NOW
When Jason arrived home, Frances was seated at the kitchen table nursing a glass of white wine. It was her third, as indicated by the half-empty bottle perched before her. Jason’s eyes drifted over the evidence, but he dutifully kissed her cheek. “How was your day?”
“Terrible.”
Jason lowered himself onto a neighboring chair. “What happened?”
Frances downed the rest of her wine. “Get a glass,” she urged him. “You’re going to need it.”
“Just tell me.” Her partner’s handsome face was troubled. “Is Marcus okay?”
“He’s fine. For now.” She made a grab for the bottle, but he was quicker, moving it out of her reach.
“What’s going on, Frances?” He sounded justifiably anxious. “Where’s our son?”
“In his room. He’s on his iPad.” Frances recalled a time, not so long ago, when monitoring her son’s screen time had been paramount.
“Tell me.”
“Daisy Randolph was seeing this older guy. She went to his apartment, near U-Dub, and she drank too much. She called me to pick her up the next morning. The man, David, wasn’t there, but I looked around his apartment for some clue to his identity. And I found a photograph . . . of Kate.”
“Why did this guy have a photo of Kate?”
“I don’t know.” Frances retrieved the picture from under the stack of magazines and mail and slid it toward her partner.
Jason picked it up and stared at the image. “It was taken a long time ago, obviously, but it looks like her.”
“Turn it over.”
His lips barely moved as he read the words out loud. “Amber Kunik.” Frances watched him absorb the information, recollect the name, place it in context. His dark eyes met his wife’s. “Jesus Christ.”
Frances’s eyes welled with tears. “I know.”
“I remember this case,” Jason said, getting up to retrieve a wineglass. “It was all over the news. Amber and her boyfriend killed that young girl. . . . She was only fourteen.”
“Fifteen.”
Jason poured himself a glass, topped up Frances’s. “Are you sure it’s Kate? Could there have been some kind of mistake?”
“She’s changed her hair and makeup. She’s older, of course. But it’s her.”
“This is . . .” He drank some wine. “This is unbelievable.”
The tears seeped from Frances’s eyes. “It is.”
“She’s been in our home. Marcus slept over there.”
“She did some horrible things in the past,” Frances said, “but there’s no evidence she actually killed that girl.”
“She was in on it. Everyone knew that.”
“That was Shane Nelson’s testimony, but it was never proven. He was trying to save himself.”
Jason shook his head. “I remember when those tapes came out after she cut her deal. This pretty, middle-class girl who was capable of such evil . . .”
“She was abused by Shane Nelson. Mentally and physically. She was only twenty.”
“She’s a psychopath. Why are you defending her?”
“I’m not.” But she was. Why? Was it residual loyalty for the friendship Kate had shown her? Was she trying to justify the love she had felt for the woman? Or was it because of what Frances herself had done? She had also stolen a daughter from her parents. From her own parents . . . She looked at the concern etched on her husband’s face, and wondered if she could finally tell him the truth. Jason knew her sister had died tragically young: an undiagnosed heart defect was the story. Could she admit her role in her sister’s demise? Was it finally time?
But Jason stood then. “I’m going to call the school.”
“What for?”
“There’s an infamous murderer in the parent community, Frances. People have a right to know.”
“Is that necessary?”
“She could volunteer in the classroom. She could invite kids over to her house for playdates. She’s dangerous.”
“Kate never volunteers. And Marcus is the only kid who goes to Charles’s house.” Frances stood, too. “I really don’t think she’d do anything. The rates of recidivism for women are super-low.”
“Stop minimizing what Kate’s done!” Jason barked. He picked up his cell phone, nestled among the kitchen counter clutter. “I’m calling the school.”
Frances’s response was muted in the face of her husband’s uncharacteristic anger. “The office will be closed now.”
Jason looked at his watch, put the phone down. “Fine. I’ll call tomorrow. I’ll go in and talk to the principal.”
Frances’s voice was a whisper. “But Charles . . .”
“Fuck.” Her husband ran his hands through his cropped hair.
“He’s a sweet boy. He’s Marcus’s only friend. Marcus needs him.”
“Marcus is stronger than you think, Frances. He’ll be fine.” Jason drained his wineglass. “I’m sorry about the kids, I really am, but you don’t seem to realize how dangerous Amber Kunik is. You were removed from the crime, up here in Washington, but I lived in Denver then, one state over. My sister was the same age as the murdered girl. My parents were terrified, everyone was. Amber Kunik is evil, Frances. Kate is evil.”
“Robert said not to tell anyone. He said Kate has a legal right to privacy.”
Her partner emitted a humorless snort of laughter. “Fuck Robert. What kind of sick bastard marries a cold-blooded killer?”
The irony of his remark was lost on him.
“I knew she was coming on to me that night after we got high. They’re not our friends. They probably invited us over to have some fucking orgy.”
“No . . .”
“They’re sick, Frances. They’re perverts with no moral compass. How else could Robert forgive what Kate did?”
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she took another drink of wine. It was room temperature now and suddenly tasted too sweet, too heady, but she needed to deaden herself to the nightmare unfolding before her. She had cried enough tears for herself, but so many others would be impacted by this revelation. Charles Randolph would be ostracized, bullied, if not expelled. Marcus would be devastated and alone. And Daisy . . . The girl already seemed to be teetering on the brink; what would become of her now? A sob shuddered through Frances’s chest.
“I know you don’t want to lose your friend, but I’m right about her, Frances. You know I am.”
She wanted to explain that she was crying for Kate’s kids, for Marcus, not just for herself. She wanted him to come to her, to hold her and comfort her, but he didn’t. He headed to the stairs to check on their son. Jason was frightened and angry—he had every right to be. She’d brought a child-killer into their lives. . . . But he would forgive Frances, eventually. What Kate had done could not be forgiven; Frances knew that, but it didn’t stop her heart from aching with loss.
She moved to the fridge and retrieved another bottle of wine. Then, digging into the back of a high cupboard, she removed her emergency stash of junk food: chips, boxed cookies, soft licorice.
This was an unequivocal emergency.