“Did Kit express concern about her inability to have children?” Mal asks.
“Yeah. It messed up her marriage. Todd wanted kids, and apparently Kit had not told him about her damaged uterus before they married. It became a big problem between them. Todd said he was cool, that he’d deal with it. But I do think he must have felt betrayed. It was Kit who ended up shutting him out, letting him go. I think she wanted to give him a chance to marry again and have the things he’d dreamed for in his life.”
“Why did she not tell her prospective husband she couldn’t have kids?” Mal asks.
He shrugs. “I think she was just scared Todd wouldn’t want to marry her. I think she was desperate to be loved, wanted.”
“And now her ex has babies,” Benoit says.
“Yeah.”
“Did this upset her?”
“Probably. A little. Maybe a lot.”
Mal says, “You have in the past recommended therapy to your friend, Boon. You say she has a snooping addiction. You say she has not been herself, possibly due to unresolved grief. You think she’s been messed up by something she saw at Rose Cottage. She runs this questionable social media account, posing in clients’ clothes and pretending she is carrying their babies—how emotionally unstable would you say Kit is?”
He inhales deeply. “Kit is just a little eccentric. Unconventional. Theatrical. Sometimes dramatic. But it’s a shield. She’s soft inside.Kind.” His eyes fill with emotion again, and Mal finds him a tissue. He blows his nose. “It’s like she feels that if she hides in plain sight—behind her makeup, costumes, theatrical roles, her pretend Instagram life—then people won’t see past it all to the hidden, broken Kit. They won’t ask too many questions of her.”
“So what is she hiding from that she’s afraid of questions?” Benoit asks.
“I-I don’t know. I think something bad—really bad—happened when she was at school. And that’s why she dropped out and left town.”
“And she has not spoken about this to you?” Benoit asks.
He looks away. “No.”
Mal feels this is a lie. “Can you come into the station tomorrow, Boon? Make an official statement, give us a DNA sample?”
“DNA?Me?What for?”
“Just for elimination purposes.”
“I...I guess.”
When Boon exits the vehicle and walks through the rain back to his front door, Mal says, “He’s hiding something.”
“For sure he is,” Benoit says.
They watch in silence as Boon opens his front door. Yellow light slices into the darkness. Boon steps inside, shuts the door behind him, and the light is extinguished.
DAISY
October 28, 2019. Monday.
Three days before the murder.
Only five more weeks, Daisy thinks as she presses her hands firmly into her lower back. She’s upstairs in the baby’s room, where she can watch the driveway for the arrival of the maid. She paces in front of the window as she tries to ease the pinched nerve in her hip.
She checks her watch. Jon left very early again this morning. And he’ll be home late. He told her not to wait up—he’s going out with those prospective investors again. TerraWest is apparently throwing out all the stops to wine, dine, and entertain them. Jon said after dinner tonight they might all go to a club. The clients are from China and want to sample the local nightlife, he told her. Daisy feels edgy about this. She’s not sure she can trust Jon. Her interaction with Vanessa has unsettled her deeply.
It was at an “adult entertainment club” that Jon and his clients encountered exotic dancer Charley Waters. And look what happened.
What if he ever does something like this again?...I mean, guys like him—they don’t change, Daisy, do they? They just learn. They evolve. Adapt. They figure out how to be more careful, how not to get caught next time around.
She inhales a shaky breath.
I will cut him loose. I’ll sue him to high heaven. I’ll deny him access to our son. And Iwillwin any suit because I—I have insurance.
