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Mena reared back from confusion. “Are you okay, Sheldon?”
“Y-y-yeah.” Another smile. Another attempt. “What were you saying before? Grace told you about Carolina?”
“Yeah.” A speculative look entered her eyes and her eyebrows moved forward. “Grace kept me informed. She told me everything about you.”
I waited, expecting her to go back to flipping through the magazine. She didn’t. She set it aside and sat up, turning so she was sitting facing me. She swung her legs off the side of the lounger, and she said, “I have to tell you something, Sheldon, and you can’t freak out.”
“Mena?”
“Promise me you won’t freak out.”
She was so earnest. I searched her eyes, studied her how she’d been contemplating me a moment before. There was no maliciousness there. No evilness. She . . . I swallowed tightly. She seemed distressed, about to confess something. My gut clenched. What the hell was she going to confess?
Then she asked, rushed, “We never really talked about it, but did Denton ever tell you about our parents? How they were best friends? You know, before my parents got a divorce.”
“What?” This was from left field. “What are you talking about?”
“Just bear with me.” She sounded so patient and a maniacal laugh ripped from me. She was calm, and I was ready to launch from my lounger. There was irony there somehow. “Sheldon?”
“Yeah, yeah. Yes, he told me, but I was there. I remember those times. It was fun.” And it had been, before something happened. “Your parents got a divorce and stopped being friends with my parents.”
“But do you know why?”
“Who cares?” I grimaced. “I mean, you might. I’m sorry.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Same old Sheldon. You’re always so funny.”
“No.” I shook my head. I wasn’t funny. Not at all.
“What?”
I hit the volume on my phone, making sure it was the highest it could go, then I turned to her and said, “What did you mean when you said Marcus didn’t choose those girls?”
“Because I did.”
Oh my god.
I started to fall back, but my fingers curled around the seat and held on. I had to keep going. I had to get all of it from her. “What do you mean by that?”
She laughed, but then it ended on a serious note, a bone-chilling note. “You know why, Sheldon.” A gleam entered her eyes. “Why don’t we discard the bullshit. You know who I am.”
There it was.
I said, “You killed Grace?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
A sad smile flittered across her face, and she let out a soft sigh. “Because she had to go. I always knew. It was hard, though, like I knew it would be.” A tear fell from her eye, and she let it trickle all the way to her chin. She never touched it. “I loved her and for a while I thought I wouldn’t have to, but that night she confessed. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to do it.”
“You had to kill her? Why?” The last question ripped from me.
She frowned. “You really don’t get it?”
“Get what?”
“Our parents. They were best friends, Sheldon. My dad, did Denton never talk to you about him? How he hated me? How my parents got a divorce and stopped hanging out with yours?” She frowned, shaking her head. “Do you really not get it?”
