breath out of me. For a second or two I can’t move, can’t even think, and then my brain kicks into overdrive, flashing the faces of people I’ve seen splashed across the news. That heartsick doctor. Sabine’s twin sister. Her husband. People who loved her, who prayed for her and wanted her back. My heart breaks at the idea they’re picturing the same thing.
I drop my face in my hands and give in to my tears, crying for Sabine, for her friends and family, for me. For my own grief and fury and horror and rage and guilt.
Most of all, for my guilt.
Because I know Jeffrey is not the one who wrapped his fingers around her throat. He’s not the one who squeezed until two bones snapped, not the one who left her for the buzzards.
I know it was you.
BETH
Ten days prior
I crouched behind a juniper hedge, watching balloons bob above the open house sign, and waited until everybody left. A gaggle of blonde brokers in teetering heels, an older couple I recognized from church, a straggler with his pockets full of food. Sabine had once told me there were always moochers. She’d laughed as she said it, as if she couldn’t care less that strangers stopped by with the sole motivation of snagging some snacks, and I remember thinking she was so nice, so understanding and generous, and that was even before she offered to help me. But the point is, I waited until everybody was gone.
When it was all quiet, I craned my head around the branches, searched up and down the street. No cars, no pedestrians out walking their dog in this heat. Only the sounds of traffic on Hazel Street, humming in the distance. Still, I waited and I watched and I listened. Seven years with you had taught me I could never be too careful. When I was certain it was safe, I burst out of the shrubs to the side door.
Sabine was stacking leftover cookies into a plastic container when I came into the kitchen. She saw me, and she sucked in a breath. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Omigod, don’t move. And get away from that window.”
She shooed me out of sight and rushed past, her heels clicking on the marble. I heard the metallic clunk of the front door lock sliding into place, and two seconds later, she was back. She looked me over for cuts and bruises.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“Only my ribs,” I say, cradling my right side with a palm, “but nothing’s broken.”
Anyone else would have asked how I knew, but not Sabine. Sabine knew what you did to me. All those times you threw me down the stairs, the punches and the kicks and the bites, the concussions and broken ribs. She knew what you were capable of, and she helped me anyway.
Do you even remember meeting her? I bet you don’t, do you? Sabine was the broker on that house on Hillcroft Street, the one we looked at last year. It was more house than we could afford, but you wanted it, and I knew better than to point out the obvious. The mortgage bank did it for me, two weeks later. When they turned us down, you got so mad you kicked me in the head.
But you probably don’t remember Sabine because you were so busy strutting around the house, taking in the twelve-foot ceilings and granite countertops, the kitchen filled with shiny appliances we’d never use. But I noticed. I noticed the way her smile was too big but her eyes were sad, the way her makeup was thicker on one side, the way she kept touching her cheek like she had a toothache.
She’s like me, I remember thinking. Her husband is like mine.
And so, while you were up in the attic, banging on the rafters and inspecting the wiring, I asked if she was okay.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her eyes didn’t quite meet mine and she smiled way too bright, the way I did when people asked me. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
I could hear your footsteps overhead, stomping around up there in self-importance even though you didn’t have the slightest clue what you were looking at, and I knew I didn’t have much time.
I wrapped my hand around her wrist and whispered, “My husband does it, too.” Sabine’s eyes went wide with understanding, with acknowledgment. “He hurts me, too.”
Swear to God, I don’t even know why I said it. Up