For the Best

by Vanessa Lillie

  “Time to go, Jules,” Lula says. “No one wants you here.”

  It’s like high school all over again. “That’s not true,” I say. “Anyone who wants the truth about Dr. Castle wants me here. If that doesn’t include you or Dez, then it’s another problem altogether.”

  Dez eyes my bag, and I’d bet she’s wondering if I’m about to film her. I sure as hell am.

  I dig into my purse and pull out my recorder, pressing play so they can see the red light.

  “Who wants to take my first question?”

  VIDEO TRANSCRIPT 11

  PERSONAL VLOG

  INT. ART GALLERY—NIGHT

  JULIET WORTHINGTON-SMITH holds the camera toward DEZDIMONA “DEZ” CASTLE. She stands next to gallery owner LULA MURRS.

  JULIET

  (off camera)

  Why are you buying all of your late husband’s mistress’s art? That’s a mouthful.

  DEZ

  I don’t owe you any answers. I already gave you too many in a moment of weakness.

  JULIET

  What weakness? Guilt?

  DEZ

  Do you recognize it?

  LULA

  How’s your father, Jules?

  JULIET

  You never knew my father. You were too good to be friends with me.

  LULA

  Screw you, Jules. You were always such a bitch. I’m calling my security company. You’re getting bounced out on your skinny ass.

  LULA storms off.

  JULIET

  Well, now that it’s just the two of us, want to give me a tour of your new art collection?

  DEZ

  No, I don’t think I will.

  The camera leaves DEZ as she walks off toward where LULA is making a phone call. The camera turns toward the first painting.

  JULIET

  This is the art opening of Kara Nguyen. Her artist statement says she fell in love this year. She became, and I’m quoting here, “obsessed.”

  The camera pans around the room of large paintings. JULIET zooms the camera in closer to the first one. Like all the others, it’s a large canvas with shades of black and dark grays.

  Kara took sweat and spit from her lovers, according to her statement. We can assume one of them was Dr. Castle.

  The camera zooms closer, more focus on the light-gray portion of the painting.

  This art, Kara says, is about how love changes a person. She says she is forever changed. What has she done, and to whom, that’s forced her to change?

  Maybe it’s supposed to be a secret. But we have eyes, don’t we? Let’s see if you can figure it out with me.

  JULIET begins to walk slowly. Her heels click, and a few people she passes flash worried glances. She arrives very close to the first painting she had been zooming in on, but she lingers on the shapes in black.

  Here is Kara’s first piece. The first moment she begins to change.

  JULIET steps forward so the piece takes up the whole frame.

  Do you see it? Do you see him? It’s his back.

  JULIET begins to move the camera and pauses at the “Sold” sticker.

  Dez Castle bought this painting of her husband’s back created by his lover.

  The camera focuses on the next painting so the image fills the whole frame.

  Do you see him? This is Terrance’s leg. It is tangled with hers. She is there.

  This is his shoulder.

  This is his thigh.

  This is his arm. And now, the finale.

  This is his tattoo from Harvard.

  JULIET pans back over the painting and pauses on the “Sold” sticker.

  All these are paintings of Terrance by his lover, Kara Nguyen. And Dez Castle bought every single one.

  Is she trying to hide that her husband had an affair? Is that the real legacy she has to hide? Because what would she do . . . how far would Dez go . . . to make everything look perfect?

  A man in a security uniform enters from across the room. LULA marches behind him, pointing at the camera.

  They want me to leave. They don’t want you to see what I’ve seen. Why would Dez buy the art from Terrance’s lover? Is this a relationship she’s trying to hide? A motive, perhaps, she must hide?

  LULA

  You have to turn that off this minute and leave immediately.

  JULIET

  I want the truth.

  LULA

  Well, I want you to leave.

  JULIET

  Get your hands off me!

  The camera focus shakes, and for a few moments, only the floor can be seen as JULIET is rushed out of the door. The camera returns upright and focuses on the front of the gallery.

  JULIET breathes heavy breaths.

  They kicked us out. Because they don’t want us to see.

  She zooms in on the window where DEZ is watching her.

