Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(104)

“Everyone thinks he was so good.” Tears streamed out of Suzanne’s eyes, soaking the tissues as she mopped. “But he was a monster.”

“That’s what she told you?”

“She was afraid of him. I know what that’s like. We cried together. She couldn’t stand what he was doing to her, and more, to the children. She said he and Ned were alike. One day, Ned would hurt my babies. One day he could…with Maizie.”

She closed her eyes, shuddered. “He’d never—he’d never touched Maizie like that, but he hit the kids sometimes. When they were bad, or when he’d had too much to drink. I thought, what would I do if he tried to do to Maizie what Mr. Anders did with young girls? I said, I think I said, I’d kill him if he touched her that way.”

Her voice cracked, and began to waver and jump as she continued. “It would be too late then, Ava said, like she was afraid it was too late for her. She said she’d help me. We could help each other. We didn’t have to live like this anymore, or risk the children.”

Suzanne reached for the water, then simply rubbed the cup over her forehead. “She said it was just like in the seminars and groups, where we talked about being proactive, about being strong. Taking action to make a difference. She’d stop Ned and I’d stop Mr. Anders. No one would ever know.”

“Stop?” Eve qualified.

Her shoulders hunched, Suzanne stared at the table. “Kill. We would kill them. No one would know—how could they—because each of us would be innocent of the crime that connected to us. She’d go first, to show good faith. We’d wait a few months and we’d be careful about contacting each other between. Then she’d stop Ned.”

She heaved a breath, looked up at Eve again. “She said stop, not kill. I knew what she meant, I did, but it seemed right when she said it. She’d stop Ned before he hurt my children, stop him from hurting me. And then, we’d wait again, two or three months, and I’d stop Mr. Anders.”

“Did she tell you how you’d stop him?”

Suzanne shook her head. Her eyes continued to flood, but they were empty behind the tears. Beaten, Eve thought. Broken.

“She said she thought she knew a way, so it would look like an accident. And so when they found him they’d know the kind of man he was. She knew I was strong, deep down, and good, a good mother, a good friend. She knew I’d save her, and she’d save me and my kids. We gave each other our word. We recorded it.”

“Recorded?”

“She had a recorder, and we each recorded our intention, our promise. I said my name and that I promised on the lives of my children to kill the monster Thomas A. Anders. That I would kill him with my own hands, and in a way that was symbolic and just. She said the same, except Ned’s name, and she swore on the lives of all the children of the world.”

“Dramatic.”

Little spots of color bloomed on Suzanne’s white cheeks. “It meant something. It was important. I felt important. I never felt like that before.”

“What did she do with the recording?”

“She said she was going to put it in a bank box. For safety. After we stopped Ned and Mr. Anders, we’d destroy it together. We didn’t talk much after that. Not for a while. She’s very busy. And when I got home, and everything was the way it is at home, I thought, none of that was real. It was just like a session. Or maybe I wanted to think that.”

She bowed her head, then shoved at the hair that fell over her face. “I don’t know anymore. But I put it away. I forgot about it. Almost all the time. Then things got a little better for a while with Ned. I saw Ava at the offices one day, and I told her how things were better. She smiled at me, and she said they’d get better yet.” On a choked sob, Suzanne pressed a hand to her mouth. “I swear, I didn’t think, didn’t really think about what we’d said that night. I didn’t think of any of that, and Ned started staying out again, and we started fighting again. I told myself I was going to leave him this time, that I was stronger now. Because of Ava.”

Her breath came in two quick hitches. “I felt stronger, because of Ava, and what she’d given me. How she’d made me feel about myself. And then Detective Baxter came with Officer Trueheart, and they said Ned was dead. They said he’d gone into a hotel room with an LC, and he was dead. I never thought about Ava and what we’d said that night, way back in August. I thought it was just as they’d told me. He’d picked up the wrong kind of woman.”

“When did she contact you after that?”

“A few days later.” Suzanne pressed her fingers to her eyes. “That’s when everything fell apart. The kids were in school. I was going to do the marketing. I always do the marketing on Monday morning, so I was walking to the market, and she came up beside me. She said: ‘Keep walking, Suzanne. Keep walking and don’t say anything yet.’ We walked another three blocks, I think, then we crossed and walked another two or three. She had a car, and we got in. When I asked where we were going, she said somewhere we could talk. I told her I had to do the marketing, and she started to drive. And she started to tell me.”

As Suzanne’s breath began to wheeze, Baxter nudged the water toward her. “What did she tell you, Suzanne?”

“She said she’d fulfilled the part of the bargain we’d made, and asked how I felt now that I was free. I couldn’t even talk for a minute. She was different—um, I don’t know how to explain. She laughed, but it was different from before. It scared me. She scared me. I started to cry.”