Three Single Wives: The devilishly twisty, breathlessly addictive must-read thriller

by Gina LaManna

  “Ryan!” Startled, Penny gulped down a breath of air. “How…um, how are you? What are you doing here?”

  It was a stupid question, since Penny could see the headshots he carried in his hand. The moment was embarrassing for both of them—for Penny because she was employed by a crappy company peddling hope to wannabe actors, and for Ryan because he was knowingly visiting said crappy company on the fumes of hope. Both their careers were obviously floundering.

  “Are those your headshots? I can get you signed in.” Penny stood, flummoxed, wiping her hands on her umbrella of a dress. “I hadn’t realized you’d be in the studio today.”

  Ryan had bigger problems, it seemed, than his sad excuse for a career. He was staring with a glazed look at Penny’s stomach. His face scrunched up, and it became painfully obvious that he was trying to do math. His lips moved as he counted backward.

  “How far along are you?” he asked finally. “Congratulations, by the way.”

  “I’m due any day.”

  Ryan blinked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Penny dropped the hand that had been extended to collect Ryan’s headshot. “I’m not sure we should discuss this here. Do you have a minute? We could go somewhere. Somewhere close.”

  Ryan took a step back. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  Penny tugged at his elbow, pulling Ryan from the studio. She paraded him downstairs, out through the gated front door where she glanced hungrily up and down the street for something, anything, that would work.

  “Let’s get some Froyo,” she decided. “There’s a little shop around the corner.”

  Ryan followed Penny’s every move. He mimicked her motions as she served up a bowl of yogurt for herself. Penny didn’t pay attention to the flavors she selected, but she did keep the serving sizes small. She couldn’t afford Froyo.

  However, when Ryan offered his credit card at the register, Penny nearly gasped with relief. She made a noncommittal noise of protest, but he waved away her offer to split the bill. Clutching her bowl, Penny followed Ryan outside to a shaded patio. They took seats opposite each other at a warped, rusty table and equally misshapen café-style chairs. They were blissfully alone.

  “Is it…” Ryan glanced at Penny’s stomach. “Is it mine?”

  “He,” Penny confirmed. “It’s a boy.”

  “If you’re nine months, and I’m counting right…”

  “You’re counting right,” she said softly.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” Ryan shoved his spoon into his yogurt and let it sit there. “Did you stop coming to class so I wouldn’t notice?”

  “I’m not sure the baby’s yours.”

  “But nine months ago…”

  Penny dug her spoon into her bowl and took a bite. The edges of the frothy, bright colors were starting to melt into a brownish soup while she waited for poor Ryan to put everything together. He looked incredibly perplexed. He didn’t seem to sort out what Penny was saying until she winced. Then she nodded, and he sat back in his seat. His fingers toyed with the edge of his spoon.

  “You think the baby is his.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Ryan eventually sighed. “I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”

  “What do you mean?” Penny said. “What doesn’t matter?”

  “We can still be together,” Ryan said. “I’ve wanted to be with you since the day we met.”

  “But that’s—”

  “The other guy isn’t still in the picture, is he?”

  “Er, no. He’s not. He’s, ah, dead.”

  “So it was Roman.”

  “I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry.”

  “If there was a chance the baby was mine, you should have come to me, too.”

  “I didn’t think the chances were equal!” Penny leaned forward, her hands gripping at the table with her outburst. She recovered, sat back. Continued quietly. “I went to Roman first because I figured there was a bigger chance it was his. I…um…saw him more than you.”

  “You hoped it was his.”

  “For a moment, maybe. But I was wrong. Very, very wrong.”

  “When he died…”

  “We weren’t together. I broke things off in October of last year.”

  “That’s one short-lived romance with one long-term consequence.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Does your family know? Anyone else?”

  “A few friends,” Penny said. “That’s it. My family doesn’t know. I didn’t know how to tell them.”

