Marry Screw Kill(68)

“Here goes,” I say.

My stomach flip-flops as I lift the top off and drop it on the floor. The detective logo catches my eye at first glance.

I still can’t process how someone followed me for months. I never went anywhere besides the grocery store, post office, or dry cleaners. All my clothes were bought online via a Nordstrom personal shopper and sent via James’ approval. James was always with me at the country club, too. The poor detective had one boring as hell job after January. I don’t even want to think about him following me around before then. My brain feels like it will explode if I try.

“Here are the P.I.’s records.” I hand the stack of papers to Emma. She flips through the pages as I wait. She stops when she gets to the ones from December of last year. Our eyes meet and I nod my head.

“How long has he planned all of this with you?” she asks while going to the end of the paper pile. “This is ridiculous, and probably illegal. Stalking is a crime in Minnesota. At least, it should be.”

“It’s over between us. At this point, I need to try to move on,” I say, hoping my words convince her and whoever is looking down on us from above. I need divine help to keep James out of my life. Forever.

Emma goes back to looking over the records while muttering under her breath. I brace myself and peek back into the box. I spot a few photos of me and pull them out. Each one has me in different poses and places. A sick feeling flashes over me, but I fight to press on. My hands touch something cool and roundish. I freeze when I realize what it is. My mother’s pearls.

I close my eyes and run my fingers over each pearl, pulling the strand out of the box. Tears fall down my cheeks as I open them. Touching something tangible that my mother loved is almost too much for me to bear.

I let out a quiet sniffle and Emma turns toward me. “Harlow, what is it?” she asks, worry lining her face.

“These.” I hold up the pearls, but can only see a few white dots through all my tears. “These were my mother’s. Why would he keep them from me?”

“He’s a monster,” Emma hisses as she takes me in her arms for a tight hug.

“I had wanted to wear them at my wedding. James said he found them but never gave them to me. Why?” I ask in a blubbering mess of sniffles.

Emma breaks away from me and retrieves the tissue box from the night table. She turns to walk back to the bed, her own eyes watering. God, I love her.

“I thought the whole box would be best.” She pulls out a few tissues, hands them to me, then takes a couple for herself.

“I remember these pearls.” She gently runs her fingertips over them. “Putting on my if-I-were-a-crazy-person hat, my guess is James didn’t want you having this old connection to your mother.”

The pearls come into better view as my vision clears. I nod, the lump in my throat keeping me from talking. I swallow hard, but it doesn’t help. Opening the clasp, I thread the necklace around my neck, hooking it back together. The pearls fall against my skin, giving me a part of her to hold with me forever.

I run my fingers over the strand and close my eyes. My mother’s smiling face appears in my mind while she wears them. She only took them out of her treasured jewelry box on special occasions. She also had an old-fashioned cameo pin that used to belong to someone in her family. I wonder if James threw it beneath the pictures and papers strewn in the bottom of the box like a piece of junk.

I open my eyes, determined to persevere until I see the bottom. A few more papers remain on top of what looks like an envelope. My heart is heavy when I don’t find any other pieces of jewelry.

A receipt with my mother’s name on it catches my eye. It lists paid classes at a local nursing school connected with The Clinic. I pick it up to look closer at the writing and see James’ signature on the charge line. My heart stops. He paid for her classes. I look at the date and my blood grows cold. The day before my birthday. The day Tony killed my mother. A memory comes to my mind and I hear a voice I’ve blocked for months. Words I will never forget, no matter how many years go by.

“Marie, who paid for your classes and these books? Was it one of those bluebloods at the country club?”

James was the blueblood. Was he with her before me? Did he push Tony to pull out the gun and kill her?

I want to ask James, to his face, to see the flinch in his eyes when he knows I found out he knew her before me. But to do that would mean seeing him again—something I will never purposefully do in this lifetime. I may never know the truth this side of heaven. His scheming had no end until today.

I drop the receipt into the box and fall back on the bed in complete exhaustion. “I’ve had enough,” I say through my tears.

“What is it now?” Emma asks.

“Look inside the box. At the receipt.”

I lie flat and stare at the ceiling while Emma shuffles through the papers and gasps.

“He bought her classes?”

“Yes,” I say in the weakest voice. All my strength has vanished. I’m fighting the urge to sleep, to escape everything—to fade off into sweet darkness and wake up to find everything has been a bad dream.

“Wait. There’s a letter at the bottom.” It takes all the effort I can summon to peek through one eye. Emma pulls a white envelope from the box and holds it up. “It has your name on it and looks like a woman’s handwriting.”