The Maid's Diary(60)
“Why did she not tell her prospective husband she couldn’t have kids?” Mal asks.
He shrugs. “I think she was just scared Todd wouldn’t want to marry her. I think she was desperate to be loved, wanted.”
“And now her ex has babies,” Benoit says.
“Yeah.”
“Did this upset her?”
“Probably. A little. Maybe a lot.”
Mal says, “You have in the past recommended therapy to your friend, Boon. You say she has a snooping addiction. You say she has not been herself, possibly due to unresolved grief. You think she’s been messed up by something she saw at Rose Cottage. She runs this questionable social media account, posing in clients’ clothes and pretending she is carrying their babies—how emotionally unstable would you say Kit is?”
He inhales deeply. “Kit is just a little eccentric. Unconventional. Theatrical. Sometimes dramatic. But it’s a shield. She’s soft inside. Kind.” His eyes fill with emotion again, and Mal finds him a tissue. He blows his nose. “It’s like she feels that if she hides in plain sight—behind her makeup, costumes, theatrical roles, her pretend Instagram life—then people won’t see past it all to the hidden, broken Kit. They won’t ask too many questions of her.”
“So what is she hiding from that she’s afraid of questions?” Benoit asks.
“I-I don’t know. I think something bad—really bad—happened when she was at school. And that’s why she dropped out and left town.”
“And she has not spoken about this to you?” Benoit asks.
He looks away. “No.”
Mal feels this is a lie. “Can you come into the station tomorrow, Boon? Make an official statement, give us a DNA sample?”
“DNA? Me? What for?”
“Just for elimination purposes.”
“I . . . I guess.”
When Boon exits the vehicle and walks through the rain back to his front door, Mal says, “He’s hiding something.”
“For sure he is,” Benoit says.
They watch in silence as Boon opens his front door. Yellow light slices into the darkness. Boon steps inside, shuts the door behind him, and the light is extinguished.
DAISY
October 28, 2019. Monday.
Three days before the murder.
Only five more weeks, Daisy thinks as she presses her hands firmly into her lower back. She’s upstairs in the baby’s room, where she can watch the driveway for the arrival of the maid. She paces in front of the window as she tries to ease the pinched nerve in her hip.
She checks her watch. Jon left very early again this morning. And he’ll be home late. He told her not to wait up—he’s going out with those prospective investors again. TerraWest is apparently throwing out all the stops to wine, dine, and entertain them. Jon said after dinner tonight they might all go to a club. The clients are from China and want to sample the local nightlife, he told her. Daisy feels edgy about this. She’s not sure she can trust Jon. Her interaction with Vanessa has unsettled her deeply.
It was at an “adult entertainment club” that Jon and his clients encountered exotic dancer Charley Waters. And look what happened.
What if he ever does something like this again? . . . I mean, guys like him—they don’t change, Daisy, do they? They just learn. They evolve. Adapt. They figure out how to be more careful, how not to get caught next time around.
She inhales a shaky breath.
I will cut him loose. I’ll sue him to high heaven. I’ll deny him access to our son. And I will win any suit because I—I have insurance.
Daisy winces and stops pacing as her back spasms again. Her mind spirals to the documents and flash drive she keeps in her safe. If Jon ever repeats what happened in Silver Aspens, he’s so done.
If Jon hadn’t made trouble with a stripper, Daisy would not be vulnerable to the kinds of threats and paranoia and harassment she is experiencing now. She would not be frightened of damn Chucky dolls and trolls on her Instagram account. She would not see shadows dressed in black behind trees or think someone is following her.
Another little voice deep inside Daisy rises to the surface.
It was you who chose to protect him. You who cleaned up behind him. You who learned from your mother that in order to keep your own reputation and family intact, sometimes a woman needs to take radical action and look the other way. It’s you who chose to believe boys will be boys, especially in groups, and you who put your head in the sand. You who still choose to believe there are slutty females out to lure and entice men expressly to gain favors, and that the men are powerless in the face of free sex and those women are to blame.
Daisy hears a car in the driveway. She hurries back to the window and peers down into her front yard. A Holly’s Help car pulls up outside her front door. Daisy steps back slightly behind the drape. She watches discreetly as the maid gets out and starts unpacking a vacuum cleaner and cleaning supplies. From a distance she looks attractive. Blonde with a trim figure. She moves with energy. Daisy feels a stab of resentment. The maid starts lugging her vacuum toward the entrance.
Daisy hastens downstairs. Her coat and purse are already waiting near the front door. She will leave as soon as she has spoken to this maid. She has no intention of remaining home to watch this person cleaning her house.