Chapter 4

04

To make sure Wilfred really wasn't dead, I kept the call connected the whole way, and only hung up once they got home and I heard his voice.

That kind of betrayal cut into me like a slow knife, so I made up my mind, sold the house, and went to the hospital.

Now I was going to cancel Wilfred's official records. Let's see how a man who was still alive planned to come back to life.

When Jean heard me say it was something important about Wilfred, she was straining to work out what it was. But I wasn't going to give her the chance.

Their double betrayal had drawn the devil in me all the way out.

I walked past Jean and kept going. She grabbed my arm. "Evelyn, tell me straight. What are you going to go do?"

I turned my head and met her eyes. Her frantic little act was honestly funny.

"What? Are you that interested in my dead husband?"

Before I'd overheard Norma and Angela talking, I'd never suspected them.

One was my closest friend and the business partner I clicked with best; the other was a husband who did whatever I wanted and treated me like the center of his world. It never once crossed my mind that the two of them would end up together.

I still remembered Jean back when she first started college. She was timid, had no real friends, and I was the one who never looked down on her, who befriended her, who pulled her out of the mud step by step.

After we graduated, Jean fell into a panic again. She had no idea what she could do with herself, and she came to me in tears.

By then I'd already decided to start my own company. Seeing how stuck she was, I told her my plan.

Jean got excited the moment she heard it. She said she could only put in twenty thousand dollars. I could have waved that money off, honestly, but I took it.

We became partners, and to give her something to work toward, I registered her as the legal representative.

Back then Jean told me she'd remember what I'd done for her forever.

I never imagined that in four or five short years, she'd forget every word of that promise.

On Wilfred's side I really hadn't caught anything off. But two months ago I'd noticed Jean acting strange. She used to be intensely into the work, careful, responsible.

Two months ago she was often out of the office, unreachable at the worst moments. At the time I thought something had happened with her family, and I asked her a few times. She only said she was almost done dealing with it.

Looking back now, maybe that was when the two of them were already planning everything that happened today.

Through Jean I felt, in full, what it was to be knifed in the back.

When I threw that question back at her, Jean froze for a second, then quickly pulled her expression back together and shook her head.

"Evie, I know you've been in a rough place lately. If you want to rest, I'll set up a vacation for you. If you want to come in and work, that's fine too. As long as it lifts your mood."

I genuinely wondered what was really going through Jean's head while she said all this.

I just gave a cold little laugh and didn't answer her.

I got in the car, left the company, and drove straight to the records office at the police station.

"Hi, I'm here to cancel my husband Wilfred Acevedo's official records."

I handed the clerk the documents I'd brought and stated what I'd come for.

I watched the clerk pull up Wilfred's file, print out a confirmation form, and hand it to me to sign.

I turned everything over to the clerk. He typed the information in, keys clacking, then had me enter it once more to confirm.

I watched him work through it.

Just then a rush of messy footsteps came up behind me. "Evelyn, what do you think you're doing?"