I should’ve stepped in and stemmed the flow of distrust between her and them. I knew they thought our hasty marriage was suspicious that we’d had something going on behind my wife’s back. But now that I think about it, my response to that had been lukewarm at best, while now the thought of anyone thinking such a thing, such blatant disrespect for the woman I loved, makes me furious.
I ran downstairs to the portrait as if it had the answers, but all I saw was Adrienne looking down at me. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe I’ve finally broken after barely holding it together all these years. I looked down at the message again, but it didn’t make any more sense this time around either.
Becky and Adrienne had been very close; I reminded myself. Adrienne always spoke very highly of her and had filled my ears more than once with stories of their time spent together with the kids. Adrienne would’ve told me if there’d been any animosity between them, and besides, Becky had no reason to want my wife dead.
We barely knew each other back then, Becky and I, so there hadn’t been any time for her to grow an attachment and get ideas. She’d been almost as broken up about Adrienne’s passing as I’d been that I’d seen with my own eyes. This had to be someone’s idea of a joke, a tasteless one at that.
So why is there a niggling doubt in the back of my mind? Why do I feel like something’s about to jump out at me? Is it normal for life to have this many twists and turns in such quick succession? Why did this all start happening here lately? If I didn’t know better, I’d think this whole thing was a concentrated effort on someone’s part. But who? The Russos? For what reason? What could they possibly have against Becky? Against us?