  We do see, don’t we? We are watching. We will find the truth.

  Chapter 24

  Maybe I’ll blame the free art wine. Or maybe it was the new motive for Dez to hide Terrance’s affair. I wait in the shadows outside the art gallery and text Phillip about what I saw. That our work must continue tonight. I won’t be going home yet.

  If Dez is trying to hide Kara’s connection to Terrance, maybe buying the art is only one part of the plan? What else would she do to keep this secret?

  Finally, when Ethan pulls up after pizza with Fitz, Dez is also leaving. The timing is too perfect not to follow.

  “Is this really necessary?” Ethan asks as we creep behind Dez’s Lyft. “She’s probably meeting friends for dinner.”

  “She feels the pressure. We’re getting close. She’ll make a mistake.”

  At first, the driver heads in the direction of her house, and right as I’m about to say this was a total waste of time, he turns toward downtown.

  My phone buzzes that Phillip is ready to meet me as soon as I tell him where. I drop a pin so he can track our car, and I honestly feel like Sherlock Holmes.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” I say to Ethan and look back at Fitz yawning. I realize it’s past his bedtime. “Hey, buddy. Mind if you drop off Mommy before heading home?”

  “I guess,” Fitz says and pulls out his dinosaur book. “Will you read to me?”

  I unbuckle my seat belt, and Ethan starts to protest, but I don’t care. I crawl over the console and sit next to Fitz in his car seat. “Okay, let’s do the T. rex first. Let me get out my phone so I can read it.”

  “Yeah!” Fitz says. “Roar!”

  I turn on the light, and we’re halfway through the first dinosaur description when Ethan slows down. “Okay, hon, the car is stopping . . . oh, they’re turning down that one-way. Should I follow?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Don’t lose them.” After handing Fitz his book with a kiss on the cheek, I crawl back to the front seat to get my purse. “Okay, where is she going?”

  Dez’s car stops in front of a club called Tom Cat. Ethan pulls forward, and Dez seems in too big a hurry to notice us.

  “That’s great, Ethan. Thank you. I’ll be home soon. I need to see who she’s meeting.”

  He doesn’t pull away as I cross the street. Even with this distance between us, I can see the worry. I give him a big wave, and he finally drives down the block.

  The doorman waves me inside, and the music hits before the door is closed behind me. The bass rattles my rib cage. The lights flash and strobe across the crowded bar. At first it feels good to be in the crowd, anonymous in the flow of the crowd. But then the memory hits of my sweaty body dancing in a dark Back Bay club. Phillip wanting to leave. Me flirting with a drunk idiot. The knife. The blood. Our tears.

  My chest is tight, as if I’ve got those same bloody bandages across my chest. After elbowing my way to the bar, I get a double gin and tonic.

  I’m glad I wore this dress now, and I imagine the bass rattling my ribs and that people can see the reverberations. I know we’ll get something good tonight. The truth is close. Everything
is working out.

  Now where is Dez?

  Scanning the crowd, I finally see Phillip coming from outside. He’s one of a few men on this packed level.

  I head over to him, and he meets me in the middle, leaning over to my ear. I inhale his scent. Absorb his warmth and how close his chin dips. His muscular shoulder is near and so familiar. There are other flashes of memory at other dingy clubs in Cambridge, and I’m trying to get him to meet me in the bathroom.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I hear him say against my earlobe. Still stuck in the memory, I run my cheek along his chin stubble.

  He pulls back, but I know better. He used to love me. He used to love me like this.

  “Quit smiling like that,” he says. “Let’s go look for Dez downstairs.”

  I don’t know exactly why, but I decide to finish my double gin and tonic in one long gulp. Yes, I’m already almost drunk, but I’m chasing this feeling, as if the ice in the glass can preserve this joy, this moment of truth and lost love and bass all reverberating in my chest. I want to go higher. I want more escape. More truth. Double, triple shot.

  As we start down the stairs, I reach for Phillip, and he stills in front of me. People pass us, and neither of us moves as my hand goes to his shoulder, then the nape of his neck. I wonder what he’d let me do to him, but I won’t know for sure because he begins moving fast down the stairs.

