The End of Her: A Novel

by Shari Lapena

  She could leave him. She could leave now, take the twins and be gone before he gets back, and not tell him where she’s gone. She sits, trembling, on the sofa, thinking it through. She doesn’t have much time, and the pressure makes it hard to think. If she ran away, he would find her eventually. And he would have the law on his side—she doesn’t have the right to take his daughters away from him and run. In the eyes of the law, he is an innocent man. With rights to his children.

  She thinks of the twins, her heart in her throat. Her little birds. She feels a dread creep over her. If it’s true that he murdered his first wife—and his unborn child—if he was capable of that . . . if she tried to take the girls and leave him—would he kill little Jackie and Emma? Would he kill her? Her head begins to spin and she feels overcome with nausea. Lately she’s been thinking a lot about the man in the news who smothered his two children with pillows and stabbed his wife to death. . . . It’s something she has to consider.

  Was Patrick violent before they married? Did he push his first wife down the stairs? Had she and Patrick been living a lie together before all this happened—and all along he’s been someone capable of murder? Parents—usually fathers—have been known to kill their children to get back at their estranged spouse. And then they kill their spouse. No one ever seems to see it coming. And he might have already done it once.

  And he’s coming home tonight.

  47

  Patrick fumbles with the key in the door. She’s left the porch light on for him. It’s late, after eleven. He’s had a long trip home—he’d rented a car at LaGuardia rather than have Stephanie wake the twins and drive all the way to the airport to get him. He’s had plenty of time to think. The earlier elation—Lange had driven him directly to the airport in Denver, and they’d celebrated with a drink in the bar, before Patrick boarded the flight home—has subsided as he thinks about what’s to come.

  But at least it’s all over. For good. Nothing can change that now. Erica can’t do anything to him. They don’t have enough to proceed to trial and Erica has been completely discredited besides. She’s a liar and a criminal. He’s free—of her, and of the past.

  He has to convince Stephanie that everything is going to be all right from now on, that they can start over, and that none of this has to hurt them. They’re free! He’s been exonerated—it will be in the news that charges against him have been dropped. He’d had no idea about Erica dealing drugs back then. He’d hardly known her really—except in the most carnal of ways. He will rise above it all, start over. He’ll start his own firm—show Niall what he can do. Niall will be sorry he dropped him. And he’ll show Stephanie that she has reason to be proud of him.

  But now he must talk to Stephanie, to explain. He tries not to feel irked by her apparent doubts—even though it was perfectly clear to Stephanie that Erica lied at the inquest.

  He can explain about the lie detector test. He knows that Stephanie stopped believing him in the attorney’s office that day. He can still see it—her reaction when she realized he’d failed the test. It had played over and over in his mind, while he was in jail. She thought then that he’d deliberately killed his own wife. She probably thinks so still, even though they’ve let him go. He must change her mind. He hopes that she will forgive him and they can move on. She loved him once, and it wasn’t so long ago. They have the twins to think of. They have a life to build together.

  He opens the door. There’s a faint light coming from the living room. The twins must be asleep upstairs. He places his keys on the side table, takes off his coat, hangs it up, and walks slowly through to the living room. His wife is waiting for him, sitting on the sofa in the semidarkness, and when she looks at him, she doesn’t move. She doesn’t run to him and throw her arms around him. He hadn’t really been expecting her to, but he feels disappointed anyway.

  He stands still as they stare at each other. He doesn’t like the expression on her face. She looks wary, almost as if she’s frightened of him. Is this how he should be greeted, after being exonerated? After all he’s been through? He’s never given Stephanie any cause to be frightened of him. His attorney had been happy for him. His lawyer knows polygraphs are meaningless. She should be happy too. She’s his wife—she should give him some credit, or at least the benefit of the doubt.

