The End of Her - Shari Lapena Page 0,18

to set the babies back in motion. That calms them for a bit. Then she paces around the living room, suddenly filled with a nervous, restless energy, her exhaustion gone. She turns to him. ‘What are we going to do? If she goes to the police with her lies, that would be—’ She can’t even imagine what it would be like. ‘She’s accusing you of – murder!’ Stephanie says, her voice strained. ‘Think of what that would do to us, what it would do to us personally, to your reputation—’

‘It would be in Colorado, not here,’ Patrick says, his voice tense. ‘Worst case is I’d have to go back to Colorado and give my side of the story, which I’ve already done. They believed me then. They won’t believe her and they won’t reopen it. I don’t think anyone here would find out.’

‘I think that’s naive, Patrick,’ Stephanie says.

His face darkens. ‘Fuck.’ He begins to pace as well. ‘She can’t be allowed to get away with this! It’s all lies!’

‘Should we talk to an attorney about this?’

Patrick shakes his head. ‘Not yet. Maybe she’ll give up when we don’t pay her.’

Stephanie thinks for a minute, her breathing fast and shallow. ‘You said you think she might be a sociopath. Do you really think so?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If she’s crazy, no one’s going to listen to her.’

He exhales deeply. ‘But she doesn’t seem crazy. She comes across as completely normal, but I know she’s lying,’ he says. He adds tentatively, ‘I don’t know – maybe we should pay her something, just to make her go away.’

‘No way,’ Stephanie counters. ‘If we pay her once, she’ll ask again. She’ll be after us for money for the rest of our lives. She’ll drain us dry.’ They have to stand up to her, come what may. She feels ill at the prospect of what’s ahead. ‘We’re not going to use my parents’ hard-earned money to pay off some woman who’s trying to blackmail you over something that you didn’t do. Think about it, Patrick! This is insane. I can’t believe you’d even consider paying her anything.’

‘No, you’re right,’ Patrick says, nodding.

‘Maybe I should talk to her,’ Stephanie says suddenly.

Patrick looks taken aback. ‘Why?’

‘To show her that I believe you, that I’m standing by you. That might take the wind out of her sails. Maybe I can reason with her,’ Stephanie says.

He shakes his head. ‘No! There’s no reasoning with her. I don’t want her anywhere near you, or the twins. She’s toxic – and possibly dangerous.’ He adds, ‘I mean, who in their right mind would make up something like this?’

CHAPTER TEN

NANCY FOOTE HAS put her son to bed and is now gathering up the day’s laundry to pop in the machine overnight. She picks up the shirt her husband wore that day – he’s thrown it on the bed, he never bothers to put anything in the laundry hamper – and a faint smell of perfume wafts from it. She freezes.

No. He wouldn’t. Not after last time.

In disbelief, she brings the shirt to her nose and sniffs. A woman’s perfume – floral and exotic, very faint. She tells herself that it doesn’t necessarily mean what she thinks it means. Maybe someone at the office was doused in scent today …

But Nancy can’t stand being lied to, and she won’t lie to herself either. She hasn’t smelled anything like this on her husband or his clothes since she forced him to break off his affair with Anne O’Dowd.

She sinks down onto their bed, her heart racing with the fear of betrayal. She hasn’t trusted him since she caught him cheating. She’s been keeping an eye on him, slipping her hands into his trousers and jacket pockets at night, looking for signs – a receipt, a cocktail napkin, a note … but there’s been nothing. She doesn’t know the passcode to his phone, unfortunately.

She sits on the bed feeling like the wind has been knocked out of her. She doesn’t want to go through this again. Should she confront him? She knows from experience that he’ll deny it. He’ll deny it until there’s incontrovertible proof, like last time.

She’d told him she’d forgiven him for Anne, but it isn’t really true. She hasn’t forgiven him. But she wants to stay in her marriage. She still loves him, and they have a young child to think about. Henry is only four years old. She doesn’t want to be a single mother, making arrangements week in, week out, reminding