CHAPTER SIX

The next morning, Mordecai knocked the remote control off the nightstand to clatter on the wood floor and Bri woke with a start as if from a nightmare.

That’s all it was, she thought in those first few seconds of consciousness, a nightmare.

“What do you want?”

Perched on the nightstand, Mordecai meowed. Shelly’s bottle of Xanax stood next to him (Big Sister won out and Bri had asked for the pills), and the remainder of the coins that hadn’t fallen out in the bathroom lay scattered at the cat’s feet.

He meowed again, reached out a paw, and swatted the Xanax bottle. It rattled against the floor and rolled somewhere. Bri reached over to scratch his chin. A wisp of orange fur floated free. He purred and her hand fell to the coins she’d found under the couch yesterday before the funeral. Change, no doubt, that had slipped from Ward’s pockets. Instead of adding them to the coffee can, which had paid off over the years in modest spending cash and even a new pair of shoes or two, she’d slipped the coins in her pocket just as Ward would have done.

She picked up a penny. It was dated 2010. The year she and Ward married.

She caressed it, studied it. This was a worthless coin that had fallen from his pocket to rest beneath the couch in the living room, but it seemed to represent so much more. This was a piece of Ward memorabilia that should be encased in plastic, framed, and hung on the wall next to his picture so she could spend long evenings staring at it, slurping wine, and wondering how she’d ended up a widow at thirty-five.

Another meow. “Okay, okay,” she said and got out of bed.

She cupped the penny in her hand.

The penny waited beside her engagement and wedding rings on the bathroom counter while she showered. Silly, no question, but so what? She couldn’t even be sure the penny was from Ward’s pocket collection, but it was from the year they married, and what were the odds on that?

Well then, it must be meaningful. Maybe Ward had been carrying it around for months. Maybe it was on his desk when he wrote that damn letter. Speaking of, if the penny was so significant, how could she deny the letter was anything but authentic?

Later, Bri was on the couch where the priest had been, the cat curled on her lap, and she was nursing her third cup of coffee. It had turned cold but she still sipped it. Ward had brought Mordecai home back when they lived in an apartment in Monroe. Ward discovered him in a dumpster outside a pizza parlor. The poor kitten was meowing its head off. Ward was so upset. How could someone do something like that? At least give the cat a fighting chance.

She pet him slowly. “Have you had a good life?”

Mordecai purred, nuzzled her hand. The vet said Mordecai could afford to lose a little weight. That makes two of us, Bri had said.

She tried not to think about anything, just set sail on an sea of nothing, but then she was staring at the carpet and thinking how she had done a crappy job vacuuming and maybe she should finally hire a cleaning service and, thinking of money, she had to figure out what bills there were to pay and passwords to crack because Ward paid all the bills online and—BAM!, there she was thinking of her husband, her dead husband whose skull had cracked open like an egg, her husband who knew he’d die in what would look like an accident.

Look like an accident.

Meaning?

Meaning nothing.

Ward was dead and that was that. Why should she take the letter seriously? Maybe it was some sort of sick joke. Or a coincidence. Ward was not the type to mastermind such a depraved prank, but that didn’t mean someone else hadn’t done it. But who? Gurlop?

The envelope waited next to her on the armrest. She touched the crease where her name was split between the r and i.

What if the letter was completely real? What if Ward knew he was in danger, knew he might end up dead and also knew Bri would be in danger as well?

Danger from what, though?

Ward was a businessman. The obvious conclusion was that he’d made deals with some unseemly people, perhaps even screwed over those people, and now they’d gotten their revenge. What sort of deal? Bri couldn’t begin to imagine. Ward never shared anything about his work, and honestly if he’d tried she might not have listened.

Give her some credit—had Ward grabbed her and said, I made a deal with some bad people and I think they’re going to kill me, Bri would have paid attention.

Bad people? Had she really just imagined Ward confessing he’d made business deals with bad people? Was she a child again, divvying up the world into easily categorized factions of heroes and villains?

The man in the black Town Car. He’d been at the church while she gave the eulogy, and at the cemetery while Father Marshall offered the final blessing, and right outside her house while people ate cold cuts and pretended not to be afraid Bri was going to snap.

He was bound to come back. Might be parked outside right now.

Bri started to get up and Mordecai groaned a throaty sound of discontent. She stayed where she was. No one was parked outside. Even if that guy was out there, was she supposed to call the police? There’s a strange-looking man in a Town Car outside my house, and I’m afraid he might walk up the driveway and knock on my door. Please help me.

Dispatch would send the whole fleet, no doubt.

Grieve and get on with life. Shelly was right, though Bri would never admit it to her—she had to get on with things. Cry and put Ward behind her. Just that easy. She should forget the letter, forget any wild theories about criminal business deals and the bad people who might be coming for her.

The Xanny bars would help her forget that nonsense and get on with things.

But get on to what?

In their six-year marriage, Bri had accomplished exactly nothing. She’d been a teacher and then a puzzle creator (crosswords and Anagram Blasters: today’s category, Movie titles; your puzzle, Legal Foods, or, once solved, Goodfellas), and that had brought in some extra cash and been fun as well, but the woman who created those puzzles was now just a widow with a cat and a cup of cold coffee.

Mordecai shifted on her lap. She rubbed behind his ears.

She should go upstairs to Ward’s office. Ransack the place. If Ward was involved in questionable deals, business transactions with bad people, there would be a record somewhere. Probably on his computer. Of course, for all Bri knew, Ward had a secret office somewhere she’d never find until some landlord tracked her down, maybe years from now. And if a secret office was a possibility, why not an entire secret life complete with a secret wife, maybe even one who had given him a secret child?

She resisted the urge to go upstairs.

While she sat there sipping coffee and petting Mordecai, the phone rang three times. She’d had known Shelly would call. The first two calls had, in fact, been Big Sister and both times Bri muted the ringing. The third time, though, she answered.

The ID read: Private Caller.

“Mrs. Heart?” a man asked.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m Detective James Hunter from the Warrenville Police Department. This is Brielle Heart, wife of Ward Heart?”

“Yes.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Heart.”

“Thank you.”

In the ensuing pause, Bri thought the guy might have hung up. In a flash, she saw the man in the black coat and gelled black hair pretending to be a cop. He’d be hunkered in a musty basement, hunched over the phone, his other hand massaging the crotch of his stained boxers, and all because his father beat him and his mommy dressed him in girls’ clothes.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes?”

“Should I call back later?” He sounded calm, normal, perhaps not a basement-dwelling crotch fondler.

“No, no. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit . . . What is this about please?”

“Montgomery police contacted me about your husband’s death. There are some curiosities they are hoping I can help them explain.”

“Curiosities?”

“I hate to do this, but can we meet? I could come to your home.”

“No.” She touched the envelope. She liked the sound of the paper when it crinkled. The penny was now in there, too.

“I understand,” the man said. “But we should talk.”

She caressed the envelope a moment longer. “Why is that, detective? My husband is dead and unless you can bring him back to life, I don’t think there’s any reason we need to speak.”

“Because if you don’t speak to me,” he said, “you’ll be talking to the FBI.”