Page 19 of Wicked Games

He walks out of the bedroom, and the stairs creak. I don’t hear him in the kitchen or leave the house, just like I didn’t hear him come in.

When I hope for sure that he’s gone, I crawl out of bed. I’m weak, and my legs tremble. I put on a robe and carefully go downstairs. He left his business card near the vase of dying flowers and my cell phone, his personal number written on the back. It can stay there. Even if I was dying, he’d be the last person I call.

I look in the fridge for something to eat, something my empty stomach can handle, and I make a piece of toast. The sun’s setting, the sky a pretty purple and pink. Seth isn’t sitting on his patio, and like the other times I’ve tried to look into his house, the cove’s reflection on the French doors blocks my view. It will be a pain in the ass to avoid him for the rest of the summer, but if he’s scared of how I make him feel, he needs to take it up with his psychiatrist, not explode all over everyone.

I wake up my phone. Bill’s tried to call me several times, and Julianne texted and asked how I’m settling into the house and if I like the town. There are a few calls from unknown numbers, maybe friends of Darren’s wanting to reach out to say they were sorry about the divorce or invite me to a cocktail party. I’ll bump into Darren and Bailey at some point, a book signing or a lecture, maybe a gallery showing. The creative scene in Ashfield is an active one, and it’s better to remain on good terms with him, even if it’s only out of professionalism. My mother left me a voicemail, asking how I was doing and if there was any news about Hattie’s death. She can speak to the detective handling her case, but she’d rather call me.

I nibble the toast.

Seth’s house is dark.

He was starting to care about me. How would Darren like that? If I came back to the city engaged to a billionaire. I wonder if Seth wants more kids or after what happened to Theo he wouldn’t care if I told him the chances of him knocking me up were zero. I don’t think I’d want more children after my own child’s death, but on the other hand, that’s the only way some couples can keep on living. Have more children, recreate the family they lost through whatever way. Cancer. An accident. It’s probably too soon for him to know.

The toast does little, but if I eat anything else I’m going to throw up. I need a shower, then I’ll call everyone back who tried to check on me. I shouldn’t scare people like that, but it’s the whole reason I’m out here. I need time alone.

The hot water rinses away the muzziness, and I feel more like myself when I get out and put on a fresh pair of pajamas. I strip the bed and carry the sheets downstairs to the washer. The linen closet has extras, but I’ve stayed in bed long enough and I’ll check the comments on Hattie’s website while I wait.

First things first, and I make a pot of coffee. It’ll slosh around in my stomach like an acidic pool, but I’m going through caffeine withdrawal. While it drips, I sit at the kitchen table and call Bill. I wish he wouldn’t lean on me so hard. I have a difficult enough time keeping myself upright. “Hey, Bill.”

“Avery. Are you okay? Christ, you had me worried.”

“Does everyone think I’m suicidal?” Seth telling me not to hurt myself, and now Bill, more concerned than he needs to be.

“Who’s everyone? I don’t, I just don’t like the thought of you alone in the middle of nowhere. I know you can take care of yourself, but if you had an emergency, you could be dead by the time I made it out there. What have you been doing?”

“Spiraling, just like what you were worried about. Seth said some shit about my writing, and, oh, I don’t know. On top of Darren leaving me, it was crappy to hear and I let it get me down.”

“If there’s anything I can say about Darren, it’s that he was proud of you. You’ve been hanging around Seth Lockwood, huh? He’s not a patron of the fine arts?”

“Pffft. Only if it makes money, apparently. He apologized, but if he said it, he was thinking it. You never minded what Hattie did, did you?” It really isn’t a question. I know Bill was as proud of Hattie as Darren was of me.

“No, but from the moment we started dating I had a feeling something like this would happen. I’ve been thinking back to before she was killed, trying to piece together where she’d been or where she was spending her time. She’d disappear, say she was seeing friends, but that was always code for meeting her sources. You know. She never told me much. She tried to keep the dirt she dug up from coming into the house.”

“Did you know she interviewed Brooke Lockwood? She had the interview saved in her drafts. I read it when I logged in to write that post.”

“I didn’t, but we met Vale and Brooke for dinner one night.”

I get up and pour a cup of coffee. “She never told me that.”

“It was a couple of months before Theo was kidnapped. We went to Vale’s house, and Christ. I’ve never seen anything like it. Had a stream running right through the living room.”

“Was it weird you were meeting with her and Rowan and not Seth?”

“Not really. I hadn’t met Lockwood so I wouldn’t have been able to compare. We were talking about the community center she and Vale were building, but they did act like more of a couple than I’d seen her and Lockwood look online. Though, that’s not saying much.”

“Is that why they invited you to dinner? The interview was mostly about the community center. Maybe Brooke was hoping that Hattie could push fundraising efforts and whatnot.”

“Mostly?”

“Hattie would never turn down the chance to stir up trouble. She asked Brooke if Seth minded she was spending so much time with Rowan and Brooke said as long as Seth was working with Violet, she could do whatever she wanted. She was more polite about it than that, but that’s what it boiled down to.”

“Well, she’s got a point. You know Lockwood’s banged her over his desk more than once. Even if it was before he and Brooke got married, you don’t spend that much time with someone and not want to have a little.”

I gulp half my mug. After three days, it tastes amazing. “Are you saying you’ve had fun with your nurses?”

“Of course I have. But never after I got married. Hattie trusted me, and I trusted her. She could have been screwing half of Ashfield while she was out doing whatever the fuck she did to write her articles. You think I was accusing her of that? We wouldn’t have lasted a month. I loved your sister, Avery, or I never would have married her.”

“I know. So, Hattie was spending time with Brooke. Anyone else? Never mind. I probably have a better idea than you do. I’ll keep going through her drafts. Maybe when you have a second you can find her notebook and see if you can get into her laptop. She was lucky she wasn’t carrying it the night she was killed. God knows what she has on it.”