Confidential(74)

“But are you going to provide one for me?”

I smile. “Me, personally? You mean, am I going to spring for your representation? I can’t really afford it on my salary.”

Her legs are moving even faster now. “I mean the state or the city. Whoever it is who protects my rights.”

“You’re talking about a court-appointed attorney? A public defender?”

“Yes, a public defender.”

“You have to meet certain criteria to be assigned a public defender, and it won’t be until you’re charged. If you think you need an attorney here during questioning because you’ve got something to hide, then it’ll be on your dime.”

“It’s not that I have something to hide. It’s that things are being misconstrued. Honestly, it feels like someone wants you to misconstrue them. Misdirection, is that the word?”

“You think one of your friends is making you look guilty on purpose?” Maybe both your “friends.” I think both Greer and Flora are afraid to gun for each other, and they’re both trying to make Lucinda the patsy. Or maybe Lucinda really is the killer.

“Couldn’t you see through her? You’re a smart guy.” Suddenly, she’s smiling at me. A Flora kind of smile. Seductive.

Where the fuck did that come from? She’s a pretty girl, but it’s more unsettling than it is sexy. “You seem different,” I say. “Seems like you’re done crying over this guy.”

“Sometimes when I’m threatened, I get really calm. I’m good in a crisis.”

“And I’m a threat? This is a crisis?”

“Wouldn’t you think it was a threat and a crisis if someone was trying to pin a murder on you?”

“That’s not what’s happening here. I’m just trying to get some answers.”

Her eyes burn into mine. “Yes, I was home alone, but I never would have done this to Michael. I don’t hurt anyone except myself.”





BEFORE





CHAPTER 59





FLORA


It hadn’t been fifty minutes. The blonde giraffe should still have been in session, but there she was on the street, weeping, an absolute mess.

Good. Served her right.

But there was no time to gloat, because Michael had appeared. He looked frantic, about to give chase, though she’d gone only ten feet. She must have wanted him to come after her. That was the reason for her little performance. She had his number; she was speaking his language. She knew that he needed pursuit, and that was why she was going to win, and I was going to lose. He had me, but he didn’t have her.

As if to prove it, he didn’t see me; he only had eyes for her, but still, I sank down in my seat, my heart pounding.

I shouldn’t have come here, obviously. But I couldn’t stop myself. It was an addiction. I wanted a hit of the truth, and I just kept feeling like it was going to come out here, on this street.

I snuck a glance. Michael had gripped her by the arms, and he must have been telling her not to go, not to leave like this. Please.

That’s what I imagined the closed captioning would read. From his body language, he was pleading with her.

He hadn’t been pleading with me to stay lately. It was pretty much the opposite.

That was what I’d been doing wrong. His weakness was women who spurned him, like his mother had. In second grade, he’d come home to discover she was gone for good. In a way, he’d never really stopped searching for her. He was always looking for intense connections to women that were impossible to sustain. He made them impossible, throwing up roadblocks, and then he tried to get away. He told me about all the women and their grasping fingers and how he’d had to learn to be direct and somehow, I’d never thought that eventually that would be us. It would be me.

Michael had initially seen me as desirable and untouchable, incapable of metabolizing my husband’s love. He’d pegged me as the perfect woman for him: the one who wasn’t built for the long haul. We were probably supposed to burn out before the two years had been up. Great passion, insurmountable obstacles, that was what Michael was into.

What if Young and I had gone to see a different therapist, one who’d been trying to bring us together instead of tearing us apart? Ever since that talk with Young, my mind had been returning to those old sessions. Michael had pitted us against each other. Young had been trying to turn me off so that I’d end things, because Michael had tapped into Young’s pathology. And Michael had also tapped into mine, which was why I’d resisted what I had thought were Young’s sincere attempts to be close to me.

But Michael had a subconscious, too, and maybe it had been orchestrating the sessions. Maybe he’d wanted me so much that he couldn’t help himself.

That had to be it. Because the alternative made him a monster.





CHAPTER 60





GREER


As I was lying in my paper gown on the exam room table, I could hear my parents’ voices in my head, overlapping in their usual duet: “This isn’t how things are done.” “Listen to your mother.” “Listen to your father.” “You don’t just rush in. Due diligence takes months if not years. You don’t take unnecessary risks.”