by Beth Ehemann
“Hi, Detective Larson.” She flashed a pure white, fake smile at him as she held her hand out. He shook it quickly and sat down across from her. As she moved her legs out from under the table and crossed them, I noticed the red bottoms of her shoes. Tan Christian Louboutins, worth more than most people made in a whole week, perfectly matched her short, tight tan dress. Her long, white-blonde hair flowed over her shoulder like a cloud, and her cherry-red lips glistened in the florescent overhead lights.
“As I said on the phone, we’re investigating an incident with one of your husband’s employees, and we’re questioning anyone that may have had any contact with her.”
She pursed her lips together. “Mm-hmm.”
“Now, ma’am—”
“Oh, please. Don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel old,” she said in an almost flirtatious tone, waving her hand playfully at him. “Call me Blaire.”
“Oh my God,” I mumbled under my breath. Andy laughed quietly, standing up straight.
“Uh.” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we compromise on Mrs. Shaw. Mrs. Shaw, you’re obviously aware of your ex-husband’s company?”
“Obviously,” she answered with a roll of her eyes.
“Have you ever met any of his employees?”
She nodded.
“Who have you met?”
Blaire sighed and tossed her hands in the air. “All of them. We were married for many years.”
“Mrs. Shaw, I’m just gonna get down to it. Does the name Javier Delgado mean anything to you?”
Oh God, here we go.
Her eyes shot up to the ceiling, as though she was deep in thought. “Yes, I believe I know Javier. He did some carpentry work at my house over the summer.”
“Is he still working for you, ma—Mrs. Shaw?”
“No, I haven’t seen or talked to him in months . . . since he left my house.”
“Do you remember what work he did in your home?” Detective Larson asked as he scribbled something on his notepad.
“Uh, yes. He built a beautiful bar in my basement. What’s this about? Is Javier in some sort of trouble?” The tone of her voice was so fake and rehearsed that I prayed to God Detective Larson wasn’t buying anything she was saying.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Do you remember roughly how much you paid Mr. Delgado to install this bar in your home?”
“Yes, it was five thousand.”
Andy’s forehead dropped to my shoulder as he groaned at the number.
“Okay. Have you ever placed a flower order, for any reason, with Debbie’s Floral in downtown Minneapolis?”
She pursed her plump red lips and narrowed her eyes at Detective Larson. “Not that I can recall. What would a flower order have to do with Javier, anyway?”
Detective Larson ignored her question. “Mrs. Shaw, have you ever met a woman by the name of Danicka Douglas?”
“Ugh,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Yes, my ex-husband’s annoying business partner. She’s a real piece of work, that girl. Is she involved with Javier somehow? I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve thought that girl was nothing but trouble since she started working with Andrew.”
I pinched my eyes tight, trying to keep it together as Andy’s arms tightened around my waist.
“Mrs. Shaw, would you have any reason to harass Ms. Douglas?”
Andy dropped his arms and stepped up next to me as my eyes sprang back open at Detective Larson’s question.
“Harass her?” She looked at him incredulously. “Please. No, I’ve never harassed her. What do I care what she does with her life?”
“She’s such a fucking liar,” Andy hissed as he widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t believe she’s denying this.”
“Did you really think she was going to come in here and confess?” I leaned over and whispered, even though she couldn’t hear us.
“Have you ever spoken with Ms. Douglas?”
“Once, at Andrew’s house, and before you ask, no, I don’t remember what it was about. It wasn’t exactly a monumental moment in my life.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Mr. Larson, are we done here? I have things to do today.”
“Just a few more questions, Mrs. Shaw. Would you have had any reason to pay anyone to harass Ms. Douglas?” Detective Larson continued.
Her mouth dropped open in offense. “Exactly what are you implying, Detective Larson? I have absolutely not paid anyone to bother that little tramp, or anyone else for that matter. I came here to help, not to have accusations thrown at me!”
“Mrs. Shaw, I want to ask you one more time, just so we’re clear . . . have you had any contact, any contact at all, with Javier Delgado since he finished the carpentry work at your house?”
She sat up and slammed both hands down on the table. “I already told you, no! Are you an idiot? Do you listen?”
Just as I thought she was about to fly across the table and jam her long, acrylic nails right into his eyeballs, the door on the other side of the room opened, and the female officer poked her head in. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Detective Larson, we need you for just one second. It’s urgent.”
He nodded and looked up at Blaire. “I’m very sorry about this. Please, sit tight, I’ll be right back.” Offering up a tight, polite smile, he stood and left the room.
“She’s going to get away with this,” Andy growled with a dazed look on his face. “She can’t get away with this.”
Before I even had a chance to ask what he meant by that, he charged toward the door that led to her room.
“Andy! No!” I yelled, but it was too late.
Blaire’s head snapped toward the slamming door and her jaw dropped. She jumped up from the chair. “Andrew! What the hell are you doing here? And what were you doing in there? Who’s with you?!” She stared at the mirror and squinted, trying to look into it.
