Dead to Her(76)
“It was normal to me.”
“So you saw these items on a regular basis?”
“My aunt is a believer.”
“Is it possible, that after realizing it would be difficult to cause your husband’s death by overdosing him with Viagra, you considered trying to scare him to death? This is the South, after all. We may not be in New Orleans, but there’s still a lot of superstition in our souls. You had all the tricks of the trade you’d learned back in England. Were you hoping to induce a heart attack, perhaps? Mr. Radford was an older, overweight man trying to keep up with a young, new wife. A heart attack wouldn’t be suspicious.”
“I was the one who was afraid. Not Billy.”
“So you said.” Detective Anderson leaned back in her chair and tapped a pen against the desk, and all Keisha could hear in her head was the thud of the conjure ball on the stairs again.
“Were you in it with your family?” Anderson asked. “Did they send you here with the dolls and tell you what to do? Judging from their emails they were certainly keen for Mr. Radford’s money to start coming their way.”
“No,” Keisha said. “No, no, no. Auntie Ayo would never share her gifts with me. Never.”
It was Washington who leaned forward this time, his thick, gym-heavy arms resting on the desk, his eyes narrowing. He could sense what Anderson couldn’t. Keisha’s belief. “And why is that?” he asked.
Keisha looked him straight in the eye. “She says I’m cursed. That I’m mad. Because of the boy. The ghost boy.” She swallowed hard. “The boy who wasn’t there.”
“What boy?” the two detectives asked in unison.
46.
She wasn’t sure quite what the sex was supposed to have cured, but judging by the way Jason kept flashing her his best lopsided sexy grin as they drove to the hospital, telling her that they were a team, the Indestructible Maddoxes, and that within a week there’d be nothing to worry about, somehow by letting him screw her she’d agreed that their secrets had canceled each other out. He was acting as if she’d caught him covering up a red wine spill on a favorite expensive couch rather than risking both their lives by stealing money.
“Let’s hope so,” she said curtly, as he pulled into the parking lot, and for a second his new good humor slipped.
“Jesus, Marcie, can you at least try to be positive?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey.” Her blood fired hot. “For a minute there I thought I’d just found out that this entire year has been a web of lies on your part and that we’re lucky your partner has been poisoned, otherwise you’d be in prison and I would at the very least be left homeless.”
She stepped out of the car and closed the door, watching him as he did the same on the other side and noticing the two young nurses who passed both giving him an appreciative glance. She didn’t blame them. He was still butter-wouldn’t-melt, charming, handsome Jason Maddox. Still full of confidence. Still full of shit. “So forgive me if it’s going to take me a day or so to process this.”
“Now you know how I feel,” he muttered. “You lied first, Marcie. And you lied for longer.”
By the time they reached the exclusive private rooms on the top floor, free of the visiting rules and regulations of the lower levels, they were holding hands, for all intents and purposes the perfect concerned couple, worried about one of their closest friends. As Marcie signed their names in the register, Jason spoke in hushed tones to the nurse, who then led them down a silent corridor decorated with bright modern art and vases of crisp fresh flowers that made Marcie believe even more that William wasn’t going to make it. The whole place stank of somewhere that the rich came to politely die.
They didn’t need the nurse to point out which of the vast rooms was William’s—there was only one door with a plainclothes officer sipping a cup of coffee outside.
She’d half-expected to see the rest of their set already in the room, but there was only Elizabeth, looking tired and older than usual, wrapped in a cardigan, a far cry from her usual staidly smart self, sitting in a reclining armchair by the bed. It was hard to recognize William, his formidable form suddenly diminished, now simply a fleshy pale hub for the wires that snaked out of him to various machines humming in the background. Looking at him made her think of the yearbook sent to Jason and she felt haunted all over again, once more a pawn in a game she didn’t understand.
“Have you been here all night?” Marcie asked as Elizabeth stood to greet them.
“Most of it.” Her eyes were bloodshot. “I couldn’t sleep at home, so I came back in. The doctor said he still has his hearing so I thought I’d talk to him for a while in case he’s afraid in there. Did some reading when I ran out of things to say.” She nodded over at the bedside table, where a battered paperback lay. “Moby-Dick. I’ve always wanted to read it, so I figured I’d do so out loud.”
“Is he going to get better?” Jason asked. He sounded hopeful and Marcie wondered what answer he was hoping for. Life would certainly be easier for Jason if William at least took his time getting back on his feet. Elizabeth shrugged, her eyes filling up, and signaled them to a corner, glancing over her shoulder as if William would be straining to eavesdrop. Marcie figured William was too busy straining to stay alive.