Little Secrets(40)

A small smile crosses Julian’s lips. Whatever test she just took, it appears she passed.

“You’ll need to call off your investigator,” he says. “Immediately.”

“Done,” Marin says, but it’s a lie. While she understands that Julian doesn’t need the complication of a PI following the person he’s been hired to kill, she has no intention of telling Vanessa Castro to stop investigating everything. She’ll tell Castro not to bother investigating the affair. But nothing about her search for Sebastian will change.

“Okay then. This brings us to the most important thing.” Julian leans forward. “Once you wire me the money, it’s confirmed. Everything begins. You wake up a couple of mornings later, freak out, change your mind, fine. But the money is gone. You don’t get it back. You understand that?”

“Yes.” She’s starting to shake again, which feels silly, because they’ve come this far. She’s already shown him the worst part of herself, the part she could barely manage to tell Sal about except when joking or drunk, the part that might well send her straight to hell.

Or worse, prison. Because you can’t threaten a person with hell if they’re already living in it.

“You could just divorce him, you know,” Julian says. “It’s not the quickest way out, but at least there’s no risk. I have a great lawyer I can connect you with, for a fee, of course. He’ll dig up every bit of dirt on your husband and ensure you’ll get everything you’re entitled to.”

She blinks. “What are you talking about?”

She and Derek are not getting divorced. Divorce is ugly, and ultimately, it would only free him up to be with McKenzie, or whoever else he might meet after her. The only person who’d lose is Marin. And she doesn’t want to end up with less, like Tia. She’s already lost too much.

“I’m just saying it’s an option,” Julian says. “Because if you go down this path, there’s always risk. Even if it looks like an acci dent, it’s still a death, and the spouse is always the first suspect. There could be police involved. An autopsy. Questions. And your husband’s a high-profile guy—”

“I’m sorry, but what are you talking about?” She shouldn’t cut him off midsentence, but she’s confused. “I’m not here about Derek. He’s my husband.” She nearly adds and my son’s father, but catches herself just in time.

It’s Julian’s turn to look confused. He seems caught off guard, and she gets the impression that he’s not caught off guard very often. “You don’t want your husband dead?”

“Of course not.” She jabs at her phone until the nude selfie appears again. “Derek isn’t the problem. It’s her.”

He leans back in his seat and appraises her for a moment. “That’s not what Sal told me.”

“Then our mutual friend misunderstood.”

Goddamn it, Sal. Marin has no doubt that it’s what Sal was hoping she would do. But she would never want Derek dead. He’s Sebastian’s dad. No matter what, she could never do anything to harm her son’s father. She stares at the photo until the screen goes black, inwardly cursing Sal for screwing this up.

“Is this a problem for you?” she asks.

“Nope,” Julian says, and the small smile is back. “Actually, it makes things a bit easier.”

Neither of them says anything for the next few moments, but he’s looking at her differently now. He came here thinking she wanted a man dead, but it’s a woman who’s ruining Marin’s life. It’s a woman who’s trying to steal the last bit of family she has left. If that makes her a monster, so be it. In the past fourteen hours, she’s already imagined McKenzie’s death a dozen different ways—getting hit by a bus, falling out of a window, falling into a giant sinkhole, getting shoved off a goddamned cliff—and each fantasy provides her with a moment of immense relief.

Raucous laughter emanates from a booth in the corner, where the noisy college students have finally finished eating. Three are male, two are female, and her gaze focuses on one girl in particular, the one with the long brown hair and shining eyes who’s so clearly in love with the handsome, confident boy sitting next to her. She could have been Marin, twenty years ago. And make no mistake, most of those years have been good. It’s only the last one that’s been hell.

“I still love him,” she says, more to herself than to Julian.

He reaches into his inside jacket pocket and pulls out a shiny brochure. It’s for Rise, a local shelter for women and their children who are victims of domestic abuse. It’s a real charity, one she thinks she’s donated to before. She’s pretty sure she gets a holiday card from them every year. On the bottom of the back fold he’s scrawled a sixteen-digit number, which she can only assume is the bank account.

She shivers. Julian’s connections must run deep if he knows how to launder money through a legitimate charity.

“After tonight, we’ll never see or speak to each other again,” Julian says. “Your consent to move forward happens when you transfer the full amount. You won’t get details. You won’t know when. And remember, no refunds. Do you understand?”

It’s the only time tonight that he’s told her something twice. “I understand.”