“You miserable bitch! You do know Javier and you know that he attacked Dani!”
I stood totally frozen, not sure if I should get someone from the hallway or let them have at each other. Going in there would only make things worse, so I stood still, worried that if I made a sound, she would know I was there.
“I said I know Javier, but as for him attacking Dani, I know nothing about her pathetic little life.” The tone she used when she spoke sent chills down my spine.
“She’s done nothing to you! Why did you do it?”
“Why did I do what?” Her head jerked back and her lips turned up in disgust. “You’re really starting to scare me, Andrew. Ever since she started working for you, you’ve been acting irrationally. You bet your ass the minute I walk out of here I’m going to call my attorney and let him know all of this.”
I waited, ready for Andy to flip a table or throw a chair, but to my surprise, he stood up straight and sighed. He walked over and squatted with his back against the cinder-block wall and put his head in his hands, tapping the top of it with his index finger, clearly trying to calm himself.
A solid minute of silence passed as my eyes darted from Blaire to Andy to the door. Finally, Andy calmly stood back up and put his hands on his hips, staring right at Blaire. “What happened to you?” he asked quietly.
Blaire and I both flinched at his question.
“What are you talking about?” she snapped back.
“You were not this person when we started dating. You weren’t even this bad when we got married and had Logan. Something changed in you, and not for the better. What was it?”
She played it cool, but I could tell by the subtle dip in her eyebrow that his words hurt her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Dragging the chair across the floor, she plopped back down and huffed. “I thought I was here to help you, the father of my children, and now you practically attack me—”
“Blaire . . . I know. I know everything. I know that you paid Javier a shit ton of money as soon as Dani started working for me, and it wasn’t for just a bar. I also know that he started
stalking her shortly after that. Storybook Productions? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots, Blaire. The only thing I don’t know is why.”
She turned her lips up and gawked at him. “You have an overactive imagination, Andrew. You should probably get that checked out.”
“Storybook Productions doesn’t mean squat to other people, but I know what it meant to us. And there’s no coincidence in the world that can explain away that or the money. I just want to know why. Why, Blaire? Why Dani? She never did anything to you.”
Blaire looked to the side of the room and licked her lips, refusing to talk back.
A tear dripped down my cheek as I watched their intense conversation. As much as I hated her for what she did to me, she was clearly a very broken, damaged woman.
“Blaire, it’s no secret that being a mom was never really your thing, but you have a chance to make this right. You have to make this right. If not for yourself, do it for Logan and Becca. This situation is taking a toll on them way more than it is me. For once in your life, do the motherly thing. They need this to be over, and honestly, I think you need it to be over, too.” He walked over and leaned against the wall she was staring at, forcing her to look at him. “I think you’re tired, Blaire. I think you’re tired of this act you’ve been performing for all these years, and you need this break just as bad as the rest of us. Save yourself while there’s still time for redemption. The kids are still young. They don’t need to know this side of you ever existed.”
As the door opened and Detective Larson came back in, my breath caught.
“Sorry about the delay—” He froze when he saw Andy. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
Andy stood up straight and sighed, sounding completely exasperated. “I thought maybe I could talk some sense into her.”
“Mr. Shaw, you need to leave immediately,” Larson ordered, pointing toward the doorway to my room.
Andy’s shoulders slumped in deflation as he turned and walked toward the door.
“It was me,” Blaire said in a soft, almost inaudible tone.
Detective Larson’s head flinched back. “What?”
Andy spun around and stared at her in complete silence.
“He’s right. I can’t put my kids through any more grief.” She put her head in her hands and started to cry, her shoulders shaking up and down. “I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign and do whatever I need to do,” she said in a muffled tone.
Detective Larson cleared his throat. “Uh . . . I’m going to need an official statement from you and to answer some more questions.” If he was shocked by what just happened, he did a good job of hiding it.
“Fine,” she said through sobs. “Anything you want.”
The woman in me wanted to go in the room and comfort her, tell her everything would be okay eventually. But as I looked down at my casted hand, I thought about all the messages, I thought about my car, I thought about my sweet dog, I remembered the torment I felt as Javier kicked me over and over, and in that moment, I decided that I didn’t need to save her. I didn’t want to save her. She put herself in this situation, and she needed to feel every emotion, burning with pain, or she would never grow past it.
“Okay, can you come with me, please?” Detective Larson stood and held his arm out for Blaire to follow him. She sniffed a few more times and wiped the mascara from her cheeks as she stood.
“Wait,” Andy ordered, looking Blaire straight in the eye. “Can you just tell me why? I have to know why.”
Blaire bit her lip and thought about his question for a few seconds. “I never wanted our divorce, Andrew. Not even a little. You were the love of my life, but I didn’t know how to show you that I loved you. When you ended our marriage, I was so devastated and shocked, I couldn’t function for months. I wanted to hurt you as bad as you hurt me. To paralyze you as bad as you paralyzed me.”
“Then why not just come after me directly?”