  “Stephanie,” he says, his voice breaking. He steps farther into the room. “I’m here. It’s okay. Everything is going to be all right now. It’s all over. She can’t do anything to us anymore.” His wife stares at him, eyes wide. He must make her listen, understand. He takes another step forward. “Erica is a liar,” he says, his voice becoming more forceful. “You know that. She wanted money, she wanted to hurt me, that’s all. They let me go because they have no case. They know she made it all up. She’s not credible and she can’t be trusted.”

  “What happened?” she asks, her voice raw.

  He explains. “They found out she stole drugs from the pharmacy where she worked and sold them. They have proof. Witnesses.” He sees the shock on her face at the news; she clearly wasn’t expecting this. “She’d do anything for money,” he adds bitterly. “She doesn’t care who she hurts.”

  She remains silent, as if she can’t grasp what he’s saying.

  “It’s good news, Stephanie,” he says, trying not to feel too disappointed by her reaction.

  “You failed the polygraph, Patrick,” Stephanie says at last. “What was I supposed to think?”

  He feels a surge of annoyance. How many times has he gone over this? He moves over to her now, sits down beside her. “I know. And I can explain about that.” He brushes the hair away from her face in a familiar gesture and she actually moves away from his touch. His heart sinks. He pulls away from her a little, gives her some space.

  “No one was more shocked than me when I didn’t pass the polygraph,” he says. He looks at her and waits until she lifts her eyes and returns his gaze. “But innocent people fail polygraphs all the time.” He pauses and then continues. “Maybe I failed it because I was nervous . . . because I lied to you about something else, Stephanie, about the extent of the affair with Erica.” He closes his eyes for a moment so that he doesn’t have to look at her face, but then opens them again, to gauge her reaction. “I told you I only slept with her twice, when in truth, it was more than that.” She looks like she’s going to be sick. He presses on, feeling as if he’s poised on the edge of an abyss. Everything depends on whether she believes him now. “I didn’t want to lose you—you and the twins are everything to me. I know I’m not a murderer, but I thought if you knew how often I’d slept with Erica, you would leave me, and that you might not believe me about the rest. And once I told you I’d only slept with her a couple of times, then I had to say the same thing at the inquest.”

  Unnerved by the way she’s looking at him, he gets up suddenly and starts pacing back and forth in front of the sofa, the way he has so often since Erica came back into his life. “Then they wanted to do the polygraph, and I was terrified. I was so nervous. I think that’s why I failed the test.” He turns to her, desperation in his voice. “But it wasn’t like she said. We weren’t in love. It was always just sex, that’s all. I was twenty-three. My wife was pregnant—we weren’t sleeping together anymore. It’s inexcusable, I know. But there is no way in hell I would deliberately kill Lindsey. Not for Erica, not for anything. I’m not a murderer! The idea would be laughable if it weren’t so damn terrifying!”

  She looks up at him, appalled. “You lied at the inquest,” she says. “You perjured yourself.”

  He nods. “I know, but it’s over now. They’ll never know.” And they won’t, he thinks, unless she tells them.

  Stephanie stares at him, her eyes large. Finally she asks, her voice a harsh whisper, “Did you push her down the stairs?”

  He looks at her in dismay. “No! No, how can you think that? I loved her!” He says, his voice breaking, “I’m sorry, St
ephanie. I’m so, so sorry, for everything I put you through. I promise, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

  He watches her, his eyes pleading. So much depends on what happens next.

  48

  Stephanie looks into the eyes of her husband and asks herself if she is looking into the eyes of a killer. His words seem meaningless to her. He keeps telling her he’s told her everything—he’s said that all along—but there’s always more. What more can there be after this? Will he stand over her with a knife in his hand some night and say, just before he slits her throat, Oh yes, one more thing, I stuffed that exhaust pipe full of snow myself, and waited for her to die?

  She feels a shudder go through her body. She grips the edge of the sofa to ground herself. She finds herself unable to speak.

  “Stephanie, say something, please,” he begs, his voice breaking.

