die that way,” Dan said. His mouth slid into a knowing smile.
“It just seems weird,” Kate added, “that they never found the actual body, not even teeth and stuff. Maybe he was murdered beforehand. Maybe his body’s buried somewhere… nowhere near the crash. And the car accident was, like, faked. There was a lapse of time, right, from when he went missing to the discovery of the car?”
“Look,” I said. “Is this some kind of joke to torment me? Talking like this about my—my husband’s… body parts? To taunt me with this? You think there could be a survivor of a crash like that? A car exploding on impact?”
“We were just wondering if it was possible,” Jen added, “that he was never in the car in the first place. That maybe it was, like, parked… maybe the car—it was a vintage Mustang, right?—that the handbrake was off, maybe someone rolled it over the edge of the cliff without him in it. That he died… elsewhere. That the killer used that as a cover-up, that—”
“That’s insane! Why are you making me revisit this horrible—I can’t believe you’re all bringing this—look, I’d rather not talk about this, please.” Tears threatened, and I encouraged them to spill down my cheeks by squeezing my eyes. Maybe waterworks would make them more sympathetic towards me. Now, at least, I knew why they were locking me up. They thought I’d murdered my husband. This was insane!
“It’s just strange,” Kate went on. “Strange they never found more than a man’s watch and a burnt shoe.”
“A shoe and watch I identified as his. I gave him that Rolex for our tenth anniversary present. It was engraved on the back with Juan’s initials, and a personal message. The shoes were one of a kind. Bespoke. He had them made by a cobbler in London. The same cobbler who hand-makes shoes for Sean Connery. There are no other shoes like that! As I said, unique. Proof it was Juan! The investigation was closed. I can’t believe you’re bringing this up when it’s a solved case!”
“Yeah, handy, that. No human body parts, just items, which the murderer could have thrown in with the debris. Classic. Seen it in a million cop shows on TV.”
“Look, nobody else found anything fishy so why should you? Why are you delving into my private—?”
“Private?” Jen said. “You think we aren’t interested in your family? Your husband? The man who took this house from us?”
The way she said “family” startled me. It sank home that not even Jen had ever considered me family. It had all been my gullibility and self-made fantasy that had propelled me into this heinous situation.
Jen pulled out her phone from her pocket (so there was a connection, after all), and scrolling through it, read out, “Authorities had planned to search the site for the body on Wednesday, the day of the accident, but rain and the treacherous terrain were slowing efforts, according to Lola Cipriani, a spokeswoman for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department, who said, ‘It’s very difficult for crews to rappel down to that dangerous location.’”
I felt bile rising in my stomach. “Anyway, what’s this to you? Why are you suddenly so fixated on my husband?” I drew a sharp breath. I wondered what, exactly, they wanted from me. To blackmail me? Had they found what was buried? Or was it just Cliffside itself they were after? That’s all they had ever cared about. They didn’t care about money; they just wanted Cliffside.
I tried to remain calm. “You’re getting yourselves worked up over something that none of us can control,” I said under my breath. “What happened, happened. My husband is dead, and the way you all speak of him like he was some thief who stole your house, I wonder why you would care one iota about his death anyway.”
“Oh, we don’t give a shit about him,” Dan said, “but we do live with you, and trusted you. It would be nice to know who we have in our house.”
Our house.
Pretty Brit Widow in our Big Sur house.
I wanted to remind them it was my house, they were here because of my generosity, and that they were in no way obliged to stay. Especially if they considered me a murderess, which was what they seemed to be driving at. Were they worried they might be next on the list? Obviously. Powerless. I eyed up Jen’s phone, plotting and scheming about how I could get my hands on