Page 63 of She Didn't See It Coming
“I think so. We can rise above it. Her husband probably killed her, like you said.”
“Well, I hope they convict him, whether he did it or not.”
And that’s Alice in a nutshell, Derek thinks. She’s always on his side, no matter what he’s done.
“And then there’s my mother,” she says.
“But is there really anything to worry about?” Derek asks, coming up to her and massaging her shoulders. “As long as we stick to our story, there really isn’t anything they can do. There’s no evidence there either.” It was almost four years ago. Everything belonging to her mother—the truck, the house, every trace of her life, had been sold off or given away. He says, “Even if they were able to track down the truck, there’s no way to connect that tiny dent to something that happened years ago. They could never prove it.”
“I suppose,” she says, stirring the pot.
•••
It’s Friday night,and Jayne goes home relatively early, for the middle of a murder investigation. Michael is coming over. They’ll order in, he’ll bring a bottle of wine. She’s only a call away if there are any developments.
She’s really looking forward to spending some downtime with Michael. She feels she’s hardly seen him since this all kicked off three days ago with Bryden Frost’s disappearance. She remembers Tuesday—it was their anniversary.
Now Michael rubs her feet on the sofa while they wait for their Thai food to arrive. She watches him and remembers that she needs to have that drink with Ginny. About how to do it all—give a family the love and attention they deserve while you’re in the trenches every day seeing terrible things as a homicide detective. An image ofBryden’s body squeezed into the suitcase comes unbidden to her mind’s eye.
She doesn’t, as a rule, discuss her cases with Michael. But sometimes it’s as if he can sense she’s not fully there with him, that her mind is thinking about work.
Michael reaches over and tops up her wineglass from the bottle sitting beside them on the coffee table. “What are you thinking?” he asks her.
Jayne answers thoughtfully. “You know, it’s never like they say it is, at the beginning. At first, everyone said that the Frosts were perfectly happy. No problems. Neither of them would ever cheat. The perfect little family. And then you start to look beneath the surface, and it all starts to come out—all the ugliness.” She thinks of the affair, the abuse, the murder.
“People are complicated,” Michael says. “They give in to all sorts of unconscious impulses and desires that mess up their lives. I see it too, as a psychologist.”
“I know you do.”
“We’re not so far removed from animals, you know, not as far as we think. We lived like animals for much longer than we’ve been wearing clothes and living in cities. But the animal is still there, underneath the clothes.” He has a sip of wine. “Whoever killed this woman, Bryden, they stepped outside the bounds of civilized society for a moment. And that’s a tragedy. For her, for her family, even for the perpetrator.” He sighs and stops rubbing her feet for a moment and looks at her. “But what’s even more concerning is when it’s not just the individual who steps outside the norms of civilized society, who breaks the unwritten rules we somehow all agreed to be bound by when we decided to live as civilized beings.”
“I know,” she agrees, reflecting on everything frightening that’s going on in the world these days. “It’s scary.”
“Yes. When millions of people believe fantasy over fact, choose emotion over reason, society can break down pretty quickly. It happens all the time.”
Jayne looks back at him, more doubtful than ever. What hope is there for any of them? Does it even make any sense to bring another child into this world?
He leans in and kisses her. “But we can always choose to be good,” he says.
And she loves him for it. She will carry his words with her tomorrow when she goes back to work.
41
Saturday morning dawns, gray and drizzly. Lizzie’s parents hover around her, cramping her style. They have nowhere to go. She’s afraid to close herself in her bedroom on the computer in case her mother barges in and sees what she’s doing. There’s no lock on her door. She’s restless, frustrated. She lounges in the living room and checks the news about Bryden’s case on her phone constantly, but there’s nothing new. Lizzie craves information. Information she can share. This stasis, this boredom, is awful.
“What are you up to today?” Lizzie asks her parents, hoping this will prod them into doing something.
They look blankly back at her. “Nothing,” her mother says listlessly.
She realizes her parents are just waiting. Waiting for the funeral so that they can lay Bryden to rest. Waiting for someone to be arrested. Waiting for the truth. For closure. It seems impossible that Bryden went missing just four days ago, that they will bury her in four more.
Lizzie wants the funeral to be done and over with so that her parentswill go home. They can’t be planning on staying in town indefinitely, as long as the investigation lasts. If so, they can’t stay here. She’ll go out of her mind. It could be weeks, months. “I think I’ll go out,” Lizzie says.
“Where?” her mother asks.
She hesitates, but then decides to tell the truth. “To Sam’s.” Her mother looks back at her, her face set, but before she can say anything Lizzie preempts her. “I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t think he killed her. And I know you don’t want me to see him, but I want to see Clara. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Her mother nods, chastened.
