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Harris just stood there, not saying a word. Not defending or explaining.
Then it hit her. The friend. The friend’s connected father. “Did Detective Burroughs know about Lauren?” She could tell the answer by looking at Harris’s strained expression. “Oh my God. The detective knew and ignored the death or hid it?”
“Not ‘hid.’ He looked into it and said it wasn’t relevant to Candace’s death.”
“What does that even mean?” He made it sound as if Lauren and Candace were interchangeable, and that made Elisa choke down the bile rising in her throat.
“Exactly what it sounds like.” Harris’s hands came up again but he still didn’t try to touch her. “Lauren’s death was an accident, but the detective knew how two dead wives would look for Josh. That people would jump to the wrong conclusions.”
She stared at his open palms before her gaze moved to his face. “You mean that Josh liked to kill women.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?”
“The detective investigated and compared cases.” Harris dropped his hands. “He didn’t bury the truth. He looked into it then downplayed a previous incident, knowing it would taint the investigation.”
He sounded so rational.
She hated that. “But the press? Candace’s parents? Why didn’t other people raise questions? Lauren’s accident isn’t a secret, right? So, how did this stay out of the press?” How did Harris not tell her back then or any day since?
“Everyone agreed Candace’s death was an accident. The press celebrated her life, kept the focus there, as her family wanted.”
“That sounds too easy. Like special treatment. Like the good old boy network ran wild.” Two women dead and no one took five minutes to discuss the parallels. She wanted to sit down and rewind every conversation they’d ever had. If Harris could lie about this, keep this from her, what else didn’t she know? “You never gave me a chance to understand. Nine years together and you never said a word. You never mentioned Lauren. You and Josh wrote her off as if she didn’t exist.”
Now she knew it was possible not to feel anything. To stand there, not knowing how your muscles continued to hold you up, feeling hollow and empty. She listed to one side and part of her hoped the world would go dark and the conversation would end.
Harris shook his head. “Josh was young and it messed him up.”
“‘It’? Talk about dismissive. Come on, Harris.” He was better than this... he had to be.
He nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I mean Lauren’s death. That was my bad wording, not Josh’s.”
Not his fault. Josh wasn’t to blame. That was the underlying message she picked up and it wasn’t the first time. “So she died and he just happened to be there? That’s a popular refrain in his life.”
“Okay.” Harris’s arms dropped to his sides. “That’s not fair.”
Fair?He couldn’t possibly understand what that word meant or he wouldn’t use it. The dead women had a right to talk aboutfairness. Elisa thought she did as the person shut out from this huge family secret. Not Josh, and not Harris on Josh’s behalf.
“Explain it to me. Make me understand why you—both of you—have lied to me for years.” She doubted he could justify a lapse this profound but, for the sake of their marriage, she really wanted him to try.
“I didn’t lie. I—”
Wrong tactic. “Really?” Her legs finally gave out and she sat down on the edge of the bed. “This is the type of lame excuse Nathan might try and he’s seven.”
Harris looked like he was going to say something then his mouth slammed shut. A few seconds later he started nodding. “You’re right.”
“I know I am.”
“I fucked up. I was being protective and convinced myself it wasn’t my secret to tell, which is bullshit, I know.” He sat next to her, still smart enough to give her some space, but their thighs did touch. “He’d been pretty messed up before he lost Lauren.”
She groaned because none of this explained another dead woman in Josh’s past. “I know this part. He lost his way and only wanted to hang out with loser friends and smoke pot in someone’s basement. Shoplifted. Didn’t work or go to school.”
She didn’t want to feel sorry for Josh or hear about his stumbles. Her concern was for Lauren... and Candace and Abby, and possibly, Rachel. “I’m waiting for the dead wife part.”
“Lauren went to school part-time. She worked as a waitress to pay her way, and that’s where they met. At that restaurant.”He sat forward with his elbows balanced on his knees and his gaze locked on some random spot on the floor. “After a couple months they ran away and got married. He didn’t tell me because he knew I would try to talk him out of it. He was nineteen. She was, too, and also kind of lonely. She had her mom but no one else.”
“No one?” That might explain why no one ever spoke up for Lauren.
