The Lies I Told(63)
“That’s a lot.”
“Brit controls you via medications. Brit leaves for college, and then all the emotions you and Clare didn’t deal with come alive. Clare gets pregnant. Clare discovers Brit’s lies. Clare is murdered. Three things can happen and not be related, but I find that’s rarely the case.”
“Did you run DNA on Clare’s baby?” Her voice was hoarse, soaked with emotion.
“Yes. I tested the fetus’s DNA against Kurt’s, Sam’s, Jack’s, and every male at that party. I even tested your father’s.”
“Daddy? Jesus.”
I was doing my best to give her the G-rated version of the world’s dark side. “None matched. And the DNA never appeared in any criminal DNA databases, so without someone to compare it to, it’s not helpful.”
“You said you think Clare could have been killed because people thought she was me.”
“That could still be true.” He sipped his coffee. “But women who are murdered are more often than not killed by someone who knows them. And when a woman is pregnant, it drastically increases her chances of being killed by the father.”
“Seriously?”
He shrugged. “I move in an ugly world.”
“You said five or six weeks pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Six weeks before she died would have been mid-November. I visited Brit at college about that time. Clare stayed home. Brit and I spent an extra two days in Charlottesville shopping. We got home on Sunday.”
“Clare was on her own for two or three days.”
“Yes. I thought she’d be spending her time with Kurt. Have you asked Jo-Jo? Clare might’ve spoken to Jo-Jo about someone new or secret. At times those two were pretty close.”
“Jo-Jo never mentioned another guy. And I asked several times.”
“Why wouldn’t Jo-Jo tell you everything?” she asked, more to herself.
“You tell me.” I leaned back.
“Do you think Jo-Jo knew about the baby?”
“She never told me about it,” I said.
“But you said everyone lies, right?”
“Yes, they do. Jo-Jo seems like an airhead, but she married an ex-con who’s made lots of money in the last five years. That suggests to me she’s more comfortable with trouble than you’d think.”
Marisa shook her head as these realizations sank in. “You don’t appear affected by these facts. Just another day on the job.”
“Don’t be fooled.”
Her eyes were filled with a bottomless sadness that had touched a soft spot in my heart, even when I’d known she was lying. I’d always found a reason to excuse her.
“What do you do to deal with all this nastiness?” she asked.
“There was a time when I drank, picked fights with my wife, and isolated myself. That led to two divorces and a damaged liver. Now I’m retiring before all this eats me alive.”
“We should start our own club.” Her lips lifted into a half smile that held no mirth.
“Right.”
“Not knowing who killed her is eating me alive,” she said. “I can’t let it go.”
“We might not ever get our answers. And if we don’t, you have to find a way to make peace.”
She understood the pain of loss. Her mother, her sister—the one-two punch would’ve sent anyone spiraling. And a sister poisoning her took it to another level.
If there was a blessing, Marisa had never stood over her sister’s lifeless body; nor had she been a firsthand witness to the violence inflicted on Clare by the killer and then the medical examiner. I wasn’t so lucky.
“You make it sound easy,” she said.
I shook my head. “I can lie to anyone, including myself, and say that a change of scenery or a wife will fix all my problems. It helps, but it never really heals the mark left by a homicide.”
“You must be covered in scars.”
“Not as bad as you might think.”
Marisa arched a brow. “You’re a good liar, aren’t you?”
“One of the best.”
35
JO-JO
Friday, March 18, 2022
2:00 p.m.
My hand trembled a little as I stared at this morning’s test strip, which sported double stripes. It represented a hard-fought battle of temperatures, fertility tests, and timed sex to optimize potency. Touchdown. Score one for the team. Odd, but I’d stopped really trying to get pregnant a few months ago and hadn’t bothered with the charts, graphs, and data streams.
But the longer I sat and stared at the dual lines, elation over the win calmed to the cold realization that this baby would bind me to Jack forever. Not that he wasn’t a good guy. He was. He’d made mistakes, but that was the past, right? I’d seen the shift in him five years ago, when I’d walked into J.J.’s Pub. Jack had been standing behind the bar, moving with purpose and precision, like a captain in command of his ship. I’d always thought he was hot, but this newfound confidence in him was far sexier.
And I’d known I could leave at any time, even after the I dos gave me the freedom to enjoy our life. Men could be left, communication limited to divorce attorneys, and finally locked in the past. But a baby couldn’t be easily left behind.