The Wife Upstairs(75)

One of those bowls sits on the table now, filled with lemons, and she reaches out, pulling the bowl close to her before plucking a lemon free and rolling it in her hands as she thinks.

I pick up my glass now, taking a deep sip, the rich cabernet exploding on my tongue as Bea rolls that lemon back and forth between her palms.

Finally, she puts it back in the bowl and looks at me.

“So. Jane.”

“So. Bea,” I reply in the same tone and she smiles at me. Well, smirks, really, just one corner of her mouth lifting, and I realize I’ve seen that exact expression on Eddie’s face before. Did she pick it up from him or vice versa?

Spreading her hands, she asks, “What do we do now?”

I like that word, we. And I like the way Bea looks at me, like she’s actually seeing me, not Jane-the-Dog-Walker, not the sad girl her asshole husband almost tricked into marrying him. The real me.

Lifting the wine bottle, I top off my glass. Hers is still full, so I set the bottle back on the table with a thump. Outside, a storm rages, rain splattering against the glass, thunder shaking the house every few minutes. There might also be the occasional thump from upstairs, but I can’t tell.

I think of Eddie, sprawled on the floor of the panic room and wait to feel guilt, or regret, or … something.

Nothing comes except a queasy sort of relief. I was right. All those suspicions I had, all those bad feelings, they weren’t lying to me. My instincts were as sharp as they’d ever been. And now Bea was safe.

“We need to call the police,” I say again. “Tell them the whole story, all of it.”

Bea nods, thinking that over. “The whole story. What do you think that is?”

Even though my mind has been reeling for the last few hours, ever since Tripp, ever since I found the diary, I’ve gotten good at thinking on my feet over the years and getting past shock as quickly as possible. That’s been a necessary survival skill.

It serves me well now.

“I’m guessing Blanche is really dead,” I say to Bea. “But it probably wasn’t an accident like everyone thinks.”

“They were having an affair,” Bea answers, her voice mild, but a muscle quivers in her jaw, and she briefly clenches her teeth before continuing. “Eddie, of course, thought I’d never find out, but I knew almost from the start. He’s never been as smart as he thinks he is.”

I remember his story about “transitional seasons” and “raccoons in the attic,” and snort, picking up my wine. The ground underneath my feet is starting to feel more solid now.

“But then Blanche had an attack of conscience, I guess. We’d been friends since we were kids, and maybe loyalty meant more to her than she thought. Or hell, maybe she just wanted to rub my face in it. Anyways, I knew the reason she’d invited me to the lake that weekend was to tell me.”

She sips her wine delicately. “And I guess Eddie knew, too. And he’d rather kill Blanche than have me hear the truth.”

Except that Bea invited Blanche. It was her lake house.

I frown a little, but don’t say anything, and Bea goes on.

“Classic Eddie. Always wanted just one more slice of cake, just one extra turn at bat. But he also knew that all of this”—she spreads her hands again, taking in the house, the neighborhood, probably their entire lives—“is mine. Couldn’t have me divorcing him, now, could he?”

“So why not kill you, too, then?” I am doing a good job, I think, of sounding calm, but now my heart is racing because this isn’t true. None of what she’s saying is true.

She’s a good liar, I’ll give her that. Definitely better than Eddie. But I recognize this shit, and nothing she’s saying is adding up.

Leaning forward, Bea folds her arms on the table, the sleeves of her pajama top riding up to reveal thin, elegant wrists. “I could never quite figure that out,” she admits. “And trust me, I’ve had some time to mull it over. I think—”

“He loved you,” I say, the words sour in my mouth. Because even though the story Bea is telling me doesn’t make sense, somehow this explanation … does.

He loved her. Whatever happened here was fucked up and twisted, and Eddie could be ruthless. I remembered him with John. If he’d thought Bea was in his way, really in his way, I didn’t doubt he could’ve killed her.

Instead, she was still here.

Bea looks at me, and for just a second, her confidence falters. She didn’t expect that answer.

I watch her look down at the table, and then, after a beat, she lifts her head, shrugs. “Maybe. In any case, that’s the story I can tell. He murdered Blanche, faked my death, then kept me locked away in this house like something out of a goddamn gothic novel while he seduced the na?ve young woman who walked his dog.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Thoughts?”

I take a long, deliberate sip of wine. “I guess that’s a version of the truth.”

“But you don’t like it.”

I don’t. I don’t want to be the tragic ingenue, the idiot who got duped by a handsome face and a huge bank account.

A victim.

I sit back in my chair, looking at Bea. Maybe it’s the wine, but she’s not looking quite so pale now, and even with her messy hair and pajamas, she looks almost … elegant.