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“We’ll take it one step at a time. I’ve been thinking a lot about Tanner, since this whole thing started. And Delta. I don’t think they were ever happy, and maybe if they’d recognized that, it all wouldn’t have ended so tragically.”
“You think Delta killed him.”
“No. I think someone else had it in for him.” He gave a bark of sardonic laughter and said, “If Delta wanted to kill him, she would’ve done it years ago, when he really embarrassed her.”
“What do you mean?”
He grew serious, and Zora worked hard to concentrate. “I saw Tanner in the woods the night of the barbeque with Amanda. So did Carmen. Carmen was looking right at him while Amanda . . . pleasured him.”
“Pleasured him?”
“Amanda’s blond head was bobbing up and down in the dark, y’know?”
Zora hadn’t gone into the woods that day. Something she still regretted. She could picture Amanda going down on Tanner, though. She’d done the same thing.
“Carmen was staring at them, watching them. She was . . . transfixed.”
“Oh, God. That’s what she saw,” Zora realized. “Bailey said she saw something.”
“Maybe that’s why she went in the water. Following after Tanner. She wanted to prove she was just as daring, somehow.”
Zora shook her head, seeking to clear the fog. “Did you tell anyone?”
“We were all dealing with the shock of Carmen’s death,” he excused himself.
“You were a teacher,” she rebuked. “And Woody and a bunch of us were smoking dope, too.”
“Damn it, Zora. Should Clarice and I have turned you all in? Anne didn’t even know what the smell was.”
“Your girlfriends?”
He glared at her. “And you just married me for my inheritance.”
“That wasn’t . . . that isn’t . . .”
“Sure, it is. And, yes, I should have said something about what was going on in the woods. Maybe everyone’s lives would’ve turned out differently. Mine, too. All I know is I don’t want to be unhappy anymore. I don’t want you to be unhappy, either. We need to end this marriage.”
“No.”
His face darkened, and he threw up his hands and stalked to his office. She heard the door slam with finality.
He was looking for excuses, just like always. She felt a huge ache in her heart. Well, he was right about one thing: she was unhappy. But she couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t.
She sank back in the cushions, furious and overwhelmed and . . .
She must’ve fallen asleep, because she woke up suddenly. Thinking something had jogged her awake, she went to Brian’s office, but the door was open, and he wasn’t there. She heard his voice in the kitchen and tiptoed down the hall as far as she dared. It was quiet, except for him on his cell.
“. . . told her about . . . divorce . . . no, she’s drunk . . . No names. Shhh. Come on . . . It’s time to start the next chapter of our lives . . . Sure. I’ll be there soon.”
Zora shrank back into the shadows, her anger bubbling upward. She wondered if she could slip back into the den or if she should brazenly face him? She felt pretty damn sober now. She heard him open the door to the garage, all quiet like . . . trying not to have her hear.
He was going to her.
She ran back to the den and found the black flats she’d worn to the movies, squinching her toes into them, then hung by the curtains in the dining room and watched through the window till she saw his ta
illights start to pull away before she broke for the garage door herself, yanking it open. Her heart was racing as she leaped into her own car and pressed the button for the ignition, throwing her Mercedes into reverse, damn near slamming into the garage door, which he’d apparently pushed to go down while she’d hit the button to have it rise at the same time, confusing the mechanism.
“Shit!” she shrieked, standing on the brakes. She managed to just avoid disaster, taking a moment to push the button and reverse the door so it rolled upward once more.