The corners of Blaire’s lips turned down slightly. “The kids. They need you more than they need me. So I hurt the next-best thing.”
They both stood silently, staring into each other’s eyes for several seconds until Detective Larson cleared his throat, and Blaire followed him out of the room.
Something shifted between Blaire and Andy when she walked past him. I felt it from the other room. It wasn’t hate, it wasn’t anger, it wasn’t revenge. It was just . . . over.
As soon as Detective Larson closed the door behind him, I rushed into the interrogation room. Andy had slid down the wall and was sitting on the floor with his legs pulled up and his elbows resting on his knees, staring straight ahead with a dazed look on his face.
I sat on the floor next to him, unsure of what to say. That was the single most intense interaction I’d ever seen between two people in my entire life, and I was stunned.
“I wanted to kill her,” Andy finally said in a tone so hollow it gave me goose bumps.
“Andy, don’t say that.”
“I mean it. Knowing that she’s the one behind your attacks and everything else, I wanted to punch her like I did Javier, but then—when she was in front of me and I had the opportunity—I just felt . . . sorry for her.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing exactly how he felt.
“Not sorry like I don’t want her to go to prison forever,” he corrected, “but sorry for who she is on the inside.”
I nodded, but before I could answer, he continued.
“As adults, we have designer clothes and plastic surgery and nice cars, and we can portray ourselves however we want on the outside, but if you’re ugly on the inside, no matter how much you spend and how hard you try, you can’t escape that. She’s been trapped in her own ugliness her entire life.”
As my head fell onto Andy’s shoulder, a tear dripped from the corner of my eye and landed on the sleeve of his jacket, slowly rolling toward the floor.
That man didn’t have an ugly bone in his whole body.
EPILOGUE
Danicka
2 months later
“There’s my girl!” Dad said, opening his arms wide for a hug as I walked up to the table where he was already waiting.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, hugging him under his arms as he squeezed my shoulders. I gave him a kiss on his stubbly cheek.
“How are you?”
“I’m good,” I answered with a happy sigh. “Really good, actually.”
“Good to see you without that cast.” He nodded toward my hand.
“Yeah, it came off this week. I’m going to have to do a little physical therapy to build up my strength again, but at least I can get my hand wet now. Showering was such a pain.”
“I bet.” He sat back against his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “So what else is new on your end?”
“Uh, well . . . I ran into Cole Woods last week.”
His mouth fell open. “What? Where? Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah. Andy and I were at the Vikings game, and we knew he would be there, but it’s a huge stadium, so I wasn’t worried about it. Well, after the game we were heading toward the locker room, and he came out, almost bumping right into us.”
Dad sat with his mouth still slightly open, waiting for me to say more.
“Before I could even say anything, he said that he’d heard about what happened to me and was sorry. He also apologized for acting like a slimeball in my office.”
“Wow! That’s not what I was expecting.”
“Me either.” I shook my head. “But I’m glad it happened, because now it’s over and I don’t have to worry about seeing him again.”
“Exactly. No more stress, now it’s over. Speaking of stress . . . what’s happening with the criminal cases?” he asked as he raised the coffee mug to his lips.
“We actually heard from the prosecutor the other day. Blaire went back and forth for a while once she got to prison and realized it wasn’t a country club, but she’s decided to take a plea
. I don’t know the terms yet, but I know it’ll be for a really long time.”
Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “Good! She deserves it. I say lock her up and throw away the damn key.”
I pressed my lips together and gave my sweet, overprotective father a tight smile.
“And what about the jerk who helped her?” he asked.
“He’s decided to go to trial, I guess. The prosecutor says he has no chance, especially if they can talk Blaire into testifying against him, which he seems to think won’t be a problem.”
My dad’s lips twisted upward. “A trial? Wow. How do you feel about that?”
I shrugged, inhaling sharply through my nose. “Not great, but it is what it is. As long as he ends up in prison, I don’t care what we have to do to put him there.”
“Good point,” he said somberly, nodding his head.
“Okay, new topic,” I announced, not wanting to waste any more time on any of them. “What’s new with you? Are you liking my place?”
“I am! It’s in a great location. It’s a fantastic house . . .” He trailed off.
I frowned at him, sensing that he was holding something back. “But . . . ?”
“That June, though, Dani . . . tell me about her.”
“Awww, don’t you just love her? I miss June like crazy.”
“She’s very nice”—Dad raised his eyebrows, crinkling up his forehead—“but also a little bit nosy. She stops by . . . a lot.”
“She probably has a crush on you, just like all the others,” I teased.
“Yeah, well, I’m off the market,” he said proudly, puffing his chest out a little bit.
My eyes bulged. “What? Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did, didn’t I?” he joked.
“Details, old man.”
He shrugged as his eyes fell to his coffee cup. “There aren’t many details to tell. Her name is Sandy, and we met at the movies. We were both there during the day and decided rather than sitting alone, we sat next to each other. The rest is history . . . for now.”
“When do I get to meet this mystery woman who’s stolen the incurable bachelor’s heart?”
