Marius set the casserole and dessert on a groaning table laden with food.
Now that I was back in the house where Brooks and I had lived—mostly unhappily, though I’d tried to be a good wife—it hit me that he was well and truly gone. My marriage was done.
And I’d failed.
Oakley was wailing in front of the coffin.
Heart sinking, I approached, not sure if I wanted to see Brooks like this, all laid out.
Beatrice rushed over to her friend. “Oh, don’t cry! Poor Oakley. Brooks is in a better place. He’s smiling down on you and your beautiful baby.”
Theo stood in the corner, fists clenched.
“We’re going to say goodbye to Brooks,” Beatrice said as Oakley sobbed.
Because of where I was standing, I was the only one who saw Beatrice lean over the coffin and snip a lock of Brooks’s hair then tuck it into her pocket.
“Why don’t we get you some food? You haven’t had anything all day.” Beatrice led Oakley away.
“Till death do us part.” Zoe handed me a glass of wine and toasted me. “Congrats on escaping this wad of public restroom toilet paper.”
“You won’t believe what I just saw,” I hissed, Marius’s warning about looking sad completely forgotten.
“From acorpse?” Zoe almost shrieked when I told her what I’d seen. “She put it in her pocket?” Zoe made a face. “Maybe she’s making some sort of unhinged memento for Oakley.”
“No one can be that codependent in their friendship,” I whispered behind my hand.
“You did have me check to see if you forgot a tampon up your snatch that one time, remember?”
“That’s different. No one was dead.”
“You monster!” Oakley screamed from the refreshment table. Then she was racing over to me, more like an angry rhino than a heavily pregnant woman.
I ran, keeping the chairs between us as Oakley charged me.
“You’re taunting me and my baby!” she shrieked.
“In hindsight,” I said to Zoe as I dodged the bouquet of flowers Oakley threw at me, “maybe bringing my usual sympathy cupcakes was the wrong idea.”
I flinched as Oakley hurled a Santa’s Surprise cupcake at me. It glanced off the wall, leaving a smear of red frosting on the white wallpaper I’d agonized over and Brooks had yelled at me about.
“She’s taunting me. The murderer is taunting me. Emmie killed the love of my life, and now she’s rubbing it in my face.” Oakley’s sobs were attracting the attention of the whole room.
“Beatrice.” Marius was there. “Why don’t we take Oakley outside? This isn’t good for the baby.”
“That’s right—the baby,” Oakley said, sinking dramatically into a chair.
“Why is Marius being nice to her?” Zoe hissed at me.
Yeah, why is he?
“Very suspicious. But not as suspicious as Beatrice…”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Brooks was sleeping with multiple women.” We glared after Beatrice and Oakley.
“And one of them got mad enough about it to kill him.”
8
