The Lies I Told(54)
Now he pushed me toward the bed with enough force to send me tumbling backward. I was annoyed at his callousness. And a little turned on. If I were pregnant, there wouldn’t be many more days of wild sex for the foreseeable future.
“Are you pretending again?” I asked.
He pushed off his pants, tugged my cover-up off, and opened my legs. “How so?”
Games. Always playing games. “Who am I today? Marisa? I saw the way your eyes lit up when I mentioned her name.”
He hesitated for an instant and then pushed inside me, rougher than usual. “Does it matter?”
Jack had dated Brit, but I believed he really wanted Marisa. He’d gone out of his way to give Marisa work after rehab, helped her stay sober, even bought her damn apartment building. I’d once asked about her, but he’d just laughed and reminded me he’d picked me.
That victory had been thrilling at first, but I wasn’t so sure who’d really won. Jack had secrets, which hadn’t bothered me when it was just us. The pregnancy scare had shifted everything. I might not be pregnant now, but I soon could be. “No, it doesn’t matter.”
31
MARISA
Thursday, March 17, 2022
3:20 p.m.
I arrived at the coffee shop five minutes late and wasn’t surprised to see that I’d beaten Jo-Jo. The woman never met a schedule she could keep. I glanced at my phone. There was another text from Paul. I wasn’t feeling diplomatic and deleted the message. Sooner or later, he’d get the hint.
I ordered a cappuccino and was sipping mine when Jo-Jo rushed in fifteen minutes later. Her cheeks were flushed, her gaze flighty. She’d the look of a woman who’d just had great sex. I sipped my drink, hoping to hide my smile and envy. Not for Jack, but for an ideal of love and marriage I wasn’t sure existed.
Jo-Jo sat quickly in the chair across from me. “Am I that late?”
“Twenty minutes. Basically, right on time.”
“Better late than never.” She smiled, didn’t seem to care about the time, as if it were already forgotten. Had to give Brit credit. The Scarecrow hat had been on point.
“You look relaxed. How’s Jack?”
A slight hesitation and then a grin. “He’s fine. But you didn’t ask me here to talk about Jack.”
“Can’t friends just visit?” Foamed milk swarmed around my mug’s interior.
“They can, but we rarely do. We haven’t really spoken in years, and now we’re becoming a regular thing.”
“Can I get you a coffee?”
“I’ll grab it.” She fished a wallet from her purse and dashed to the counter. Back in less than a minute with a steaming latte in her hand, she moved very quickly when she put her mind to it.
I waited until she had her first sip. “Richards.”
Jo-Jo made a face. “He must be a thousand years old now.”
“Sixty-five. Ready to retire. I saw him on Tuesday.”
She brushed back a brown curl off her forehead. “And?”
“Tell me about the night you last saw Clare?”
Jo-Jo’s face paled a fraction as she grimaced. “Why would you want to bring that up? Christ, I don’t want to go there today.”
“I don’t wake up ready to revisit my sister’s death. It sucks for me. But not talking about it doesn’t solve anything.”
She held up a hand. “Right, right. It’s just that talking about Clare hurts.”
I traced the stoneware rim of my mug. “Like opening a festering wound that’s never healed.”
She sighed, sat back. “Did you know he was waiting outside my school last year? He wanted to go over the case. We spent a half hour going over the same old questions.”
I’d assumed my yearly visits were what had been enough to keep the case active. “He didn’t tell me.”
“He’s been lurking around all of us—Jack, Kurt, Brit, and me—for thirteen years. I know he spoke to Jack two years ago, and I’m sure he found a way to cross paths with Brit and Kurt. I compared notes with Jack, and he asks a variation of the same old questions. I suppose he’s hoping time will make us forget what we originally told him, or someone will spill the beans on someone else.”
“Time changes people. What did Richards want to talk to you about?”
Jo-Jo sighed. “This is the last time, M. I want to let that time go. I know it’s hard for you, but we all have to move on with our lives.”
Bitterness soured my next sip of coffee. “Time is eating away at the case, and one day there won’t be any crumbs left. I don’t want my sister forgotten.”
Jo-Jo closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose before she looked at me again. “He had questions about the party at my house.”
“And?”
“Like I’ve told him a half dozen times, I was at the party with Sam. We were upstairs in my bedroom and, well, you know. That always was our thing. When I came downstairs, I saw you . . . or rather Clare. She was dressed just like you, and she was drinking a beer. I called to her—you—but she turned and left the house.”
“How did she seem?”
“She looked pissed, and I heard she’d fought with Kurt.”
“You didn’t hear them fight?”