  In the basement that’s mostly dance floor, we weave through the youths: crop tops, lower butt cheeks half-covered by shorts, the floral dresses and overalls with patches. I glance down, and there’s a mass of Birkenstocks tapping among the strappy sandals and Vans.

  I don’t feel my age. I don’t feel my gender. I don’t feel anything, including my lips, my legs, but I do feel the bass thrumming between my ribs as we try to make headway through the dancers.

  It’s as if we’re subsumed, and, blissfully, with all the drinks pulsing in my blood, I’m elsewhere too. I’m the music and the old girlfriend and the vlog star. I’m not the fired CEO. I’m not the boring stay-at-homer. I’m free and can feel the music recalibrating my own heartbeat.

  “The world is ours!”

  I yell the words to Phillip over the music, and he smiles, as if he sees the old me at last. The one he loved and excused and loved until he didn’t anymore.

  His hand goes up, and as I expect him to pull me close, instead he points. Dez is at a small bar in the corner, her skin even paler and her dress an electric green in the strobe lights.

  Phillip catches my wrist and aims me in another direction. I see black buzzed hair and a glowing white T-shirt with paint splatters. Kara has found Dez.

  She marches through the room, purposeful and angry, as if she knows that Dez now owns all of her art. As if she can already see her paintings in flames.

  Time for the truth.

  Kara heard about the art gallery, and now she’s going to attack Dez too. I feel it in my bones like the bass, and I rip the camera out of my bag.

  Phillip grabs my arm, as if to stop me from recording this final conflict. It’s not for him to say. This moment is mine, with all this music and this truth. I deserve it after what I’ve been put through.

  I hit record.

  The music thrums, the chorus in a Billie Eilish remix of “Bad Guy.” There’s only Kara in the shot, and I take careful steps toward her. In my blurred peripheral vision, I see Phillip blocking people to keep them from bumping me. Even when he hates what I’m doing, he’s right there next to me.

  My shot is steady as I stalk forward, ready to witness whoever strikes first.

  She’s going to attack Dez in retaliation. Or is this the final piece of her plan? I can see the punch before she’s even close enough to throw it.

  Dez’s whole body goes still as she sees Kara. Then Dez begins to move forward, a green viper, charging through the crowd. I hold my breath, in a perfect place to film the impact.

  Dez launches herself at Kara and grips the back of her neck, pulling her into her mouth. It’s a deep kiss, the kind you’d give to a familiar lover.

  I am frozen amid the moving bodies and lights flashing on the dance floor. Dez pulls away, smiles, and tugs Kara in our direction.

  A few seconds, and then they both see me at the same time, grins disappearing. Kara rushes forward, and I know there’s no kiss coming at the end this time.

  Phillip hustles us backward and farther from Kara’s trajectory. The music is so loud I can hardly think, but there’s a panic rising in my chest that I’ve gotten something very wrong.

  I barrel us into a bathroom, unisex, and thank God, no one is in here, because I’m still holding the camera.

  “Are they following us?” I gasp.

  Phillip doesn’t have to respond because the door bursts open with a violent crack against the tile. Kara rushes at me, but Phillip steps between us.

  “Kara, please.” He tries to keep her pinned back by her thin shoulders.

  “Get your hands off me,” she screams. “This is harassment. My parents don’t know I’m bi, and this is not how they’re going to find out.”

  Phillip has to dig his heel into the tile to keep Kara back. “Please, Kara, no one needs to get hurt. Let’s talk.”

  The door swishes open, and Dez calmly walks inside, lipstick reapplied. “Let’s go, Kara. Nancy Drew here is wasted, and we know that doesn’t end well.”

  Kara’s eyes are still full of rage. “Why won’t you leave me alone?” Kara yells. “You’re so entitled, as if you have a right to judge me. What has happened in my life. How I was bullied and attacked until I snapped.”

  “And did that happen again?” My voice is calm but icy as I focus the camera on them. “Did you two plan the attack together?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Dez says, haughty as ever.

