Sweet Water(25)

I strap my arms over my chest in a crisscrossed pattern. “It’s happening.”

This is the end.

Martin was in denial yesterday. If we’d called in Yazmin’s body when we found her, the two of us, Martin and I, could at least have worked tirelessly on helping Finn. We could’ve hired the best attorney money could buy, sorted things out with Yazmin’s family properly.

Now we’re all doomed. They’re going to think we’re guilty because we didn’t report the crime. I’m pretty sure the fact that we didn’t report the crime is a crime. It should be if it’s not. I’ve heard the phrase leaving the scene of an accident on more than one crime show, but what sentence does it carry with it? What if the person was already dead when you arrived? We definitely tampered with evidence.

I resume the labored breathing I started yesterday. My chest is so sore with stress from the night before. It’s like someone has tightened a vise around my rib cage.

“Get it together, Sarah!”

I bristle, because I’m still not used to Martin yelling at me. One of the things that drew me to him was his take-charge stance, his ability to remain cool when things heated up on the home front and at work. I knew I’d always be safe with him, my steady arrow. I’d gone along with everything he’d asked of me so far—Livvy, the lie about the house—but I don’t think I can go any further.

“We need to at least tell them we know who the girl is. An anonymous tip.” I rake my hands through my freshly blow-dried hair. Martin made me wash it this morning. “At least make an effort to look like you’ve slept.” He’s never talked to me like that before, and I can’t remember a single time when he’s said a negative thing about my appearance, at least when he wasn’t joking.

“I’m sure the parents have already been alerted. They probably reported her missing.” Martin starts pacing, his reasoning barbaric.

Most of the young women I’ve worked with at the shelter are victims who’ve suffered at the hands of someone who thought he had the right, the power, the justification to make them hurt, and here I am, no better.

I pause and grip the counter, feeling my body weaken at the core. What have we done?

How would I feel if it were Finn?

Left out in the cold all night, all alone.

“No,” I whisper and close my eyes, pushing the thoughts away before they bury me.

According to Finn, Alisha Veltri is a single mother who works nights as a dealer at Three Rivers Casino. Martin claimed that it wouldn’t be hard to convince her of Finn’s alibi, and I hate that he assumed she is unintelligent just because she doesn’t hold a white-collar job.

Does he have any idea what kind of effect his comment had on me? I don’t know if he even cares at this point. It’s like watching him turn into the worst version of himself, the darkest side of his human prism.

I press my hands to my cheeks and start breathing rapidly. “I can’t do this, Martin!” I made coffee but left it steaming on the countertop, wanting to climb inside my cup and disappear. Martin ignores me, picking up his phone.

I won’t be able to keep this up. It’s not in my genetic makeup. I’m not one of them. I’m not a true Ellsworth. I wear the fancy clothes, attend the glam galas, groom my kids with the right social circles and schooling, but it’s all a ruse. It always has been.

“You will do it for Finn,” Martin says, but his ear is pressed to his phone. He covers the receiver only briefly to admonish me, to tell me what I will do.

Who’s he calling anyway? Another connection? Another cleaner?

My father was right.

He told me when I married into a family like the Ellsworths, I wasn’t just marrying their son. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time and laughed it off. “Come on, Dad, they’re not so bad.”

I thought he just didn’t like them because the Ellsworths have gobs of money. He doesn’t despise Martin like he does some of the other family members, namely, Martin’s father, William.

Dad was still hung up on an incident that had occurred at Martin’s fraternity my freshman year. One of Martin’s fraternity brothers drank too much, and there was a fatal accident because of it. William was legacy at the fraternity and went down to help smooth over the mess, going to bat for the fraternity’s charter when it was in jeopardy. Dad was upset because he didn’t think the fraternity had been properly reprimanded. He thought there should’ve been criminal charges pressed against the boys. As he always said—“money talks.”

That was part of it, but I know he harbored some ill will toward people like the Ellsworths because of what happened to my mother. I always wondered why he didn’t want me to be one of the lucky ones who would receive the best of everything—including medical treatment. I think I understand now, though. Wealth comes at a steep price. You have to pay in pieces of your soul to protect your fortune.

Martin points upstairs, too deep in conversation on the phone to verbally communicate with me. We took turns trying to rouse Finn in between Martin’s morning calls, but we need to ramp it up. Finn was okay, sober, but he kept dozing back off. We aren’t sending him to school today, and it’ll only be a matter of time before the police are at our doorstep.

It’s understandable that Finn is having trouble waking up. The blood sample Mary Alice drew last night showed that Finn had Rohypnol, marijuana, and methamphetamine in his system. Alton called it a “smoofie,” when kids mix marijuana and Rohypnol—the date-rape drug—together. One more thing I couldn’t process.