Page 89 of The Wife Upstairs
Bea looked up from her laptop, her face bathed in the pale glow of the screen. She was wearing her glasses, her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, and she looked so young all of a sudden, so different from the polished, poised Bea I was used to.
I liked it.
“Okay?” she said at last. “I did tell you she died suddenly.”
“Right, but you said it was because she drank too much.”
Bea turned her attention back to the screen, her fingers clacking along the keyboard. “It was. She was drinking too much and she fell.”
Frustrated now, I crossed the dining room and closed her computer, earning me a squawk of protest. “Right, but that’s really different from what you led me to believe. I thought she had liver failure or something. Cirrhosis. I didn’t realize it was an accident.” My voice caught on the last word.
Flipping her laptop open with quick, jerky movements, Bea said, “Well, it was. She fell and I found her, which was obviously upsetting, so thanks for bringing it back up. So glad we could have this talk.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Her gaze shot back to mine, red blotches climbing up her neck like they always did when she was pissed off. “Is there a reason you and Blanche were discussing my mother’s death?” she asked, and shit.Shit.I should’ve seen that one coming, but I was so desperate to put these awful thoughts to rest that I hadn’t stopped to think that she’d know exactly where I’d gotten that information.
“It came up today while I was over there,” I said, and she let out a sarcastic laugh.
“Right, typical small talk, ‘Hey, did you know how your wife’s mom died?’”
“Don’t be a bitch,” I said, straightening up, but Bea didn’t reply, even though I’d never spoken to her like that before. Her focus was on the laptop again, whatever email she felt had to be dealt with at 10P.M.on a Friday night.
We didn’t speak again that night, and later, I lay in bed next to her. She had her back to me, the curve of her ass against my hip, and for a moment, I thought about waking her up, trying to figure out if sex could fix this.
I didn’t think it could.
And as I lay there, I tried not to think about her mother, lying at the bottom of the stairs, blood pooling around her.
Tried not to envision Bea at the top of those stairs, looking down at her. The picture was too clear though, too easy to see, and the more I pushed it away, the clearer it became, the more right it felt.
And I had no fucking idea what to do with that.
Was that the kind of person I’d married? Someone who could murder her own mother?
I truly hadn’t believed it. Not until the night she killed Blanche.
34
I couldn’t tell you why I went down to the lake.
Maybe it was because Tripp had stopped by, asking if I wanted a ride there, too, and I hadn’t known Bea had invited him.
Tripp and I hadn’t been friends or anything, but something about it, about the girls (women,I heard Jane say) going up there alone, then Bea texting Tripp to join them… something about it felt off.
I’d seen the way Tripp had been looking at Bea lately, with these sad puppy-dog eyes. I told myself it was because Blanche was making it so obvious that she was into me. He’d transferred affection or some shit.
But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
So, it had bothered me, Bea inviting him, and long after Tripp left, I’d sat there in the living room, thinking about it, probing it like a sore tooth.
Why would Bea want him there? She didn’t even like Tripp, and this was supposed to be some kind of girls’ bonding weekend.
The house is dark and empty when Eddie gets there.
Or he thinks it’s empty. After standing there in the living room, calling out to someone, he hears a snore from upstairs.
Tripp is in the guest room, passed out, his mouth open, his hand hanging off the bed. His snores are deep, congested, his breaths taking a while to come, and something about it strikes Eddie as weird. Unnatural.
