Page 9 of Memory of Murder
Anyway, here goes. Please, please keep reading.
May 5
Thirty Years Ago
IHAD JUSTfound out I was pregnant. I was so thrilled. I can’t even find the words to describe how amazing it felt. I couldn’t wait to tell Neil. He was going to be over the moon. Although we had intended to wait until we were a little more settled—at least until after the wedding—to start a family, it didn’t matter. This was amazing. And maybe under the circumstances we could forego the bigger wedding his mother had planned and just elope. That would have actually been pretty perfect.
We had been looking at houses with our best friends, Eve Redford and Kevin Langston. Eve and I had known each other since we were children. She met Kevin at a sorority party sophomore year, and they have been a couple since. It was nice that Kevin and Neil hit it off. Eve and I couldn’t have been happy unless our future husbands were friends. That’s the way best friends were supposed to be, you know. We wanted to do things together…to be friends forever. We had lost the third member of our bestie trio—Carin Carter. She was one of us until she wasn’t. I don’t know what happened, but one day she just decided we couldn’t be friends anymore. She had not spoken to me or to Eve in weeks. We later learned she moved to Chicago and never looked back. Which is all the more reason Eve and I understood we had to stick together. We would never allow anything to come between us. Best friends forever.
Except something did…something unthinkable…something straight out of a horror movie. Something I never saw coming.
SIDENOTE:YOU SHOULDknow that what I felt that long ago May all changed by August of that same year. Eve Redford was not my friend after all. I later wondered if who she really was is the reason Carin left. I can’t be sure about that. But what I can say with absolute certainty is that Eve Redford was not who she appeared to be. I imagine she is still that same deceitful person. Did she murder my sweet Neil? I don’t know, but I believe she knows who did. Whatever you do, be careful around her. Do not trust her under any circumstances. I have no proof…no evidence whatsoever. But what I can say is that I know in my heart with utter certainty that someone close to me murdered my future husband—your father. I just don’t know which of the three—Eve or Kevin or, maybe, Carin.
If I could have figured out the motive maybe I could have uncovered the truth. I can only assume that the evil person who killed him did not want me to continue being happy. There simply is no other explanation. Neil was the kindest, most honorable man I have ever known. No one, and I mean no one, could have found a single thing bad in him that warranted harm, much less murder.
Obviously, the killer didn’t want the man I loved because he or she killed him. She didn’t want the child I carried. Otherwise he or she would have taken you in under the guise of friendship. I just don’t know. The one thing I know with absolute certainty is that you cannot trust those three or anyone close to them. Bottom line: Do not trust anyone who was close to me. And please, please be careful.
Chapter Five
Aurora
Wednesday, July 9
Holiday Inn Express
Broadway Avenue, 9:00 a.m.
Anne sat in her car for a while. She’d been sitting here ten minutes already. When she called Jackson Brenner she told him she would arrive at his hotel at nine. And she was here, but somehow she wasn’t ready to get out and do this thing. It was a foolish reaction, but there it was.
He had offered to come to her house, but she’d preferred to do this in neutral territory. For now, she wanted—no, needed—this to be separate from her real life. She was Anne Griffin, a survivor. A college graduate against all odds who had started her own business. A girl who had built something out of nothing.
This…thisthing from before she was born had no place in her real life, and she intended to keep it that way until she knew more. She had worked far too hard to become her own person—not the child of a murderer—to risk that reputation. Despite those feelings and her determination, on some level she understood that if she didn’t do this the mystery and shame of that past would forever follow her like a lost and unwanted shadow. She needed it behind her permanently and irrevocably.
Deep breath.
With effort, she opened the car door and got out. Squaring her shoulders, she elbowed the door closed and tapped the handle to secure it. A soft beep confirmed the vehicle was locked.
Anne strode to the entrance of the hotel and hesitated long enough to draw in another deep, solidifying breath before entering the lobby. She followed a corridor to the elevator and then rode up to the second floor. Heart pounding, she walked along the upstairs corridor until she reached the room number he’d given her. Then she knocked on the door.
This was it. The point of no return.
The slab of stained and polished wood opened instantly as if he’d been standing on the other side waiting for her arrival.
He smiled. “Ms. Griffin, come in.”
He stepped away, giving her space. She entered the room and closed the door. She was really doing this. He’d offered to meet her in the lobby or the parking lot, but she had wanted to do this in private. Besides, if she couldn’t trust this man in his hotel room she certainly couldn’t trust him as a near constant companion for the next day…or few days.
Go big or go home.
She had used that motto throughout her post-college struggle to create her own company. No doubting herself. She could do this. She had to do this. Moving on required this one big step.
“Would you like to sit?” He gestured to the table and chairs that fronted the lone, large window. “Coffee? Anything?”
A carafe and cups, along with two bottles of water, sat on the table.
She walked to the table and sat. “No coffee for me.” She did, however, accept a bottle of water. Her throat was bone dry.
“I presume you read the journal?” He eased into a chair at the table, took the other bottle of water.