  “I don’t know,” she says finally, woodenly. “I don’t know what to say.” But she’s thinking about how easy it is for him to lie. He lied to her, he lied on the stand—he committed perjury, and even that doesn’t seem to have made much of an impression on him. She looks up at him. “You’ve been lying to me all along,” she says finally, her voice becoming more animated. “Why should I believe you now? How do you expect me to feel?”

  That actually seems to surprise him. Why should it surprise him? Did he think she would believe him? Just because Erica has been shown to be a liar, it doesn’t make him any less of a liar. They’re like two peas in a pod, Stephanie thinks. Two of a kind. Maybe they deserve each other. Maybe they were meant to be together.

  “You have every right to be upset,” Patrick says.

  “Upset!” she cries. Then she lowers her voice. “I’m a little more than upset, Patrick.” She wonders how far she can push him, this possibly murdering husband of hers. Wonders how far she dare go, to test him. To find out for sure. To see how angry he can get. Will he push her down the stairs? Maybe she should find out, she thinks recklessly. It’s so important for her to know. To know what really happened all those years ago in the snow. She feels closer now to Lindsey than to anyone else—closer to his dead first wife than to her own husband. She’s been manipulated by both of them—Patrick and Erica—all along.

  “Is there more going on here than I’m getting, Patrick?” she asks suddenly.

  “What?” he asks. “What are you talking about?”

  She feels physically and emotionally exhausted, too confused to think clearly. Everyone is after money. Her money. Are they after her money together? Her thoughts fall over one another in paranoid succession. Are Patrick and Erica still in love? Or maybe they’re incapable of real love, capable only of self-interest, two psychopaths, in this together. No—they can’t be working together. The idea is insane. She must pull herself together, stop this. She must deal with what’s right in front of her, not imagine the unimaginable.

  “What’s wrong?” Patrick says urgently.

  “Nothing. Everything.”

  He sits down beside her again, cautiously pulls her to him. “It’s going to be okay, Stephanie.”

  She lets him pull her into his chest, wrap his arms around her. He holds her for a long time. She can feel his heart beating. She can feel his lips kissing the top of her head. He probably thinks that she’ll forgive him. But she’s not going to forgive him. She’s trying to find a way out.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING Stephanie is in the kitchen with Patrick and the twins, having breakfast, pretending that everything is normal even though it isn’t, not for her. She can’t imagine things ever being normal again. Patrick seems to think they might be. Stephanie is pouring herself another cup of coffee when the doorbell rings. She looks up from the coffee maker, looks through the vestibule to the front door, and sees the distorted shape through the rippled glass. She thinks it might be Erica. Her heart skips a beat.

  “I’ll get it,” Patrick says, and pushes his chair back. She fights a spell of dizziness, as the twins babble in their high chairs, oblivious.

  Stephanie watches the door open, fighting panic, then sees Hanna’s familiar face, gaping now in shock.

  “Patrick!” Hanna says.

  Stephanie recovers and hurries to the doorway. “Hi, Hanna,” she says quickly. Hanna must guess that she won’t necessarily be happy about Patrick’s return.

  “You’re back,” Hanna says to Patrick, trying to recover her footing.

  Stephanie detects something in Hanna’s voice besides the obvious surprise—nervousness, maybe, or dismay.

  “Yes,” Patrick says smoothly. “They dropped the charges yesterday. I came home last night. I’ve been completely cleared,” he says, “just as we expected.”

  Stephanie’s stomach clenches a little, at how he explains it. I’ve been completely cleared. That’s what he will be telling everybody. But that’s not really true, is it? They just won’t ever be able to prove he did it. Hanna glances at her, standing behind him, as if to silently get her take on it. Stephanie steps forward. “Do you want to come in for coffee?”

  Hanna shakes her head. “No, I don’t have time. Ben is watching Teddy for a minute before he goes to work. I just popped over to invite you and the girls for a playdate this morning. Maybe ten-ish? I’m going to make muffins.”

