The Sister-in-Law: An absolutely gripping summer thriller for 2021 by Pamela Crane (best romance novels of all time .TXT) 📗

It stained your soul. And over time it spread, making you ugly to the point where you didn’t recognize where you end and the evil begins.

Lane shifted away, creating a distance I felt growing.

‘I’m sorry,’ I apologized. ‘I don’t know what’s going on inside me anymore … if it’s grief, or fear of getting caught, or what. I just know I feel utterly helpless and hopeless.’

‘I understand’ – I must have pulled him back in, because he squeezed my shoulder affectionately – ‘but you have to trust that everything will work out. Just try not to react. That’s when people make mistakes.’

‘Yeah, I’ve already filled my quota of them.’

Lane picked up the paper I had written notes on from my call with the insurance agent, along with Medea’s address. ‘What’s this?’

I tapped my pen against the granite. ‘Basically, the reasons why they’re not paying me yet. And Ben’s mistress’s name and address.’

‘Yikes.’

He slid the piece of paper back toward me:

Autopsy still in progress; needs to be completed

Need death certificate to get payout

No suicide death benefit; murder still has to be determined

Who is Medea Kent?

3 Summer Lane?

Until the autopsy was completed and cleared as a murder, I couldn’t get a death certificate. Without a death certificate, I couldn’t begin the claims process. Detective Meltzer told me it could take up to twelve weeks just to get started on the autopsy, then it would be another sixty days after I had the death certificate before the payment processed. In total, at least five months would pass before I’d see a payment. Five months of struggling to pay my mortgage, the astronomical attorney fees, plus rent and groceries and gasoline and utilities and my cell phone plan. Five months of hell, and that was the best-case scenario.

‘What does all this mean?’ Lane prodded for an explanation.

‘It means the murder investigation is still under way, so I have no idea when – or if – I’m going to see a dime. And I can’t afford to ask my attorney to intercede, since I’m broke. I can’t believe they’re doing this! I’m a grieving widow unable to pay my bills until they pay me what I’m entitled to. Ben has been paying into it for years, and they’re going to dare dispute my payout until a killer is found? Because we both know, Lane, that no killer will ever be found. And if they can’t find a killer, they might not rule it as a homicide. If suicide is determined, that means no money – not now, not ever.’

‘Don’t worry about the money. I’ll cover you until you’re on your feet. I won’t leave you hanging.’

Lane never left me hanging, that was the problem. He had helped me commit a crime. There was no coming back from that. So many memories together, but the night of Ben’s death alone defined us. That one decision followed us. And it would track us through the remainder of our years, scuffling behind us day by day as we tried to pretend it away with birthday parties, and holidays, and family dinners. But it would always be watching us, always haunting us, always binding us.

‘I’ll go down to the police station with you and we can talk to Pornstache together. If Michelle had identified you, don’t you think they would have hauled you in already? It’s an elderly woman with failing vision peering into pitch-black. How accurate could she have been?’

‘Accurate enough that someone killed her. I spoke to her.’

‘You what? I told you not to get involved!’

‘Well, I had to know what she saw. And she saw me, Lane. Though she hadn’t mentioned me by name specifically to the cops yet. She merely told them she’d seen two people breaking into the house. She told me she suspected it was me after she read about the life insurance policy online. All this time she was convinced I had killed my husband.’

Lane didn’t reply at first, and I wondered momentarily if he thought I had killed Michelle to shut her up.

‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation.

‘I know you didn’t, Harp. Regardless, you can’t act guilty. Go to the station like an innocent person would do. And it wouldn’t hurt to pressure the police to finish the autopsy since you’d like Ben’s body released so you can have a proper burial.’

I shrugged in agreement. He was right. Lane always was. I exhaled the tension gnawing into my shoulders and lower back. It sounded like the only logical thing a blameless person would do. I began to write Request Ben’s bod— when the pen ran out of ink. After a futile scribble in the corner of the paper, Lane rooted around the junk drawer, then handed me another pen.

‘Here, try this one.’

Accepting the pen, I noticed the writing on it: The Durham Hotel. A chic boutique hotel with a mid-century modern vibe.

‘Where’d you get this?’ I asked coolly.

‘No idea. It was in the drawer.’

‘Have you been here,’ I held up the pen, ‘to this hotel?’

He read the name, then shook his head. ‘No. I probably just picked it up somewhere.’

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Lane had a pen from the very same place Ben spent the last night of his life before coming home and killing himself. The only other person who knew where I was going that night was my mother. Had she told Lane? Had she followed me there after dropping the children off with Eileen?

I couldn’t think about this now. I had a home-wrecking whore to track down and a detective to deceive.

‘So what’s the plan for how to deal with Detective Meltzer?’ I asked. I imagined the two of us storming into the Durham Police Station, where Detective Meltzer undoubtedly ate lox and bagels, crumbs clinging to his mustache, while watching Adam Sandler movies on his iPhone.

‘I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse,’ Lane said huskily, then narrowed his eyes and flicked his hand