  “We can tell them together.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Ryan steeled his face. “Roman might have been an asshole, but that doesn’t mean we all are. If there’s a chance this baby is mine…”

  “I don’t know if it is,” she reiterated. “I would have to do a paternity test to know for certain. That’s so embarrassing. I never thought I’d be the type of girl to have to say those words.”

  To her surprise, Ryan leaned forward and grasped her hands. He looked into her eyes. “Penny, you’re the type of girl I haven’t stopped thinking about for months. We can try this again, the right way this time.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We went on three dates.”

  “Sometimes, you just know.”

  “And sometimes, you don’t know,” Penny said firmly. “What if this turns out to be Roman’s child?”

  Something flashed through Ryan’s eyes. “I don’t need to know for sure. The chance that it’s mine is enough.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  Before Ryan could respond, Penny hunched forward and gripped the table hard. Ryan’s eyes narrowed in concern.

  “Oh shit,” she said. “My water just broke.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Four Months After

  June 2019

  Eliza waited in the same small, concrete room where she’d waited several times before. She’d met with Anne, with Penny, with her lawyers. Her routine was comforting, which was somewhat alarming, considering she was still in prison.

  Marguerite’s voice rang quietly through the room. “Eliza?”

  Glancing up, Eliza noted the bestselling author looked preened and professional. No more wild hair and wilder accessories. She wore simple black slacks topped by a crisp, white shirt. Her hair had been tamed into a sleek bun.

  Eliza smiled across the table, which had the funny side effect of making the author cringe. Finally, Eliza Tate knew the rules of the game.

  “Hey,” Marguerite said softly. “How are you?”

  Eliza stared directly into Marguerite’s eyes. The funny thing about being arrested for murder was that nothing really scared her anymore.

  Marguerite’s eyes flashed as she looked wildly around the room, scanning to see if someone was listening. Maybe they were. Eliza couldn’t be sure. She didn’t care.

  “You’ve always been a sucker for a good publicity stunt,” Eliza said. “Getting me arrested for my husband’s murder is your best yet, I’ll admit.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Coming forward after Roman’s death, laying out the pieces of the puzzle for the police—it was a good PR move, I’ll give you that. Get ahead of the rumors. Start playing Marguerite the victim. It’s probably what I would have told you to do.”

  “I was just telling the truth.”

  “You were playing Nancy Drew for the public,” Eliza said. “Sharing in all those interviews about how my poor business was floundering, and didn’t I need Roman’s life insurance payout to stay afloat? Or maybe I killed him out of rage because he’d gotten one of his students pregnant. You didn’t hold anything back, did you?”

  Marguerite swallowed hard but didn’t deny any of it. “If you’re so innocent, why are your fingerprints on the murder weapon?”

  “I don’t know,” Eliza said. “Did you put them there? It’s possible, you know. There were two wineglasses missing fro
m my house.”

  “Why would I take a wineglass? I have plenty of money.”

  “To go with the cake knife,” Eliza said. “It’s possible to transfer fingerprints from one surface to another; I looked up the technique. The prints probably weren’t even usable, but that doesn’t matter, because my DNA would have been on the knife, along with remnants of Roman’s blood, and that’s the really important bit anyway.”

  “I hope you realize how far-fetched this all sounds.”

  “It’s simple actually. Brilliant. You set me up for it,” Eliza said. “On the afternoon of February 13, you even suggested that I’d kill Roman with a knife. But when I didn’t take your bait, you marched in and did it yourself. You were so sweet to keep me involved, though… leaving all traces of evidence pointing my way.”

  “Not true.”

  “Maybe not. You did leave a little evidence toward Anne and Penny, just for kicks. But it was me you wanted. Why?”

  “I didn’t kill your husband.”

  “Well, we both know I didn’t kill him,” Eliza said. “I mean, what sort of criminal would dump a murder weapon—with their own damn name printed on it—in the alley behind their own house? How idiotic do people think I am?”