  “Sure, I’d love to,” Stephanie says, summoning a smile. She’s eager to get out of the house. Away from Patrick, if only for a couple of hours. She can’t think straight around him. She feels she must be constantly watching, evaluating. It’s exhausting to have no downtime. She has to act normal, but she doesn’t even know what that is anymore. There is no normal, not here. She needs to be with someone she can relax around, even for a short time.

  She and Patrick had spent last night in the marital bed, her back to him, his body curved around her, his arm draped over her. She’d hated it. He’d quickly fallen asleep, but she’d remained awake for a long time. As soon as he started to snore, she removed his arm from around her waist, and inched farther away from him on her side of the bed.

  * * *

  • • •

  ERICA FINDS OUT the way she seems to find out everything—from her news feed. She’s having a late breakfast in her apartment when she sees the story on her phone. The charges against Patrick have been dropped. No explanation is given.

  She calls the Sheriff’s Office in Creemore. It’s barely 8:00 a.m. in Colorado. She’s in luck; the sheriff is in. She waits impatiently to be patched through.

  Finally, he comes on the line. “I was wondering if I was going to hear from you,” Sheriff Bastedo says.

  He explains that they don’t have sufficient evidence to proceed. Then her blood runs cold as he tells her that they’ve uncovered her past as a small-time drug dealer. She thought that was dead and buried. That nobody knew.

  “None of that is true,” she protests.

  “Right.”

  She hangs up the phone without another word. Then she storms around her apartment, furious at the turn of events. She grabs the pillows from the sofa and throws them across the room. She’s so enraged that she overturns her coffee table and everything on it. Books, magazines, a dish of candy go flying. Then she collapses onto the sofa, tries to calm down.

  It doesn’t really matter whether Patrick goes to trial or not. It would have been nice to see him squirm. But financially speaking, it makes no difference. The Mannings still won’t want her hanging around their son, telling him the truth. They’ll still pay her. And keep paying her.

  * * *

  • • •

  STEPHANIE IS ON her way out to Hanna’s place with the twins when Patrick stops her in the doorway for a goodbye kiss. She lets him kiss her on the mouth, even though his touch is distasteful to her. She can’t help it—she thinks of him kissing Erica. She tries not to show her revulsion. She doesn’t want to let hi
m know how she feels, what she’s been thinking. She needs more time.

  Just because Erica is a liar doesn’t necessarily mean she’s lying about Patrick. And she’s not satisfied by his explanation about the polygraph. She does now know, however, that he fucked Erica many, many times and lied to her about it. And that he perjured himself.

  If she left him, she doesn’t know how he’d react. He’s seemed more possessive since he came home, always trying to touch her. Maybe she didn’t notice it before because it didn’t bother her. Maybe it’s just that he missed her in jail. Or maybe he can sense that she’s pulling away from him. If she tried to leave him, how would it end?

  Would he be violent?

  He would certainly be angry. She doesn’t know what he would do. If she left him and tried to take the twins—and her money—with her . . . she doesn’t really know what he’s capable of.

  Stay or go? She can’t decide. Maybe over time the path will become clearer, more obvious.

  She’d lain in bed last night awake until almost dawn, thinking how all her problems would be solved if he were to be killed in a car accident, perhaps hit by a drunk driver. But those things don’t just happen when you want them to. And it always seems to be good people who are taken too soon that way.

  She’s trapped.

  Stephanie remembers all this as she stands on Hanna’s doorstep, almost swaying with fatigue, and rings the doorbell. Hanna opens the door and invites her in. Stephanie settles the twins on the living-room floor, and Hanna retreats into the kitchen to make coffee. Stephanie can smell the muffins. She closes her eyes for a moment, fighting tears. She can remember when life was simple. She and Hanna getting together, talking about the babies—coffee and muffins and milestones. How did it all go so wrong? She hears Hanna coming back into the living room and opens her eyes, blinking away tears.