for my marriage. I’d made that decision when I’d blocked Tig. It would be very hard on Davis, and if I had an escape route, our odds of us surviving when the truth came out went down.
She was watching me so closely, waiting now for me to finish before she spoke. Her voice was calm, deliberate.
“Do you understand what it’s going to be like? Once everyone knows?”
I swallowed. Of course I did. The idea of it—it felt like getting skinned alive. Every time any of my friends or neighbors looked at me, they would be thinking of it. This thing I did. Not just the accident, the death of Mrs. Shipley, but everything I’d done to Charlotte. I’d killed her mother, and then I’d worked myself so deep into her life that she called me her mom-friend. Leaving the neighborhood wouldn’t get me far enough away. The story would follow me as long as I was within a hundred miles of Pensacola. I’d have to move.
Davis loved his job, and he had a teenager who had lived in this town her whole life. No guarantee he would go with me, and if he did, it would mean uprooting his child and losing his tenured position. Davis loved me, but I knew his darkest secret, and it was this: He’d been relieved when Laura left him. If I brought him enough shame and trouble, he might be relieved to lose me, too.
If they did come with me, I would forever be the woman who killed Dana Shipley and stalked her daughter for years. It would be in Davis’s eyes, and Maddy’s, for the rest of my life. But I had actually done those things. Maybe Roux was right about karma. Maybe I deserved to pay in ways I had not chosen. I just wasn’t going to pay her.
“I do understand. But I’m not going to give you Char’s money. I also decided, I’m not going to tell her the truth. I’m not telling anyone. If you want it done, you’ll have to do it, knowing that I saved your life. Knowing that you owe me. We’ll see what your universe makes of you then. I hope, come Monday, you will choose to move along and leave me and my family in peace.” I put one deliberate finger on the picture of her battered face. I pushed it toward her. “The way I’m going to leave yours.”
Roux started to speak, then stopped. The photo was bothering her. I could see it. After a moment she put a palm over it, covering the gleam of her swollen-almost-shut eyes.
“This is another move,” she said at last. “It’s called High Road, and it doesn’t work on me.”
“Okay,” I said. I held my hand out. “Can I have my phone back, please?”
She passed it over, and I stood up, reaching for my handbag.
“You’re playing chicken,” she said. “But you’ll blink. I’ll see you Monday, noon, and you will do the transfer.”
I put my phone away and dug a twenty out of my purse. I set it on the table. “Drinks are on me. Come Monday I hope you walk away. I’m walking away now.”
“It’s a bluff,” she called after me. I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or just bravado, but either way I didn’t look back. “I’ll see you Monday.”
She wouldn’t, though, and then whatever she decided, I would live with it. Right now I was going to go home and sit down for a celebration dinner with my family. I would eat four ounces of steak and six shrimp and a skewer of grilled vegetables. A sane, regular meal. Maybe afterward I would have a G&T made exactly how I liked it, with Hendrick’s and fresh lime. I would tickle the baby, laugh with Maddy and Davis, be happy to be alive. Later I would take my husband up to bed and hope to God that Oliver stayed asleep for half an hour. I’d kiss Davis in a way that let him know I meant business. Whatever happened Monday would happen, but I was done. Roux had an odd sense of right and wrong, but she still had one. She wanted to believe that she was karma’s agent, restoring balance to the universe. I thought there was a chance, small but real, that she might simply ghost.
18
At home Oliver was in his bouncy chair, working over a soft teether while Davis loaded cut vegetables and shrimp onto the skewers. The steak was resting