  “It’s not—”

  “I would have had weeks to dispose of it. Why didn’t I drive to the Hoover Dam and toss it over the railing? Throw it in the ocean? Bury it at the top of Runyon Canyon?” Eliza paused for dramatic effect. “Apparently the world thinks I’m stupid enough to throw it out with my leftovers. As if that weren’t coincidental enough, a Good Samaritan just happened to walk by that same night and see a bloody knife. With my name on it.”

  “The truth has a way of coming out.” Marguerite’s answer rang hollowly through the room. Even she didn’t look convinced. “They arrested you. Not me.”

  “I’m well aware.”

  “I don’t have to be here and listen to this.”

  Eliza raised her eyebrows. Marguerite didn’t make a move to leave. They waited at a standstill.

  “Why did you do it?” Eliza said. “Ego? Did you actually love him?”

  “I didn’t kill your fucking husband, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The simplicity of Eliza’s answer seemed to irk Marguerite further.

  She stood. “I came here as a friend. I have been nothing but supportive of you, Eliza.”

  “Thanks for your support,” Eliza said with a half smile. “Really. In a way, you did set me free. And then you took it all away when you had me locked up.”

  “I didn’t do any such thing.”

  “I suppose a part of me is envious of you,” Eliza said. “You did what I never could have done. You pulled it off, too. Got away with it. If I thought I could have gotten away with killing Roman, would I have done it myself?” Eliza bobbed her shoulders. “I’m not sure, to be honest. What does it feel like, killing someone?”

  Marguerite turned on her heel and stormed to the door. She knocked, and the guards moved to let her out.

  “By the way,” Eliza called after her, “congratulations.”

  “On what?”

  “I saw you hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list with Be Free.” Eliza gave a dark chuckle. “I guess that’s the one I should read next, huh?”

  “I’m glad you can joke about this.”

  “It was genius, how you pulled it off. It’s true—the best PR of all time is getting your publicist arrested for the murder of her husband.”

  Marguerite’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You really think I’m the kind of person to do that?”

  “Let’s just say…” Eliza glanced down at her nails, “you’re welcome.”

  FORTY

  Five Months After

  July 2019

  Penny dragged herself up the stairs to her apartment. It had been a long day at court, and she was exhausted. Or she’d been exhausted until the drive home, when she was overcome by the buzz of nervous energy.

  Crawling through Los Angeles traffic on autopilot, Penny’s mind whirled through the twisty, twisty trial happening all around her. The strange contradictions, the parts that didn’t make sense. They were all missing something. Something so close, she could almost touch it…

  Eliza’s prints are on the murder weapon.

  Penny had the murder weapon in her possession.

  Who stole the murder weapon from Penny?

  Evidence pointed toward Anne, Eliza, Marguerite—but why not Penny?

  Was Mark lying? About what?

  Motive, motive, motive… Who was the deadliest of them all?

  It hit Penny as she swung a right onto La Cienega. The puzzle pieces ground into place, and Penny knew—without a doubt—who had killed Roman. She wondered how she’d missed it all along.

  It’s the motive, Penny eventually surmised. She’d been so focused on the women who’d been angry at Roman that it had blinded her to everyone else. For months, she’d assumed one of the women in her book club had grabbed the nearest knife and plunged it into Roman in a fit of rage. God knew they’d all had reasons to be angry with Roman Tate.

  But what if that wasn’t the case at all? What if Roman’s murder had been planned—not for minutes or hours but for days or even months?

  On a hunch, Penny pulled over at the first turn and parked in a fast-food lot. The scent of fries drifted over her as she climbed out of her car and moved to the hood. It took her half an hour of poking around, prodding every which way, before she found it. A little GPS tracker attached to the underbelly of her crappy car.

  Another twenty minutes of research turned up a second bug, this one fastened to the inside of her purse. The fabric in the bottom of the bag had been cut—a tiny incision that Penny only discovered because whoever had made the cut had stitched it up with thread that didn’t quite match. Penny’s blood chilled. Roman’s murder had been no accident.

