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CHAPTER 63
KATE
I slip the key Ashlyn gave me into the lock and open the door. I hurry inside and disarm the alarm.
“Tish! It’s Kate. I’m here to talk,” I yell up the grand staircase. I know she’s here somewhere. I take a few steps up and call her name again.
“Oh, I see you let yourself in. A charming habit your daughter shares.” Tish stands at the top of the stairs wearing a super-short skirt and the expensive necklace John bought her when they were engaged. She begged for it, Ashlyn had told me, and he was happy to oblige. He was in love, he told me.
“What’s a $30,000 necklace compared to a lifetime of happiness?” he’d asked me when I questioned him at the office.
“Can you just stop flaunting your midlife crisis? It’s pathetic,” I’d said and turned away in disgust.
Tish is looking at me.
“Good evening,” I say.
She says, “I could call the cops on you. Breaking and entering.”
I smile. “You could, but you won’t. You know they’re on my side anyway.”
“So what? You bought a few squad cars. I can still call them.” Tish glares at me.
“I don’t think they’d appreciate the fact that you tried to kill my daughter by flooding her car’s engine.”
Tish laughs. “Not me. She probably was texting while driving again.”
“You murdered my husband.”
“Yourex-husband. And I did not. You’re making up stories. You don’t have any proof.”
“It’s over, Tish. You were never going to win. Not in the long run. Not against me. Did you know this house is in a trust for Ashlyn? John and I did that.”
“Just found out that charming piece of news. You can have the house. It is haunted.” She’s gliding down the stairs toward me. “I need a change. I’ll leave town tonight, for the right price.”
I take a deep breath. I’m not afraid of her. Even if I have allowed her to think I am.
She’s a gold digger. A home-wrecker. And I’m convinced it was premeditated. All of it. She’s resourceful, I suppose.
It was John who wasn’t.
“What do you want?” Tish stands one step above me.
“You will leave my family alone, leave town, and never come back. I’m willing to pay. I just want you gone,” I say. Time to drop a few surprises. “John and I weren’t getting back together. I was just messing with you. I knew you read his texts.”
“What? Yes you were. You wanted what I had.” Tish spits the words out but stops. “You didn’t want him back?”
I shrug. “That’s for me to know. It worked. Your relationship ended as it always was going to. It was a joke from the beginning. Let’s get this deal done, shall we?”
“Fine with me. But it’s going to cost you. Big-time. Do you understand?” Tish wags a finger at me. “Let’s sit in the living room.”
I follow her down the hall, and we sit on opposite ends of an overstuffed white couch. I pull out the documents I brought with me and place them on the glass coffee table.
“I have all the money in the world. I can transfer to your account tonight. I have a contract for us to sign, right here. Unlike the fake will you tried to float, this document is real and binding. One of the stipulations is you must never come back to Columbus. I mean it. This will be the last time we speak to each other. Understood?” I point to clause five of the contract.
“I’ve made two copies. We’ll each sign one. Here are the terms.” I point to the numbers and know they look larger than anything Tish has ever seen in writing, bigger than anything she will ever see again.
She smiles and asks, “And what will you agree to?”
