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On cue, her eyes welled up.
Thank God for good clients.
“I can do it,” she assured me, reassuring herself as well. “I have to,” she added with a nod as the tears started to stream down her cheeks.
There was an odd, almost overwhelming urge to reach out, to wipe the tears from her cheeks. It was asinine. In this job, women crying was nearly a daily occurrence. You had to harden to it, choose to use calming language and rationality to get it to stop.
I never wanted to wipe them away before.
“Yes, you do. Now about the police call. Crying. Hysterical. That goes without saying. But here is the thing. Guilty people try to convince during a cop call. Innocent people try to relay facts. Help! My husband was shot. He’s shot. Please help. He’s not breathing. Please hurry. That kind of thing. Don’t try to say where you were, when you noticed he was shot. Just answer their questions and keep begging them to hurry. To help. Keep giving them updates. His heart isn’t beating. Oh God, his heart isn’t beating. It’s not complicated, but it is very important.” I moved to stand, looking around, trying to see if there was anything else important I might have missed. I moved back to the front door, re locking it. People might forget to lock their back door, not likely their front. “Mrs. Ericsson,” I called as she reached in his jacket to pull out his cell to make her call. “I’m sorry about this,” I said, reaching to touch some of the blood on her chin, wincing myself when she winced. “I just need the blood for the back door. Now, I am going to go change and show back up after all the cops file out. And then we can talk. But now, you need to appear to fall the fuck apart while actually keeping it together. This is the hardest part. If you can successfully get through the questioning, the rest will be much easier. Do you think you remembered it all?”
“I used to memorize textbooks,” she supplied oddly. “I can do this,” she added, her voice already starting to hitch, get worked up.
“A couple hours. That is it,” I promised her, moving back a few feet. “Count to one-hundred then call. I will be long gone by then,” I said, following the blood trail on the floor, going through the kitchen, wiping the blood on both the handle and the inside of the jam. Then, stifling the urge to go back and listen, make sure she was doing okay on her phone call, I jumped in a circle, creating boot impressions in the mud leading away from the house.
I slowed my pace after tossing the gun in the gutter, not wanting to draw suspicion if anyone happened to be looking out their windows – unlikely at this house.
Getting back to my truck, I took off the boots, the gloves, tossed them and the wet wipes in a bag, wiping off her phone, then slipping it in my back pocket as I changed my shoes, sealed the bag, pulled my car further up the driveway, punching in the code for the garage that I knew because I had been there when it was set up, and parked my truck next to his two cars – black SUV, black sports car. And I sat and waited.
I heard the sirens.
Sat and waited some more, praying she was able to pull it off as I flipped on the police blotter, hoping to catch some chatter.
There wasn’t much.
But there was also no word of bringing her in.
It was almost three and a half hours later when the lights stopped flashing, turned off, drove away.
But it was still too soon for me.
The uniforms were gone. The body likely also. But there was a chance a detective was still there. Or the Senator.
When I was sure it was safe enough, I pulled back out of the garage, tossing my bag in the pail, texting Finn to come pick it up and really dispose of it all.
And then I drove to her house, parking unabashedly in her driveway.
Because Quinton Baird & Associates did a lot of things. Like private security.
That was my new position in her life, one that could be questioned and verified.
When I let myself in the house, I found her sitting in the library, visibly shaking, face streaked with tears, eyes puffy, lips trembling.
One look said two things at once.
She’d held it together enough to pull it off.
And she was coming apart at the seams now.
TWO
Jenny
I don’t know what made me snap.
My life, after all, had become predictably horrific. If such a thing existed. And I guess it did. For all the women like me, trapped in a home with a man who made use of her like a punching bag. Walking around on tiptoes lest the eggshells crack.
