Open House(46)

Brad blinked. “What are you talking about?” he asked. The collar of his oxford shirt was stained with something that looked like coffee. Had he really been relaxed enough back at the precinct to accept the cops’ offers of coffee?

“Did you kill Emma?” she asked, the words like marbles dropping on a hard floor.

Disbelief contorted Brad’s face. Priya waited. The plants seemed to take on dark, ominous shapes, as though they were threatening to outgrow their pots and twine around her ankles, keeping her trapped and tethered to this place.

“I can’t believe you just asked me that,” Brad finally said into the chilled air between them. “Didn’t you believe me years ago when I told you I didn’t?”

Priya’s body felt on fire with nerves, her hands making fists against her legs. Brad stood too slowly. A candle flickered on the side table next to him, glistening amid a squat stack of coffee table books. “Do you really think I could hurt Emma?” he asked, seeming so genuinely offended that she was taken aback. “Priya,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Is that what you’ve always thought?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But after today . . .”

“You think I stabbed Josie? You think I killed a girl ten years ago, and that for some reason, today, I tried to kill her former roommate? You think I’m a serial killer, is that right?” He was coming closer, his gait unsteady, unfamiliar.

Priya bit her lower lip. It sounded ridiculous when he said it like that. “People do unimaginable things,” she said, stalling. “Maybe Emma was going to out you to your bosses at Yarrow. You would’ve had your career ruined.”

“I’m a doctor; my job is to protect people!” Brad said, still so incredulous. “You think I would kill someone to protect my career? I took an oath! Don’t you think that means anything to me?”

Priya’s legs felt numb against the wicker sofa’s flowered cushion. She sat there frozen, unsure of what to say. Finally she asked, “Why were you there today at the open house?”

“Because Josie invited me there,” Brad said, blowing out an angry breath. “She told me she needed to talk to me, that it was urgent she tell me something.” He studied her, still standing there, his gaze unrelenting as always, missing nothing. “Don’t you know me better than to think I could ever try to kill someone?”

Did she know him better than that? She thought she did, but everything felt too confusing and blurred after this morning. “I was scared!” Priya blurted. “Okay? Can’t you understand that after what happened today?”

Brad shook his head and sat down beside her. “You were scared,” he said slowly. “Of course. You’re always scared.” He sounded so tired, and Priya felt embarrassed by the truth of what he’d said. “I don’t know if I can go on like this, Priya, with your fear coloring everything we do, everything we are.”

Priya started crying. How had all of this gotten so turned around? “I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s not like you’ve been a saint, Brad.”

“I know that, and I’m sorry, too,” he said, and then he took her hand. “And just so you know, Emma wasn’t going to out me to anyone,” he said. “Obviously I should have told you this a long time ago, but she was breaking things off with me. Really, Priya. That night when she came to our town house? She was trying to call things off. She was pregnant, but it wasn’t mine.”

Priya’s stomach lurched. “Oh, God,” she said, her eyes burning with tears. “That just makes the whole thing sadder, which I didn’t even think was possible. And how can you know for sure it wasn’t yours?”

“Because we used protection. And because she was sort of play-acting like it was mine at first, but when I called her bluff, she admitted it was someone else’s. I have no idea whose it was, which is why I didn’t go to the police after she disappeared. I swear to God I would have gone to the cops if she’d told me. But I didn’t even ask her whose it was; I was just so relieved it wasn’t mine.”

Priya pulled her knees to her chest. “You still should have told the cops she was pregnant.”

“And you probably should have told them she was sleeping with me, but you didn’t.”

Priya flinched. It was true, of course.

“We all do things we’re ashamed of,” Brad said, his voice hard. “We all stay quiet when we shouldn’t. But, Priya, listen to me. What would it have mattered if you or I came forward? I didn’t do it. And that night when I watched her walk away, it was over. I didn’t want her anymore, I wanted you. You might not believe me, but it’s true.”

The funny thing was, Priya did believe him. He’d returned to her that night with devotion all over his face and in every ounce of his body. “Maybe you were done with Emma, but you’ve been unfaithful since,” she said. “I know that.”

“Only once,” he said, “and it was a huge mistake. And I put an end to it.”

“It’s still too many times, Brad. Something about us isn’t right if you can’t stay faithful. And it’s not fair what I do to you, either, my anxiety, holding on to you because I’m too scared of falling apart without you.”

Brad shook his head. “I don’t keep you together,” he said. “You do that.”