  Penny needed to phone Eliza—or her lawyers—or the police, but before she could do that, she needed to get home and see her baby. Sweet Peter, her precious boy, who would be waiting for her embrace. Once she had him in her arms, she would take care of the rest.

  Parking in a handicapped spot outside her new apartment complex, Penny shuffled from her vehicle to the front door. This building had a key card lock out front. A definite upgrade in living space, one she’d only been able to afford because she’d moved in with Ryan just after the baby was born.

  Ryan had been there for her from the very beginning, from the second Peter was born, and from that moment onward, they’d been a makeshift family. He’d helped care for Peter, and in the intensity of those newborn days, Penny had assumed Ryan was an angel sent straight from the heavens to watch over her. He’d rocked Peter to sleep when Penny’s eyes drooped. He’d cooked healthy food, encouraged mama and baby to eat well. He’d rubbed Penny’s back and wiped Peter’s drool. He had been everything Penny had imagined in a partner. How could she have turned him away?

  And it was Ryan who opened the door before Penny could even insert her key into the lock.

  “There’s Mama!” Ryan raised the tiny baby’s hand and gestured toward Penny in an assisted wave. “We love Mama!”

  “Hi, baby,” Penny said, going in to nuzzle her son. “I missed you.”

  “What about me?” Ryan swung around and headed into the kitchen, ignoring Penny’s outstretched arms. “Didn’t Mama miss me?”

  “Of course. I always miss my boys.”

  “Good.” Ryan swooped behind Penny and locked the door behind her. “That’s the right answer.”

  “Man, I’m tired.” Penny yawned. “Let’s put the baby down and have dinner.”

  “A little quiet time for Mommy and Daddy? That sounds nice.”

  “It’s just what the doctor ordered after the day I’ve had.”

  Penny walked over to the kitchen table and set her bag down, then continued into the nursery. She looked into the baby monitor with a pinch of dread. How long had he been watching her every
move?

  Ryan followed Penny into the nursery and went straight to the crib. He set Peter down on a cotton dinosaur fitted sheet and moved toward Penny with an exaggerated, seductive swing of his hips. “What do we think about getting a start on baby number two?”

  “Peter’s not even six months old. I’m still recovering from his birth. It will be a while before I’m ready to think about another.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to hear.” Ryan frowned. “Peter needs a sibling.”

  “I can’t fathom another child. I can’t even fathom a full night of sleep.”

  “Come on, darling.” Ryan crossed the room, rested one hand on Penny’s shoulder. “Me and you, we’re meant to be together. Meant to have a family. How do you think we ended up like this? It was fate. All the obstacles we had to overcome just to be together…”

  “What obstacles?”

  “Oh, you know…” Ryan shrugged. “The other man primarily.”

  “Roman wasn’t an obstacle. I broke up with him.”

  “He was an obstacle, but now he’s not.” Ryan seemed completely unaffected by the fact that the man in question had been murdered. “Isn’t life so much better now that you’re completely free?”

  “I was free,” Penny said. “At least I thought I was.”

  As she spoke, her blood began to chill. He knew. He knew that she knew, and she should have guessed that he’d be prepared. She should have been more careful. She should have known he’d been watching, watching, watching.

  “Aw, honey.” Ryan tsked. “I can see it in your eyes. You don’t trust me. It’s that stupid trial. You don’t believe anyone anymore. It’s ruining you.”

  “I think you might be right.”

  “Well, you never have to doubt me. We are meant to be together. You can’t fight fate.”

  “Not even if you orchestrated fate?” Penny murmured. “You made me believe that we were destined to be together when I was most vulnerable. Pregnant, single. You held my hand when I went into labor, made me believe we were a family.”

  “We are a family.”

  “Families don’t have to kill to be together.”

  “Sweet Penny.” Ryan shook his head. “You are so naive, darling. I love that about you.”