She doesn’t believe that Patrick killed his first wife deliberately. Stephanie knows him. It’s an outrageous claim. If he really was in love with Erica, like she says, then why wouldn’t he just leave Lindsey, like Erica claims she wanted? That’s what anyone would do. There’d be no reason to kill her.

Except – there was going to be a baby, and supporting a young family you’ve left is very expensive. And there was that insurance money.

She goes wearily around and around the living room, the thoughts going around and around her mind, just as wearily. Erica is a blackmailer, a cold-blooded liar. But she’s so persuasive, so believable. Still, even if Erica, with all her lies, is able to make the authorities believe that the affair was serious, that’s not enough, surely, to prove that Patrick murdered his first wife? But then she remembers the money, and feels a wave of nausea sweep over her. Her knee bumps the sofa and she stumbles a bit. And then she remembers the warning that Erica had left her with: If he did it once, he could do it again. She closes her eyes for a moment and stands still. No. She will not go there. Erica was just trying to mess with her mind.

Stephanie bites her lip and resolutely refuses to allow her mind to go down that treacherous path. She tries to stick to what she knows for sure. Erica knows they’re not going to pay. She certainly won’t get anything out of them once she goes to the police. She might go to the police anyway, out of spite. If she does, this thing is going to take on a life of its own. With any luck it will be dealt with quickly in Colorado and no one here will ever have to know.

But if it isn’t – if it comes to the attention of the media, if she doesn’t get some sleep – she’s afraid that she’s going to snap.

Early the next morning Erica drives to LaGuardia Airport for her direct flight to Denver.

She’d thought about it all through her shift the night before. Then she’d gone home and packed an overnight bag for Colorado. She’s going to pay a visit to the Sheriff’s Office. It’s the best way she’s got of protecting herself from Patrick.

She sleeps the entire flight, and once she’s landed, she picks up a rental car – a convertible. She sits in the driver’s seat for a minute, thinking of what’s behind her, and now, what’s ahead of her.

She used to live in Denver. Her son is here. She’d moved downtown – out of Creemore – after Lindsey died. But today she will go back to Creemore, where it all happened. She will visit the sheriff and tell him everything. She really hadn’t thought this would be necessary. She’d misjudged things.

But she’s starting to consider another possibility. When one door closes, she thinks, another one opens.

Stephanie fumbles through the morning, forgetting what she’s doing, bumping into things, berating herself for not paying enough attention to the twins. She stands in the kitchen, her mind in a fog, knowing that she should get the girls ready for the buggy. But she doesn’t have the energy to face it all, the enormous effort it will take. She reaches automatically for another cup of coffee, but the caffeine isn’t helping. Maybe she should stop drinking it altogether. But then how the hell would she manage? It’s not easy looking after twins all day and most of the night too.

She takes her coffee and her laptop into the living room. With one eye on the babies, she turns on her computer and googles sleep deprivation. What she sees disturbs her. There can be physical effects – clumsiness and being prone to accidents. She knows. But it’s the psychological effects that are even more concerning. Forgetfulness. Yes. Emotional instability, mood swings. Yes, but it’s hard to tell if that’s from lack of sleep, considering the circumstances. Loss of perspective. Quite possibly. Acting impulsively, uncharacteristically. Imagining things, hallucinating. Will all these things happen to her, if she doesn’t soon get these babies to sleep on a schedule?

Are they happening already? In her darkest moments, she has actually imagined Patrick packing the snow deeper into that exhaust pipe, leaning on his shovel, taking his time, waiting for the carbon monoxide to work, to rid himself of his unwanted family … She gives her head a quick shake, and then another. Tells herself to stop it.

She doesn’t know if her wild imaginings are a result of not sleeping, or a legitimate response to what she’s learning about her husband. When she’s feeling awake, and lucid, she knows better. She knows Patrick would never hurt anyone, let alone someone he loved. She’s beginning not to trust herself, her own thoughts. No wonder she’s starting not to trust him.

And Patrick – he, too, is affected by the lack of sleep, and being under all this additional stress. They would both be handling things better if they were more themselves, and not trying to cope with this cycle of colic and exhaustion.

But she doesn’t see any sign of the babies changing their routine any time soon.

She sits on the sofa, overwhelmed with fatigue, and she can feel herself starting to go down the rabbit hole. She stares at the pattern in the rug and can’t seem to drag her eyes away, even if she moves her head. Her mind shifts to Erica and what she might be doing now. Suddenly Stephanie gets up, knocking her coffee mug over on the floor at her feet, but she ignores the spill and rushes to the front door and looks out at the porch, to see if Erica is there. But the porch is empty. She locks the door and wanders back to the living room. Erica is the enemy, she reminds herself, the serpent who has intruded into their almost-perfect lives to destroy them. Her husband isn’t guilty of what she accuses him of.

She thinks about getting the buggy ready and taking the twins out for their morning walk. But what if Erica is out there? Patrick says she’s dangerous, possibly a psychopath. Patrick doesn’t want her to talk to Erica ever again.

Stephanie sits on the sofa, almost catatonic, too tired and afraid to go out of the house at all, while the spilled coffee seeps into the rug.

CHAPTER THIRTY

ERICA SETS OFF on the hour-long drive from the Denver airport to Creemore. She skirts the city, and soon leaves it behind. Her route takes her into the Denver foothills; it’s a beautiful drive, but she’s not taken with the scenery. The familiar road unwinds in front of her.

When she arrives in town, she finds herself taking an unplanned detour back to where it all happened, to the residential street where Patrick and Lindsey had lived. She parks her rental car across from the old brick house where they had the second-floor apartment. She gets out of the car and stares at the front window on the second floor. That was their living room. Erica can still picture it perfectly; cheaply furnished, crowded with items – some new, some second-hand – for the expected baby. Erica turns and looks at the little cul-de-sac where their car was parked that day, the day Lindsey died. It’s late August, and it’s hard to imagine, right now, this street buried in four feet of snow. She tries to remember exactly where Lindsey’s body lay that day, but there’s no snowbank, so she can’t be sure. Then she closes her eyes and suddenly she can see it all.

After a few minutes, she gets back into the car and drives to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. It’s a large concrete-and-glass building set back from the road. She parks in the lot and takes a moment to mentally prepare herself. Finally she gets out of the car and strides up to the front doors and walks in. She approaches the uniformed woman at the front desk.

‘Can I help you?’ the woman asks.

‘I’d like to speak to the sheriff, please.’

‘Can I ask what it’s regarding?’

‘It’s about an old case,’ Erica says. ‘I have some important information.’

The other woman studies her for a moment. ‘Wait here,’ she says, and leaves the desk. She soon returns and says, ‘Come this way, please.’

They walk down a shiny corridor, their footsteps noisy on the floor. They arrive at an office, its door open. ‘In here,’ the woman says, and departs.

A tall, burly man wearing a dark uniform stands up from behind his desk and approaches her. He looks to be in his early forties, she thinks. ‘I’m Lorne Bastedo,’ the sheriff says, shaking her hand.

‘Erica Voss,’ she says.

He offers her a seat and sits down behind his desk. ‘What can I do for you?’

Tags: Shari Lapena Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net