The Wife Upstairs(43)

“How are the two of you?” I ask, leaning against the counter, and they glance at each other.

“Oh, honey, this isn’t about us,” Emily says, waving her hand, but Campbell says, “Not great, either.”

Another shared glance, and then Emily sighs, nodding. “It’s just a lot to absorb. That someone wanted them dead, that we’ve suddenly got the police around, asking questions…”

I’m starting to get too familiar with that feeling of my stomach dropping, the icy wave that breaks over me every time some new, ugly bit of information is revealed.

“They’re asking you questions?”

Campbell sighs as she rises. “Not yet, but I’ve got an interview scheduled with them later this week. Em?”

Emily nods again. “Yeah, Friday for me.”

I think of the two of them, sitting in a police station, answering questions about Bea and Blanche.

About me.

Because the detectives are going to ask, aren’t they? Where did I come from, how soon did Eddie and I start dating?

They’re going to look into whether I was around last summer or not, and suddenly I want both of them to leave, want to huddle in a ball on the sofa until this somehow magically all goes away.

But then Emily reaches across the counter and squeezes my hand. “I just hate that you have to deal with all this.”

My gut reaction is to snarl at her, to search her face for some sign that she’s actually loving this, but when I look at her, there isn’t any. Her gaze is genuinely warm and sympathetic, and I think back on all those times, sitting at lunch tables by myself, self-consciously tugging at the hem of a Salvation Army T-shirt, knowing it never mattered what shoes people were talking about, or what CD everyone wanted, I was never going to be able to have those things.

I’d always thought it was just the money that I wanted, but looking at Emily now, I know I’ve wanted this, too. People to care about me. People to accept me.

And while it is weird as shit that, of all people, it would be this crew of Stepford Wives who let me in, they had.

And I was grateful for it.

“Thanks,” I reply, squeezing back.

My phone starts ringing on the counter, and as I glance at it, both Emily and Campbell stand up. “Get that, honey,” Emily says. “We can show ourselves out.”

I hear them make their way to the front door as I look at the screen.

A 205 number, which means Birmingham.

Which could mean the police.

If they’d found something bad, they’d be over here, I tell myself as I slide my finger across the screen to answer the call. Sound normal. Sound calm.

“Hello?”

My voice only cracks a little on that last syllable.

“Jane.” Not the police, not Detective Laurent. John fucking Rivers.

“What do you want?”

I can practically see him smirking on the other end. “Good to talk to you, too.”

“John, I don’t—” I start, but he cuts me off.

“I know you’re busy doing whatever it is Mountain Brook housewives do, so I’ll make it quick. The church is raising money for a new sound system, and I thought you’d like to contribute.”

I’m still so shaken up by everything else going on that at first, I don’t see the threat beneath his words. It takes a second for my brain to turn them over and see what’s really being said.

“I thought we were good after the other day,” I reply, the fingers of my other hand curled around the edge of the counter.

He pauses, and I hear him swallow something. I imagine him standing in the kitchen of his apartment, drinking Mountain Dew, and fight back a shudder of revulsion because he’s not supposed to be here. I was supposed to be able to leave him behind forever, but he keeps rising back up, the world’s most pathetic ghost.

“Well, we were. But that detective from Phoenix called again, which was just a real hassle for me, Jane. And I was going to ignore it, but then I saw in the paper where you and your boyfriend got engaged.”

Fuck. I hadn’t ever heard of people announcing their engagements, but Emily had submitted it for us, saying, “It’s what everyone does!”

And I’d let her because I wanted to be like everyone here.

“So I thought to myself, ‘You know, now that Jane is marrying money, she’d probably really like to help me out. Pay me back a little for taking her in.’” Another pause. “And for keeping secrets.”

“You don’t know shit about my ‘secrets,’ John,” I say, my voice low.

“I know you have them,” is his too-quick reply. “And I think that’s enough.”

Just like that day in the parking lot, I feel my throat constrict, the sense of a tightening noose around me. I wish I’d never met John Rivers, wish I’d never been desperate enough to message him on Facebook from that library in Houston two years ago, wish I’d never taken him up on his offer of a place to stay.

But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here now. Wouldn’t have met Eddie.

Eddie, with his murdered wife.

Gritting my teeth, I lower my head, pushing the heel of one hand against one eye. “How much.”

“Twenty-five hundred,” he says, and I flinch even though I know that’s a small amount of money to Eddie. He’d probably never even notice it was gone.