kill his wife than he can kill Erica. He’d never get away with it. Not now.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

LATER THAT DAY, Stephanie stands in front of the bedroom closet. She has to think, to plan. Her mind works feverishly all the time. She’s thinking about it when she feeds the twins. She’s thinking about it when she changes diapers, when she’s cooking. How will she get rid of the gloves?

She has decided that her husband should kill himself. It’s the only way out of this mess. And he’s not going to do it himself. She’s going to have to do it for him.

It’s come down to this, in the space of a few short months. They’ve gone from being a happy, well-off couple to being a pair of cold-blooded murderers. How quickly things change, she thinks. How crazy and unpredictable life is. It’s like a circus – high-wire acts and people hiding behind clown masks. How little control we have, she thinks; so much is out of our hands.

But not everything. She can do this. She can take control again. She can protect her daughters. She’s doing this for them.

We don’t always get to choose.

But sometimes you can, she thinks.

She doesn’t love him any more. She’s not willing to spend the rest of her life with him, and to share her inheritance with her cheating, lying husband who murdered his first wife. She’s not willing to live in fear, waiting for him to kill her and the twins someday. He already got away with it once.

If only she could just leave him. But she doesn’t see that as a viable option. Best case – in the eyes of the law, he’s an innocent man. He has rights. Rights to see his children. He would always be part of their lives. But she knows what he’s done. Worst case – he might be so angry if she leaves him that he comes after her and kills her and the twins. Like that man who smothered his children with pillows and stabbed his estranged wife to death. Like all those men who kill their families. There are so many of them. Angry, thwarted men who kill their wives and children.

So she has to figure out this glove business, how to get rid of them quickly. And also, it bothers her about the ammunition.

She stares at the open bedroom closet. Patrick has gone out, and she’s alone in the house. She spins the dial on the combination lock and opens the safe. She’s wearing the latex gloves she bought for just this purpose. She looks at the Glock 19 9mm handgun that she’d last seen in Patrick’s right hand. She knows the gun has his fingerprints on it, his finger was even on the trigger. It’s like a gift. But now, as she inspects the gun, she sees that it isn’t loaded. She will have to do that – that’s not a huge problem because she’s wearing gloves and she knows how. She’s fired a gun before. But she worries that the bullets might not have his fingerprints on them and the gun will. Is that a problem? Her other worry is that he might check on his gun and find that it’s loaded before she gets a chance to use it. So she will have to do this very soon. The sooner the better. She loads the bullets into the gun.

On Monday morning, Stephanie tells Patrick that she’s taking the twins out. She has a story ready if he should ask where, but he doesn’t.

She’s going to visit a law firm that specializes in divorce. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she figures if she shows up and says it’s urgent, someone will see her. She considered leaving the twins with Hanna, but Hanna has done a lot of babysitting for her, and she has been unable to return the favour.

She pushes the double buggy into the lift and takes it to the top floor. She’s done her research and Thompson Doyle is the best divorce firm in Aylesford. She apologizes for showing up without an appointment but tells the receptionist that she needs to see a divorce attorney. The young woman asks her to wait. Stephanie takes a seat. The waiting room has a splendid view of the river, but she barely takes it in. She focuses on keeping the babies from fussing, and on what she’s going to say.

‘Gabriel Thompson can see you,’ the receptionist tells her after a few minutes.

She’s ushered into his office. She takes one look around and she knows this is going to be expensive, but she doesn’t care. She can afford it.

‘How can I help?’ the attorney asks, when she has wheeled the twins in and taken the seat in front of his desk.

‘I want to divorce my husband,’ she states baldly.

‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ the attorney says dryly, with a kind smile. He’s an older man, dressed in a sober suit and tie, with tidy silver hair.

‘My husband is Patrick Kilgour,’ she says.

The attorney’s eyebrows go up and he leans forward attentively. Stephanie wonders how closely he followed the case. She hesitates for a moment, swallows.