It felt as though the three of us had turned a corner, but that didn’t mean we were in the clear. Anthony was dead. Sean was staring down a life sentence. But skeletal old Uncle Vincent still loomed large. Who knew what story Sean was feeding him? Chances were he’d say he’d taken the fall for Sarah, play the devoted husband to keep from getting shanked. And Vincent, who seemed to think that women were made to lay traps for men, wouldn’t be hard to convince.
Or maybe Sean would point the finger at me. That would be the smart play. As I said, there was never any love lost between me and Vincent. It wouldn’t take much to convince him that I’d killed his beloved nephew. Besides, as he saw it, I was costing him money just by staying alive. A lot of money. Between the house, the yacht, the luxury cars, and the offshore accounts, I stood to inherit a sizable fortune—a fortune Vincent believed was rightfully his.
Anthony wasn’t all the way stupid, but the Costello empire-building gene had skipped right over him. If the playing field had been level, if he’d been born into a nice middle-class family in the suburbs, he might have wound up managing a restaurant or owning a car wash. I’d put his absolute ceiling at real estate agent. But with Vincent backing him, he’d gone crashing through that ceiling. In other words, Vincent made Anthony wealthy, and now Vincent felt that wealth should revert back to him.
And with me out of the picture, it would. Anthony had no other next of kin. My guess was that Vincent planned to help me commit suicide. Probably with a noose or pills. Something that would leave a clean corpse for the medical examiner, who was most likely in Vincent’s pocket anyway. Not a bruise on her apart from what she did to herself, this hypothetical coroner would say. Suicide, open and shut. The distraught wife just couldn’t go on.
All that to say: I was still jumpy as hell. In the morning, I expected to pull back the curtains and find Defoe standing on my balcony. At night, before I went to bed, I spilled a garbage bag of crumpled newspaper over the floor so no one could sneak up on me. I even cut back on the sleeping pills for fear the noise wouldn’t wake me.
Of course, Haagen would come hunting for me, too, once the trial was underway. I’d be witness and widow—the person who humanized Anthony for the jury. Maybe the DA would offer me some kind of temporary protection, put me up in a swank hotel for the duration. But the trial would end, and unless Sean was convicted beyond a shadow of a doubt, my straits would be no less dire. Vincent had to walk out of that courtroom without a doubt in his head. Then, if I had to pay him off, I would. Meanwhile, the staff at this boutique hotel knew me as Jane Pepper, and I wore my curly red wig morning, noon, and night. I even wore it to bed.
And yet, part of me felt so free. All that was missing was a companion. Someone I could talk to without worrying that they’d turn on me—or turn me in. To Vincent. To Haagen. Someone I trusted. Someone who had as much to lose as me.
Chapter 36
SHE TURNED up the morning of my fifth day in New Orleans. I might have complained about the hotel’s security. There was no call from the concierge, no bellhop announcing her arrival: just three soft knocks at the door. It was a knocking I recognized. It used to mean, I don’t want to bother you, but breakfast / lunch / dinner is ready. Truth be told, it always bothered the hell out of me. I wanted to scream at her to stand up tall and give that door a good, hard whack. Now, though, there wasn’t any sound I’d rather hear.
“Just a minute,” I said.
I changed out of my satin robe and into jeans and a T-shirt—my way of saying we were equals now. Then I opened up. She’d lost weight. Sarah never had much of an inch to pinch, but now she was out-and-out skinny. I was half concerned, half jealous.
I didn’t say anything. Neither did she. She stood in the hall, looking me over, hands hidden in her coat pockets. I had to wave her in, then step aside so she didn’t run over my foot with her gargantuan suitcase.
I went first.
“You crazy, deluded, devious backstabber,” I said.
She cocked her head, made her little gourmet chef hands into fists.
“At least I fight my own battles,” she said. “I don’t hide behind my money.”
“Can’t hide behind what you don’t have.”
“Yeah, and I’m no one’s trophy bitch.”
“And I’m no murderer.”
“No, you just hire it done.”
That was enough. She broke into a smile. Then we were hugging each other, laughing and crying at the same time. It was our code: if our reunion opened with mutual accusations and confessions, it meant neither of us was wearing a wire. It meant that, as far as we knew, we were in the clear.
After Sarah freshened up, we headed down to the hotel’s five-star restaurant, took a seat on the terrace, and ordered giant prawns and even larger hurricanes. Three drinks in, we were trying our best to be quiet and civil.
“To us,” Sarah said, raising her glass.
“The three of us.”
“Serena really came through.”
“We all did,” I said. “The trophy wife, the maid, and the cook. Who’d have thought we could pull it
