Not a Happy Family
Page 28
She grabbed a garbage bag from under the sink and put her mother’s rings and the electrical cord inside. Then she walked down the hall and upstairs to the master bedroom. She rifled through the jewelry box, then decided to take everything, dumping its contents into the bag. She emptied their wallets and threw them to the floor. She left a bloody trail behind her, pulling open drawers, trashing the place as she went, upstairs and down. She went into the study, but left the safe alone. Last of all, she took the box of family silver from the dining room. Then she went out the back door in the kitchen to the backyard, which verged on a ravine. She knew no one could see her—it was pitch dark and the other houses were too far away, blocked by trees. She placed the box of silver in the canvas zip-up bag she’d brought. Then she stripped off the bloodied disposable suit and the booties and the thick socks and placed them carefully in the plastic bag, along with the electrical cord and the jewelry, cards, and cash, removing the gloves last of all. She wiped her face and hands thoroughly with wet wipes, then placed those in the garbage bag as well. Then she placed that bag inside the canvas bag, put on her shoes and jacket and a fresh pair of latex gloves, and made her way back to Irena’s car. She drove back to Irena’s, moved the canvas bag into her own car, and returned the keys.
On the way home, she got rid of the evidence. Somewhere no one would ever find it. She hid the canvas bag on a farm property along the same isolated country road she lives on. She buried it in the ground where a concrete floor was going to be poured for a new outbuilding sometime in the next day or two. It was a stroke of good fortune that she already knew this because she’s acquainted with the woman who owns the property, and she had mentioned it to her.
Now, every time Jenna drives past that building, seeing it go up—it’s progressing nicely—she feels a sense of satisfaction.
They will never find the evidence. She’s the only one who knows it’s there.
Catherine and Dan did not kill their parents, but Ted and Lisa don’t know that for sure. Jenna smirks as she drives. If she wanted to, Jenna could tell Ted and Lisa things—things that were actually true—that would make their toes curl. Those earrings, for example—the ones they found in Catherine’s jewelry box, the ones she “borrowed”—Jenna knows her mother was wearing those same earrings the night she strangled her. She had long enough to notice them while she had the cord around her neck. She knows Catherine must have taken them off their mother’s body that night. She wonders what Ted would think of that.
And Dan—does Lisa not wonder about her husband’s compulsion to drive endlessly after dark? Where does she think he goes? Does she never try to call his cell? What does she suppose he’s doing? Classic serial killer behavior, if you ask me, Jenna thinks to herself.
It’s too bad Audrey didn’t die from the poison she put in her iced tea that Sunday morning, sneaking in the open back window while Audrey was out, but in the end, Jenna thinks, it doesn’t really matter.
EPILOGUE
Audrey drives the route from Fred and Sheila’s house to Irena’s house, then to Jenna’s house, over and over again over the next weeks. She thinks Jenna must have dumped the bloody clothes or disposable suit along here somewhere that night.
She wants to prove that Jenna murdered Fred and Sheila. Catherine clearly doesn’t—she wants to keep everything quiet, and to protect the family name. But Audrey suspects Dan feels the same way she does. Audrey can understand why. In the public imagination, in the press, obsessed with the Merton killings, Dan is the one everybody seems to think is guilty. He wants to be exonerated.
Audrey figures it was Jenna who tried to poison her.
She takes to following Jenna, but at a safe distance. One day she sees her stop in briefly at a home along the country road that Jenna lives on. She doesn’t stay long, but long enough for Audrey to notice, as she waits well back on the side of the road, that a new building is going up on the property, some distance from the house. Jenna comes out carrying something. Audrey is too far away to see what it is.
As Jenna drives off, Audrey stays where she is for a moment. Then she drives closer. She sees the sign: fresh eggs. Audrey gets out of her car and walks up the short drive. It’s an old house, nicely redone to retain its original charm. Red brick, cream gingerbread trim on the porch. Audrey could see herself living in a place like this, out in the country, but not too far from town. Of course, she resents that she’ll never be able to afford Brecken Hill, but it’s true she loves it out here—so pretty and peaceful.
“Hi,” Audrey says, when a woman comes out the screen door. “What a lovely place you have here.”
“Thank you,” she says. “Did you want some eggs?”
“Yes, please,” Audrey answers. “A dozen.”
As the woman packages her eggs, Audrey says, “I notice you’re putting up a new outbuilding.”
She nods. “Poured the foundation just after Easter, and now it’s almost finished.”
Audrey smiles at the woman and pays for her eggs.
Audrey has watched enough crime shows to know that it’s smart to bury bodies under poured concrete, especially when it’s the foundation for a building. Why not evidence? She visits Reyes and Barr and tells them what she thinks. But they explain that they can’t dig up a building on someone’s private property based on her suspicions, no matter how much it makes sense to her.
Somehow a full year goes by. Audrey’s heard that Catherine has given birth to a baby girl, and that she and Ted and the baby now live in Fred and Sheila’s old house in Brecken Hill. Audrey saw Ted recently at the grocery store, wearily pushing a cart, buying food and diapers. He looked haggard, unhappy. She turned away, avoiding him before he saw her.
One sunny day in early June, Audrey happens to drive by the lovely rural property again. This time she notices a for sale sign out front. Audrey has just received her inheritance—a million dollars. She stops the car and stares at the sign for a long moment. Should be more than enough.
She picks up her cell phone and calls the realtor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, and The End of Her, which have all been New York Times and The Sunday Times (London) bestsellers. Her books have been sold in thirty-seven territories around the world. She lives in Toronto and Not a Happy Family is her sixth thriller.
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