Every Last Secret - A.R. Torre Page 0,77

Others showed him in New York, smiling for the camera, or covered in mud, at a runner’s event of some sort. It was the ones near the end that were the hardest to see. I saw the tightening of Matt’s back, the stiffening of his neck, his movement slowing as he looked at each of them in painful slow motion.

William’s wedding photo.

A selfie with him and Cat, obviously in bed.

Him at a football game, his arm around her.

Another with the two of them, laughing on a Hawaiian beach.

In each of those, Cat’s face was scribbled over in black marker, and a careful cutout of my face was glued atop the scribble, my bright smile next to William’s. Looking over his shoulder, it looked like the work of a crazy person. Me.

The last three photos were the worst. Shots of the four of us. Poolside at the club. At the Winthorpe Foundation charity golf tournament. At the Fourth of July party. In every single one, Matt and Cat were beheaded, drops of blood painted in red marker around the crude hole where their heads used to be.

He dropped the photos as if they were poisoned, his fat knees scooting back on the floor, his breath wheezing as if we’d just had sex. He turned to me, and the pain and hatred that emanated from him made me step back in defense. “You—you’re obsessed with him.”

“What?” I shook my head. “I’m not. I didn’t—I didn’t do that, Matt. Come on! I love you.” I sank onto my knees before him, abandoning any thoughts about a life without him. I couldn’t lose him, couldn’t have him look at me like this, not when he was the only person in my entire life to look at me as if I had worth, to cherish me as if I were a prize.

“Have you slept with him?” he gritted out.

“What?” I gasped. “No. Matt.” I grabbed his hand, clutching it between mine. “Matt, I love you. This—this is all a setup. Someone else put those photos in there. I didn’t do that. I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. I love you.” The lies mixed with the truth, and I prayed that he would believe them all. He had to.

“For twenty years, I’ve bent over backward to be a perfect husband,” he seethed. “I’ve dealt with your jealousy. I’ve supported your career, your plastic surgeries, your insecurities . . . and for what? Eighty thousand dollars underneath our bed and an obsession over our neighbor? I’d thought it was Cat, all this time. Cat you hated. Cat you wanted to be like. Cat you were obsessed over.”

“I’m not obsessed with Cat,” I spit out. “I hate Cat.”

“Then why have we spent so much time with them? Why all the dinners? Why the stupid pop-ins? Admit it—Neena. It was because of him.” He stared at me with a look I couldn’t escape two decades ago and was helpless to avoid now. “Look at me, Neena, and tell me the truth.”

“He’s my boss,” I said quietly. “Anything I did was to keep my job and to give us new opportunities.” Like a weed, the idea immediately grew. William could have forced himself on me. Made inappropriate comments. Touches. No one knew what happened in that boardroom. It’d be my word against his. Maybe tonight was all William. Maybe he’d grown obsessed with me and hired a hit man to kill my husband. It could work. And even if it couldn’t, the threat of it to William’s empire would be enough to get something. Some additional reward for all this.

“There was this, also.” The detective crouched beside the open cavity and pulled out a picture frame, one that had been under the box. She held it out to me, and Matt flinched, recognizing the carved wooden frame that used to hold our wedding photo. As if pulled to the spot, I looked at the dresser where it had previously sat.

“The frame is ours, but the image . . .” I shook my head and lied. “I’ve never seen that photo before.” It was a solo picture of William, a candid shot where he was smiling into the camera. The photo was from an African safari that he and Cat had gone on—the photo one of hundreds on her Instagram feed.

“These pictures are all of your neighbor.” She tapped the glass, her short nails dotting William’s face. “William Winthorpe.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes, but I didn’t do any