Page 108 of Kiss, Marry, Kill
I was dumping that bougie tea in sachets when you ran past. I waved, but you continued on as if you didn’t even know me. I was alone here the same way I had been in our universe. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
That was when I knew why I was here. To right all the wrongs. The wrongs y’all have done to me.
When I tracked down Ethan, I suggested a painted rock might be just the trick to connect with you, the success of which he relayed to me on the balcony at Ilena’s dinner party. When I learned Kai had a crush, I reminded him that you don’t drink caffeine and told him to buy you another rosé at the bar, because who doesn’t love a love triangle? Poor jilted James,that’s who. The fury in his eyes when he took my musings over those old-fashioneds Mallory loves to mean his dear Felix had been trapped? My, oh, my.
Not that everything went to plan. When I realized at least one of those hideous state charms on my key chain was missing, I searched everywhere before trying the Latham home. The doorbell camera I learned about later was unfortunate. Still, I was intent on creating chaos. And I did. Scheduling theShandy Shanevisit for the same time as the police interview and making sure Heidi Hoffman was there played out even more brilliantly than I’d imagined. Ironically, that was where it all fell apart.
I was the one who nudged the door open and encouraged Harley to interrupt. Seeing how frightened y’all were crushed me worse than a stampede of wild horses. I had to do something to help fix what I’d done.
This wasn’t me. It wasn’t who I wantedusto be. Why I had done all I had in our universe. Y’all werehere. And so was I. This was our chance to come together. I knew exactly where to start. The river. The event I suggested you re-create in our universe.
That day, none of you came to work. I took a chance, and there you were, huddled around that sandbox. I had no idea what you’d intended. I just knew I needed to be there too. To come clean. To have us come together, finally, as one. Fast as small-town gossip, I ran alongside the river, weaving through all those people running home from work, my ponytail bouncing like I was on a trampoline. But then you walked away.
And now they are gone.
But we, we, are here. And we will be the best of friends.
Two hands encase Aubrey’s, the warmth at odds with the piercing cold sparking gooseflesh along her skin. She looks to the table in front of them. She’s reassured by the knot of jet-black hair and the person to which it’s attached.
Aubrey extracts her hand, sliding it past the half-finished old-fashioned across the table and the untouched one in front of herself. She manages a half smile despite the nausea blooming in her stomach at what she’d just heard. Ethan, her Ethan,hadbeen killed—just not by Aubrey. “The plan, your plan, did it extend beyond, to anything else? Anyone else?”
“Mr. Fields?”
She smiles so genuinely with such affection that Aubrey almost feels sorry for her. For how lonely she must have been. Aubrey thinks of the night of the outing in the world that had once been theirs, the night she came to them with drinks and a desire to please, the night Aubrey had invited her to stay. She hadn’t. Yet she must not have strayed far. She must have been spatially close enough to move between worlds when they bumped. But not quite close enough to return when Mallory and Ilena did.
It was the David Copperfield that sparked Aubrey’s suspicion. When Aubrey had tried to explain the reference to Kai, she discovered that the man doesn’t exist here—at least not as a magician that everyone knows. But this woman was here. And she knew David Copperfield too. She’d said it when Harley interrupted the police interview.
“Y’all know that Mallory sometimes asks me to restock her emergency snack bag,” she says, having slipped back into using their first names. “I like to surprise her. Change it up.”
This Mallory has no memory of anything after the outing. She admits an attraction to Grayson but swears they never slept together. If she went home with him after the party, that was the first time. She had no reason to keep her emergency snack bag free of nut crackers. An accident, that’s what her lawyer is insisting.
Could this help? If Mallory didn’t pack her own snack bag, she could be cleared entirely, not even that involuntarymanslaughter they’re floating would have a chance. Mallory would no longer have to worry about being in jail when the newly separated Ilena gives birth to her daughter. Mallory could accept an invitation toThe Shandy Shane Showfor something other than as part of a scandal. She did go on, they all did, to explain the postponement of the direct listing as a result of the tragic loss of Grayson Fields.
Aubrey gently tugs Harley closer. “Grayson, then. The crackers being made of nut...”
“An unfortunate twist of fate.”
Relief bubbles up inside Aubrey’s chest before her mind takes it one step further. Because this woman admitted that she woke up here, same as them, with no idea that she was in a different universe. With a different Grayson. A Grayson who didn’t actually know the secret that she had already killed to keep. Was she leaving anything out?
“Not planned?” Aubrey says carefully.
“Not by this version of me,” she says. “Perhaps the other Noreen... well, I guess we may never know.”
* * * * *
