Page 77 of Rich Little Liars

The word hovers between us. Obscene.

Unforgivable.

‘I watched my husband burning alive, and somewhere inside me, this small, horrible part felt relieved. Felt like it was justice. For what he did with Roxanne. For the months of gaslighting, of making me feel crazy, of choosing her over me. I stood there and I watched him die and I thought: good. He deserves this. He deserves to burn.’

The tears won’t stop. My voice has broken into something raw and terrible.

‘I didn’t kill Daniel. I couldn’t have saved him even if I’d tried. But I wanted him dead. I wanted it and then it happened and I was happy. What kind of person does that make me? What kind of monster stands there watching their husband burn and feels glad?’

Harvey stares at me. His expression has transformed into something I can’t read – not triumph, not satisfaction. Something emptier. Hollower. Like a man who’s finally caught the thing he was chasing and found it wasn’t what he expected.

‘You wanted him to die,’ he says slowly. Testing the words.

‘Yes.’

‘You watched him burn and you felt relieved.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t…’ He trails off. The gun waves in front of my face.

‘I didn’t start the fire. Not on purpose anyway. I didn’t trap him. I didn’t do anything except stand there and feel things no wife should ever feel about her husband.’ I meet his eyes – Daniel’s eyes, full of confusion now instead of rage. ‘I’m not a murderer, Joseph. I’m something worse. I’m a woman who got exactly what she wanted and has to live with that knowledge every single day.’

The floor shifts again beneath us. More pronounced this time. A crack runs through the charred boards near my feet, spreading slowly outward like a dark vein.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m so sorry.’

But I’m not talking to Harvey any more.

I’m talking to Daniel. To the ghost of a man who died screaming while his wife stood frozen with hatred in her heart. To the memory of someone who was flawed and cruel but didn’t deserve to burn. To the brother standing before me now, his whole body rigid with grief and confusion and perhaps the first stirrings of doubt. Could it be that he finally understood I didn’t mean for any of this? That it was simply an accident?

I’m sorry, I think again, looking at those familiar brown eyes. I’m sorry for what I felt. I’m sorry for what it made you become. I’m sorry I can’t give you the confession you wanted, the neat story of murder and justice. I can only give you this: the truth of a woman who hated her husband enough to feel relief when he died.

I’m sorry it isn’t enough.

The floor gives one final, shuddering groan.

And then it collapses entirely.

28

THEN

The solicitor’s office smelled like an old study.

Mr Greene – mid-sixties, half-moon spectacles – shuffled documents across his desk with the reverence of someone handling sacred texts. Among them, the insurance cheque. More money than I’d ever seen. More than I’d ever expected to have. The kind of sum that changed everything, that opened doors I didn’t even know existed.

Kelly Reynolds, the payee line read. Widow. Beneficiary. Sole survivor.

‘And if you could sign here, Mrs Reynolds. And here. And initial here.’

I signed where he pointed. Kelly Reynolds. Kelly Reynolds. K.R.

‘Terrible business,’ Mr Greene murmured, not quite meeting my eyes. ‘Terrible. Your husband seemed like a good man, by all accounts.’

‘He was.’

The words came out exactly right. Soft. Wistful. Tinged with loss but not overwrought. I’d been rehearsing variations of this response for weeks, testing them in the mirror, adjusting the pitch and cadence until they sounded authentic. Until they sounded like a widow.