The End of Her - Shari Lapena Page 0,34
She’s at the mercy of this maniac, and it’s her husband’s fault.
Patrick looks at her warily. ‘There’s something else you should know.’
She regards him with dread.
‘She’s sleeping with Niall.’
She looks back at him, speechless with disbelief.
‘I saw them in her apartment. They started kissing and then went off to the bedroom.’ He says, ‘I know how she operates. She seduces people. She seduced me and she’s obviously seducing Niall.’
‘Why, though?’ Stephanie exclaims. ‘Why would she sleep with Niall?’
‘For the same reason she came inside our house and took your purse – to intimidate us! To make me worry about what she might tell Niall. To show her power over me. That’s why she’s been watching you, showing up at the park.’
Stephanie shudders. It’s only now beginning to dawn on her exactly who they’re dealing with. Maybe she’s planning on blackmailing Niall, too – maybe she’ll threaten to tell his wife that he’s cheating on her. Stephanie knows that Niall cheated before; Nancy had told her. It almost broke up their marriage.
Patrick continues pacing. Stephanie stares back at him, her mind racing. They refused to pay her. Maybe they’ve made a mistake. The thought makes the world go all sideways on her. She needs Patrick to stay still for a minute so she can think. But her mind is numb.
She looks at her husband, still pacing across the kitchen, not even seeing her or the twins. Her anger erupts. ‘You never should have slept with her.’
He stops then. ‘I know that!’ He looks at her desperately. ‘But it meant nothing, Stephanie. She’s revising everything in her head, telling it differently from how it really happened. That’s what’s so scary – I don’t know what she’ll make up next!’
Stephanie asks bluntly, ‘Other than the fact that you slept with her a couple of times, she doesn’t have anything else, does she?’
Patrick looks at her and there’s something in his face that she doesn’t like. A mixture of shame and fear. A pleading look comes over him and she knows he’s about to confess to something awful. She wants to turn away, flee from the room. She doesn’t want to hear any more. She’s sick of all of this and suddenly almost hates him for bringing it all down on their heads. They have two precious little girls to think of – how will all this affect their future?
‘She says …’ Patrick starts, but his voice falters and he can’t seem to finish the thought.
‘She says what?’ Stephanie demands, her voice strident. One of the babies begins to cry, and the other immediately joins in.
‘I think she’s lying, but – after she saw you at the park, she asked me to meet her, and she said she had a child, and that it’s mine.’
Her heart sinks like a stone. Oh, God. She slumps in her chair, puts her hands to her face.
‘Don’t look like that,’ Patrick says, his voice pleading.
She barely hears him; everything seems to fade away into the background, even the twins’ noises, and all she can hear is the pounding of her own heart, thudding in her ears. A child. If this woman had a child by him, it changes everything. Finally she looks up at her husband. She realizes with a sickening feeling that he’s even more frightened than she is.
‘Stephanie, it probably isn’t true,’ he says. ‘That’s – that’s why I went to her apartment – and there was no sign of a child at all. She must be lying.’ When she doesn’t say anything, he says, ‘I have to find out for sure. There must be a way.’
‘Yes, there must be a way,’ she says coldly. ‘You must be able to find out if she had a child. Hire someone if you have to.’
He hesitates and says, ‘She also told me how much money she wants to make her go away.’
‘How much?’ Stephanie asks.
‘Two hundred thousand dollars,’ he says, his eyes flicking to hers and away again.
She can tell, reading him, that he thinks that’s a reasonable amount, considering what Erica’s threatening to do, and considering what they have in the bank. She has it in her power to solve this problem for him, for them. But she knows that if they pay her once, she’ll just come back for more.
‘Over my dead body,’ she says.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ON MONDAY MORNING, Patrick hears the door at reception open and cocks an ear. Niall has just come in. All last night Patrick hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Niall