Page 35 of Wicked Games

I’m quiet for too long.

“Are you saying you didn’t?” he asks, confused.

“No, we didn’t.”

“She came home with shopping bags. Why would she lie?”

I have a very strong suspicion why she would lie. “Because I think she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.”

“And where was that? Do you know?”

“At the park watching Theo Lockwood get kidnapped.”

Lying in bed, my head pounding, I can’t stop thinking about the rest of our conversation.

“Avery. How do you know?”

I told him about the trashed post, the odd writing style, the details she wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t been there.

Bill didn’t have much to say, but a tiredness crept over the line. “Even if she was there, it doesn’t matter now, does it? Theo’s dead, she’s dead. The fuckers got away. There’s nothing we can do.”

No, there was nothing we could do, and nothing the cops could do or they would have done it by now. “I want to know how she knew to be there.”

“Why?” Bill growled. “You think she was spying on the Lockwoods? For what? A story? You think she heard from one of her sources that something like that was going to go down? Avery, she would have reported it. She wrote about assholes breaking the law, she didn’t do the shit.”

“But why wasn’t she writing about Theo’s kidnapping? Nothing in her drafts, nothing she published. She didn’t touch his abduction even when she must have known it would’ve made her a lot of money.”

“Because Brooke asked her not to. Because the cops asked her not to. They didn’t want any more attention on it than there already was.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry you’re upset. I didn’t mean to sound like I was blaming her.”

“I know, and I appreciate you saying it, but it’s all in the past now, just leave it be.”

Bill hung up then, and it was just as well. I didn’t have anything else I could say that didn’t sound like I was accusing her of something. The idea that she was there, that she watched that man shove Theo into the van. Of course that’s not going to sit right, but the fact is, I don’t have proof she was there, either. All those details, she could have read the police report or witness statements. A lot of it she could have made up, and even details she imagined could have sounded real because that’s just how the day was. Cold but sunny. Kids playing hockey. Snowmen. She didn’t need to be there to make it seem like she was. She might have written it then Brooke asked her not to publish it. That would explain why she trashed it.

God. I wish I never would have seen it.

Let it be.

I don’t have a choice.

Sighing, I roll out of bed. Bill will need time to cool off because he didn’t only sound angry, he sounded sad. I’d just told him Hattie lied about shopping with me. Now he could have doubts about their entire relationship. You trust someone until you’re given a reason not to trust them anymore and I gave him that reason. I didn’t mean to, and she never told me to lie if Bill ever asked. We were barely speaking which is probably why she thought she could get away with it.

I go downstairs and peek into the backyard. Seth’s sleeping on one of the loungers on his patio with Winnie snuggled between his legs. I’m glad he’s able to get some rest.

I grab my notebook and pen, cross our yards, and tiptoe up the patio steps hoping I don’t wake him. Sitting next to him on the loveseat that matches his lounger, I flip to a blank page and start writing, but it isn’t more musings about meeting Seth or what I’ll do at the end of the summer. I surprise myself and begin a domestic thriller about a woman whose sister is involved in a kidnapping. The words come easily, and before I know it, Seth’s peering at me through eyelids cracked half open.

“Hi,” he rasps, brushing his hand down my leg.

“Hi. You look comfortable.”

“I’d be more so if Winnie was you.”

“You wouldn’t be sleeping then,” I point out, amused.

He chuckles. “Probably not. You get some stuff done?”

“Yeah, not too much. You?”