The End of Her - Shari Lapena Page 0,91

damage if you hit a person,’ he said finally.

Nancy let her breath out at last. ‘Maybe someone else hit him.’

The judge turned around and went back into the house, his head down. Once he was back in an armchair in the living room he said, ‘I can’t tell you what to do. The only way to be sure is to turn yourselves in,’ the judge said, looking directly at Niall, ‘and let them look at the car.’ He added, ‘The waiter at the restaurant would be able to say how much you’d had to drink. You’d probably be looking at jail time.’

Nancy began to weep again.

The judge waited a long moment before he spoke again. ‘I can also tell you that the solve rate for hit-and-runs is laughably low.’ He added, ‘There’s no footage, no witnesses.’ He was silent for another long moment and then finally said, clearly unhappy, ‘Whatever you decide, I won’t say anything.’

Nancy shot a look at Niall. What would he want to do? She wished her father would be clearer about what they should do.

‘What do we do about the car?’ Niall asked at last.

‘Nothing,’ the judge said wearily. ‘Don’t take it to a garage to get it fixed. It doesn’t really need it, and they’ll be watching for that. No one’s going to notice anything about your car.’

And no one had. For a long time Nancy woke every day hoping that they would catch who’d done it, and that it would be someone else, with a badly damaged car – proof positive that it wasn’t them. But it didn’t work out that way. The case quickly disappeared from the news.

Now, Nancy, curled up on the sofa with her knees to her chest, has to resist the urge to telephone her father.

CHAPTER FIFTY

PATRICK TAKES SOME satisfaction in the shocked look on the receptionist’s face when he walks into the office. ‘Patrick!’ she says.

‘Hey, Kerri,’ he says with a triumphant smile. ‘Is Niall around?’

Niall must have heard him because he strides into the reception area.

‘Patrick!’ he repeats, sounding just as taken aback as their receptionist.

It’s an awkward moment. The last time they spoke, Patrick had been anticipating arrest, and Niall had told him he was dissolving the partnership; it had been acrimonious. Niall still looks very much on his guard. Fuck him, Patrick thinks. Why can’t he be happy for him? Does he have any real friends at all? ‘I have good news. The charges have been dropped. I’ve been completely exonerated, just as I expected,’ he says.

‘That’s terrific! Really good news!’ Niall says, clearly relieved, but with less enthusiasm than Patrick would have liked.

‘Do you have a minute?’ Patrick asks.

‘Of course, come into my office.’

Patrick follows the other man and sits down in the chair he used to sit in, almost daily, for four years. He reflects for a minute that this time yesterday he was still in jail, thinking he might die in there. How quickly things can change, for better or for worse.

‘So, tell me what happened,’ Niall says, sitting back in his chair.

‘They had no evidence. None at all. And once they did some actual investigating, they found out that Erica Voss is a criminal and a liar.’ He explains what they learned about Erica’s past. Patrick shakes his head. ‘She told all those lies; she could have put me in prison for life.’

Niall has gone awfully pale. ‘Wow,’ he says. He asks, ‘Can they charge her with something?’

‘I don’t know,’ Patrick says. ‘But I’m free and clear of her. I’m ready to come back to work – no distractions.’ Niall looks uncomfortable. ‘What?’ Patrick asks, confused. ‘I’ve been cleared, Niall. Completely. They realized they never should have arrested me at all. They even told me as much,’ he lies.

‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ Niall begins.

‘What do you mean, a misunderstanding?’

‘We already agreed to dissolve the partnership, Patrick. You’re getting paid out.’

‘But that was before. Everything’s different now,’ Patrick protests. ‘You can’t still want to dissolve the partnership!’ But that’s exactly what Niall wants to do, Patrick realizes, adrenaline shooting through his system.

Niall flushes. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Patrick. I’m so glad – so happy and relieved for you – that this has worked out. That woman should rot in hell for what she did to you. But – the optics aren’t good. I mean, you’re all that people in this town have been talking about. It’s – quite a scandal.’

‘And now they’ll be talking about how they had to let me