October 2019
Minneapolis
“Was the letter to Kate?”
Sofia held her foot in the front door so Gretchen couldn’t slam it. She held the piece of paper out in front of her. “This letter? Was it to Kate?”
Gretchen’s mouth started working. Grimacing, clenching. She glanced down at the statue of The Thinker on a table by the front door. A stack of mail sat beside it.
“Look at me,” Sofia yelled. “Was it? Answer me!”
Gretchen glared.
Sofia’s arm lowered to her side. “You’ve known the entire time, haven’t you? You’ve known that letter was to Kate?”
“No. I just figured it out.” Gretchen pulled her shoulders back. “Besides, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t mean he killed her.” Gretchen stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes like bullets, her chin held high in defiance. Her words hung in the silence.
Sofia had never said anything about Dan killing Kate. She stood there, balling her hands into fists, her rage boiling up from her middle. She could imagine, vividly see herself smashing the statue on the end table into Gretchen’s smug face. Time slowed and the moment seemed to last an eternity as both women stood a few feet away from each other, chests heaving with emotions, words left unsaid.
Gretchen broke the silence. “I have to go now. I’m leaving for my mother’s. You have to leave.” She looked pointedly at Sofia’s car in the driveway. “Besides, they arrested someone else. I saw it on TV just before you came.”
Then oddly, Gretchen repeated her shocking words. “That letter doesn’t mean he killed her.”
“But it doesn’t mean he didn’t,” Sofia said in a low voice, turned on her heel and left.
In her car, her hands clenching the steering wheel, she couldn’t breathe. She clicked the ignition enough to roll down all four windows and gulped for air until her vision cleared. She was afraid to turn the key and start her vehicle. She was afraid that her foot would press down on the accelerator and that she would point her vehicle toward the garage and ram into the garage door and then through the wall into the house, through the living room, over Gretchen, through the kitchen and into Dan’s office and wait there with Gretchen’s body caught in her chassis until Dan came home and then she would take the statue and bludgeon his— “
The sound of her phone startled her. She glanced down.
Jason.
She couldn’t talk to him right then.
A whiff of cigarette smoke trickled in through her open window. Again, a surge of desire swept over her. Staring out the windshield, she saw an elderly man in his side yard, examining some bushes with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth.
She started her car. Although she was still tempted to stomp on the gas, she slowly, carefully pulled away, so as to not draw attention to herself and her vehicle. She needed to avenge Kate’s death. But she had to be smart.
She’d shown up uncertain, but the way Gretchen had reacted seemed like proof. As impossible as it seemed, Dan had been in love with Kate. And then killed her.
A keening sound came out of her mouth. Oh God, no. No. No. No.
Nearly blinded by her tears, she drove home. She was on autopilot, absorbed in her horrifying thoughts.
How could a man she considered one of her best friends even be capable of hurting her daughter? For the past seventeen years, he had treated Kate like his own child. His home had been like a second home to Kate. She had spent so many nights there, eaten hundreds of meals, swam in their pool on countless summer days. Sofia thought back to all the minutes, hours, days and nights Kate had spent around Dan.
Sofia screeched to the shoulder and opened her door in time to vomit onto the pavement. A car honked loudly and she pulled her door closed, not bothering to wipe her face.
Dan was sick. Disgusting. Had he killed her because Kate had fought back? As she drove home, Sofia felt like she was in a dream state. Nothing seemed real. She had thought the nightmare she was living could not possibly get worse.
She was wrong.