Page 70 of Two Couples

“He’s still your friend.”

I tightened my grip on the avocados, plucked them out of her palms, and turned back to the counter.

“Please,” she said. “Can’t we all get along? It would mean a lot to Samantha. And to Keith and me. We love you, Patrick. We never would have bought this house with you if we didn’t think you’re an amazing person—someone we want to spend time with, someone we care about.”

“Yup.”

“Does that mean you’ll forgive Keith? He was triggered, thinking about cops refusing to believe him. Can you understand how that was for a preteen and how the experience stayed with him?”

“Why don’t you just say it—he’s scared.”

“It’s not that, exactly.”

“Yes, it is.” I ran the knife through the first avocado, splitting it in two.

“Well, he really regrets losing control of himself.”

“Then he can tell me that. I will be calling the sheriff. I’m not colluding in your criminal behavior.”

“We’re not criminals!”

“The only reason I haven’t contacted them yet is because I’m getting in touch with my attorney. I need to find out what my culpability is for not reporting this immediately.”

FORTY-NINE

KEITH

Hearing Patrick tell Emily in that casual, laid-back tone of his that he was going to report the murder once he secured his legal standing made me want to commit murder myself.

I’d been headed to the kitchen for a beer but stopped outside the entrance when I heard my wife apologizing for me. She shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t regret for one minute that I’d gotten in a few good punches before I was shoved to the floor and had my forehead slashed open. That guy was rough. He couldn’t even fight like a real man. He should have hit me. Now, Emily was making it sound like I was drowning in regret, implying I was too cowardly to even offer an apology.

He called me a coward?

Because Emily and I were the primary owners of this house, the responsibility was on us to care for the property. And if there was a conflict, our decisions were final. It was even written into the contract, but for all his eagerness to get the law on his side, Patrick seemed incredibly unconcerned with the contract we’d signed.

In order to prosecute a murder, you need a body, ninety-nine out of one hundred times. And with no evidence and no identity, this was not that one percent where it might be possible. If the sheriff actually believed our story.

I needed to talk to Emily. I was done with her dodging my questions. I loved her with everything I had, but I also knew her intimately. I knew when she was being evasive and when she was downright lying. Like cops, I also had good instincts. You learn to read people when you practice law. You meet a lot of people and you’re given a deep look into one or two aspects of their lives, and when there’s a legal dispute, one of the parties is always shading the truth, leaving things out, or absolutely lying.

There was no way I would get Emily out of the kitchen while she was in the throes of creating dinner. My wife was a true creator when it came to cooking. Designing the menu components, finding new recipes, choosing ingredients, and putting it all together in a way that was almost magical.

Surprisingly, dinner was not unpleasant. The delicious meal helped. The wine and beer helped. And most of all, Emily and Samantha helped. The glue of their friendship was more like cement. A horrible death, this standoff, the violence, and Patrick’s stubborn belief in his superior morality was not going to break them apart. They talked about work—Samantha’s real estate clients who had recently bought their dream homes and Emily’s patients in the surgical ward at the hospital where she’d worked for almost six years now.

It was an interesting and distracting conversation. No one mentioned murder, dead bodies, the unstable women next door, or law enforcement. And no one brought up the physical confrontation between Patrick and me. So we sipped our wine, the women talked, and the men listened.

When dinner was over, Samantha announced that she and I would clean up. It wasn’t what I’d planned, but I couldn’t see a way out of it. Forty minutes later the counters were shiny, the leftovers sealed in airtight containers, and the wineglasses washed and dried.

After Samantha left me alone, I mixed two gin and tonics for Emily and me. I carried them to the living room and asked her if she wanted a drink on the balcony off our bedroom. “We can watch the sun go down.” I wasn’t in the mood for the baseball game Patrick had on the TV.

Emily jumped up as if she couldn’t wait to escape. It surprised me because surely she knew what she was walking into. We’d left it hanging when I told her I’d seen her with the dead guy. Had she forgotten all about that? Had she blocked it out because she was terrified of what I might know? Or did she honestly believe I didn’t have the guts to bring it up again?

I didn’t know anything at all. Not about the guy. But I did know I’d seen them together—more than once. She was definitely cheating on me and she’d lied right to my face.

I’d tried to avoid facing that fact, tried to believe she was telling the truth, but a husband can sense things. This was another fact I’d learned in my law practice. You don’t have to stalk your wife with a tracking device or even hire a private investigator. You get a feeling. Those devices simply confirmed what you already knew in your gut.

The only thing making me doubt my conclusion was that our sex life hadn’t changed at all. She still approached me with as much enthusiasm as she always had. She was still eager and welcoming to me whenever I touched her, and not just in bed. But that simply proved she was a better liar than most. People lie with their bodies as much as they lie with their tongues.

Emily settled beside me on the balcony, a contented smile on her face. “That was an ordeal. I’m glad you suggested this.”