  “Is it?” I say. “You’ve been lying. We know you didn’t come home directly from the Sider. You had on different clothes. Where were you?”

  Dez steps around Phillip and within striking distance of me. “The night of Terrance’s murder, I went to Kara’s apartment.”

  “You were cheating on Terrance?” I say, trying to keep the camera steady. “Is that why you wanted him dead?”

  “Alcohol rots the brain, you twat,” Kara says as she pulls away from Phillip and stands beside Dez. “We were together and waiting for Terrance. He’s a part of our relationship. His murder is the last thing either of us could possibly want.”

  “Ask his ex-wife,” Dez says to Phillip. “Ask her about their relationship. Terrance had always been very open. Not that it’s anyone’s business. And if those details got out, that’s all people would talk about.”

  “Bullshit,” I say and wobble a bit with my camera. Of course they’d lie. What did I expect? “Why lie about what time you came home?”

  “For this very reason. You twist the truth to fit your lies and excuses,” Dez says.

  “Ask Detective Ramos,” Kara says, putting her arm around Dez’s shoulder. “He has security footage of Dez arriving at my place after she left the Sider and staying until two a.m.”

  “And the clothes?” Phillip asks.

  “We were watching a movie,” Dez says softly, almost sounding embarrassed. “I wore home my pajamas. Terr and I both had clothes at Kara’s place. She wears his boxers all the time.” She sounds almost wistful and pauses when her voice cracks. “And absolutely none of this is your business. How dare you invade what little is left of my life.”

  “Cameras don’t cover everything,” I say, desperate now, grabbing at any loose thread. “You could have hired a hitman, kept the money and the girlfriend?”

  “Why?” Dez says simply.

  “Money problems,” Phillip offers, and I’ve never been so grateful. “In the folder you gave me, Terry left a bank statement. It says you’re in the hole a half-million dollars.”

  I stare hard at him, both relieved he’s making this accusation and hurt that he didn’t share it earlier.

  “Is that reall
y what you think?” Dez inhales sharply after Phillip doesn’t respond. “I’m so disappointed in you.” A flush spreads up her neck. “Our money troubles are real. I need to downsize. We needed to live within our means. We went a little overboard on the reno of Kara’s place.” She pauses to smile at her, but then her gaze narrows. “But that is also none of your business. It had no bearing on my relationship with Terr or his death.”

  “Of course you’d say that.” I step toward her with the camera. “Did you attack him?”

  “We can account for every hour of that awful night,” Kara says, unblinking as I approach her. “Can you say the same?”

  Dez holds up her hand. “Enough, babe. It’s not worth it.” Her gaze lands right on me and the camera. “You’ll hear from my lawyer about a restraining order first thing tomorrow morning. You’re not the only one who knows how to make someone’s life a living hell.”

  Chapter 25

  Phillip is quiet as he drives past dark houses in Wayland Square. He hustled me out of the club after we were threatened by Dez with a lawsuit. I said I’d go home, but he didn’t trust me in a Lyft.

  I’m not exactly sober, but I sip the Sprite Phillip got me from the downtown 7-Eleven with a slice of sketchy pizza I quickly inhaled. I’m aware that I overstepped.

  “I don’t believe them,” I murmur as we creep along Elmgrove Avenue.

  Phillip’s gaze stays on the road. “You shouldn’t have followed Dez there. She has a right to a private life. She lost her husband. Imagine what she’s going through.”

  “What she’s going through?” I screech. “This morning I was sitting in the police station being questioned. I have to pursue every lead.”

  “At what cost?” Phillip says softly. “I know it’s not as simple as Dez says. That’s a far cry from being guilty of killing her husband.”

  “There are financial motives,” I say. “If Terrance was going to back out of the deal with me, she could have lost the million dollars.”

  He shakes his head, and I want to scream at him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the bank statements Terrance left you in that file?” I say too loud. “Saving it for your book?”

  “I don’t trust you any more than Dez does,” he says coolly. “I feel an obligation to investigate thoroughly. Not toss reckless accusations to strangers on the internet so they can pick apart people’s lives.”