Our Wicked Lies by Gledé Kabongo (story read aloud TXT) 📗

few short weeks. Sagging skin under his eyes, his hair unkempt, loose-fitting clothes. A shadow of a man.

She stood and picked up her purse from the sofa. “I’ll check in on you tomorrow. Maxim is welcome to stay with us as long as he wants.”

He got to his feet. “Thank you, Alicia. I’ll miss your kindness and thoughtfulness. Would you mind taking him, just for tonight? I can come get him tomorrow.”

“Of course. And Richard?”

“Yeah.”

“Eliot’s not a bad person. Maybe he and Kat… Perhaps they were both broken, and we just didn’t see it.”

“But aren’t we all broken, though?”

She guessed he was right.

And after this latest revelation, Alicia knew that her marriage to Eliot was now beyond repair.

CHAPTER 46

Unknown: You killed her, didn’t you? Got scared she would tell your wife about the affair. Didn’t want to lose your shirt in a divorce, so you killed her. Shame on you, Eliot. You’re a wicked man.

The anonymous text message sent Eliot’s brain into a tailspin. He stumbled toward the large glass window with his perfect view of Faneuil Hall Marketplace. He needed to calm down before his thoughts took him down the path of panic and chaos.

The sender obviously used a burner phone. He ticked off possible suspects in his head. Someone from Katalina’s office in whom she had confided. A friend, perhaps from back home in Miami, she kept in touch with. The most obvious choice? Richard.

It was the only reasonable explanation. Richard had known about the affair for weeks yet had said nothing. Perhaps in his grief, he was lashing out. He and Katalina never got the chance to patch things up or end the marriage. Her untimely death snatched the decision away from him, and now he needed someone to pay. Eliot was an easy target. The only target.

He wouldn’t respond right away, if he should respond at all. Such a text was meant to intimidate, inspire panic. The easy response would be to text back, “Who is this?” He would get there eventually, but he wanted to see how far this person was willing to take this game. If it was Richard, additional texts would shed light, provide information about his motive.

The case was still open. Although the coroner had declared the cause of death to be head trauma from the impact of a fall, they still had no clue how it happened. Alcohol could have been a factor, although they were waiting on the blood toxicology report. They had found a half-empty bottle of wine on the kitchen island. She was wearing heels when they found her. Perhaps she had been inebriated and lost her balance, fallen, and hit her head.

A reasonable explanation, but the Weston police detectives were thorough and wouldn’t close the case until they were satisfied that it was an accident. So far, there was no forced entry, no prints, fibers, DNA of any kind, no sign that another human being had been present at the time of death.

The news media was another nuisance. He could only imagine the stories they would run if news of the affair got out. Alicia’s forgiveness was a long way off. His goals were simple: keep his family together and avoid prison.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he said.

Delia Evans, his investigator of five years, entered, a file tucked under her arm, a coffee cup in hand, and a pen stuck in between her ears. In her late thirties, Delia was loyal, discreet, and great at her job. She could probably bench-press him, too. She was a fitness nut who took every opportunity to call him a weakling when they worked out in the office gym.

She placed her coffee and file on the table, plopped down on the sofa, and reclined. “Tell me how brilliant I am and how lucky you are to have me in your corner. Then I want a big raise.”

“Overconfidence. I like it.” He took a seat behind his desk, across from her. “But let’s see if the information lives up to the hype.”

“Is there ever a question?” she asked.

“Tell me what’s in the file,” he said. “You can make a root canal sound enthralling.”

Delia leaned forward. “Mrs. DeLuca was pregnant at the time of her death.”

He gripped the side of his swivel chair. His fingernails dug into the leather. She was telling the truth all along. His mouth went dry. He loosened his tie.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Delia asked. “We can connect later.”

“Nonsense. Let’s get through it. Katalina was a friend of the firm. Arnie liked her, and so did I. We want to make sure foul play wasn’t a factor in her death.”

Delia pulled the pen from behind her ear, picked up the file from the table, and scanned the information. She took a sip of her coffee. Eliot wanted to crawl out of his skin, reach over, and snatch the file from her.

“Preliminary toxicology results came back—unofficially. I had to bribe some people to get them. My inside guy wants a pair of Patriots season tickets, by the way.”

She continued, “Seems that Mrs. DeLuca was on anti-depressants and Ambien. And to top it off, they found massive amounts of alcohol in her system. Way past the legal limit.”

Kat drank a little too much, but anti-depressants? Sleeping pills? Pregnant? She couldn’t have known the pregnancy was real when he’d forced her to confess that it was a hoax to pressure him into ending his marriage. Otherwise, she wouldn’t drink so much. Unless she no longer cared.

“She had a lot going on. It still doesn’t give a concrete cause of death, though.” His words sounded dead and brittle even to his own ears.

“Maybe. But there’s one weird fact that’s an outlier. It’s been bugging me, and I have no idea if it means anything.”

“What’s that?”

She flicked through the file again, scanned a couple of pages, and placed it back on the coffee table. “There was a previous injury, prior