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“Bailey, heel.” I walk up the stairs, Bailey by my side, and enter the guest bedroom. The naked window faces the street.
Would it look suspicious if I rehung the curtains and closed them? I hadn’t shut them at any point before taking them down, but perhaps that doesn’t matter. My neighbors might not even notice if I suddenly start closing the curtains in the evening.
Maybe I should rehang them tomorrow. If someone notices the curtains are in the window again, they might just think I changed my mind about getting new ones.
Violet is curled up on the pink bedding with Sophie next to her. Both are asleep.
Sophie stirs, and her eyes sleepily blink open. She rolls onto her side, sits upright, and begins babbling. Her small purple octopus and floppy lamb lie next to her. She grabs the octopus while still babbling to me.
Not wanting her to wake Violet, who looked exhausted when I left for work this morning, I press my finger to my lips and gently scoop Sophie into my arms. She smells like baby shampoo and childhood dreams. She smells like Amelia did at that age.
I close my eyes, pretending for a second that she is Amelia.
“What time is it?” Violet’s sleepy voice asks from the bed, and I open my eyes.
“It’s after five. Did you get much sleep?”
She pushes herself to sit on the bed and puts her feet on the floor. “A few minutes. I must have dozed off. How was work?”
It’s such a simple question that for a heartbeat, it’s easy to forget our dangerous situation.
“Ma. Ma,” Sophie says and resumes babbling.
I place her next to Violet on the bed, deliberating how much to tell Violet about what happened on my way home.
Sophie uses her mother’s arm to pull herself to her feet.
Violet kisses her on the top of her head. “Hey, sweetheart. Did you have a good nap?”
Sophie just grins at her.
“He’s looking for you,” I say, not wanting to interrupt the peaceful moment, but she needs to know what’s going on. “I was biking home and a cop asked me if I had seen a woman in her early thirties with a young toddler.”
Violet nods, not at all surprised. How long was her husband searching for her before getting the police involved? How many lies has he told over the past few months or years to get the department on his side should Violet attempt to escape him?
I don’t doubt he’s as evil and conniving as my husband was.
“Why did someone want to kill your husband?” Violet’s tone is soft, and she catches me off guard with the slight change in topic.
“I really don’t know.” I sit on the bed, Sophie between us.
“Maybe someone suspected he was hurting you and killed him?”
“A vigilante? It’s possible, but highly unlikely. I was set up to make it look like a murder-suicide. Except I was the one who unknowingly took the drugs. And after my arrest, the idea I was an abused wife seemed to be a shock to everyone who knew my husband and me. On the outside, we appeared to be the perfect couple. None of his friends and their girlfriends or wives bothered to get to know me enough to see the cracks in the shiny surface.”
Or more likely, his friends knew not to get too close to me. His possessive streak scared them away.
“And he chased my friends away during the early part of our marriage,” I say, “except I didn’t clue in at the time that’s what was happening. I just thought we were drifting apart because I was married and they weren’t.” Perhaps that was true to an extent, but there was also more to it than that.
“He didn’t talk much about work.” I lift my shoulders in a quick shrug. “He was a cop, so I’m sure there were plenty of people who didn’t like him. But he was a regular beat cop. He wasn’t investigating a crime ring. He wanted to be a vice cop, but he had been passed over for that promotion more than once.”
And I witnessed firsthand how angry he’d been about that.
“So, he didn’t have a list of enemies like some cops might?” Violet asks.
“Exactly. And that’s also what the prosecution claimed. He was well liked. Why would anyone want him dead?” I shrug. “They clearly didn’t know the man the way I did.”
“You’re lucky. You could start your life over without having to worry that your husband’s hunting you down.” She shudders at her new reality.
