This Story Might Save Your Life(70)
Keller doesn’t respond. The dogs are barking outside. I stand, needing something to do with my body, and cross over to the window. The coyote is back, sitting motionless on Carlotta’s side of the fence. Richie and Potsie pace in front of him, trying to tease him into playing.
“Regarding the money transfer…” The detective clears her throat.
Somehow I knew this was coming next.
“Money transfer?” Mallory asks. I never looped her in on this.
“A million dollars,” Keller says. “From the corporate account to Benny’s personal account.”
Mallory gasps.
“It was fraudulent activity,” I say quickly. “It didn’t go through.”
“According to bank records, you initiated the transfer at eight p.m.,” Keller continues, ignoring me. “Just after your little conversation with Joy. Was that to spite Xander? Because she wouldn’t leave him for you?”
“That’s not—” I open my mouth to argue it was the opposite—that Xander must have done it to spite me—but now that he’s dead I realize my theory no longer holds. I realize, also, how bad this makes me look. Keller has likely been playing dumb about these records all along. Which means she knows I’ve been withholding the information I learned from my financial advisor. Information that quite plainly incriminates me. If I hadn’t fled the interview room she may have gotten around to this in private, but now she’s doing it in front of Mallory, and I can already see the next layer of distrust forming behind Mallory’s eyes. “I didn’t do it.”
“When Xander found out he would’ve been angry. Angry enough to pick a fight.” Keller leans forward. “And we already know, after what happened in Tucson, that you sometimes lose your temper.”
Something seizes in my chest. Mallory’s face goes as pale as her hair. This hasn’t come up on the podcast since she joined the team, but she clearly understands what Keller is insinuating.
“You went ahead and made a public statement when I advised you not to,” Keller says. “Was that so we would be distracted by a thousand different leads? Was that your plan?”
She’s clearly satisfied to have gotten me worked up again, and I struggle to keep my cool. To prove I’m not the man she seems to think I am. But when she asks why my fingerprints were found on Xander’s wheelbarrow I almost snap. “I had to move it to get the plywood,” I say through my teeth. “For the window. I just pulled it out and put it back in.”
“It’s true,” Mallory says, and for this I nearly forgive her every one of her transgressions on the spot. “Right before Potsie showed up at the gate.”
Keller has the gall to appear disappointed.
I can no longer bring myself to look at her. “Is that all?”
She says nothing for an uncomfortably long time. “You can stick around if you like. I have a few additional items to discuss with Mallory.”
Mallory is unreadable. I can’t tell if she wants me to stay or go, but I’m done. I don’t look back as I let myself out. The wind is hot, but I am ice cold, hands trembling so violently I can barely leash the dogs.
It takes hours for my pulse to slow down.
Joy Moore
Day Five
My room is dark, with only the faintest light from the setting moon filtering through the blinds. My first full thought upon waking is that I need to water my plants. I can’t recall the last time I watered them.
And then I remember Xander is dead. My husband is dead. I can process the words, but I don’t trust their meaning. Xander being dead is like the moon disappearing from the sky. My head aches as I try to understand. Angeles National Forest? Suspected foul play? Like so much of my life since adolescence, the narrative is filled with gaping holes.
I know this: I’d just finished uploading the audio file when he stormed in. I wasn’t expecting him yet; he’d come out of nowhere, and he was upset. Most of the time Xander’s anger was quiet, sinister, a flattened viper awaiting its prey. This, though. This was thunderous and hot-tempered, and it left me cold. “It’s too late,” I said.
I wanted a tantrum. Silence scared me, but his yawping gave me strength. Veins bulged in his neck and forehead, time stood still, and then it happened.
I got what I asked for.
The next part is fuzzy. Red giants exploding behind my eyes. Broken glass. Screaming. Running. Waking on the sofa downstairs. Gloria.
“You’re safe now,” she said.
I believed her, but that was when I thought Xander was alive. When I thought I was only hiding from an abusive husband. Now I don’t know who I’m hiding from.
Something terrible happened after I left, because somehow, at some point after I last saw him, Xander ended up in Angeles National Forest. Dead.
* * *
I WATCH THE wind agitate the sweetgums from my chair at the recording desk. They’ve grown since I last saw them, limbs reaching out to rap at the windows as a series of gusts blow through. I usually hate this weather, but today feels different. It’s just me and Benny, and he’s wearing his favorite Pixies shirt, frayed at the hems. He’s laughing, green eyes shining, his hair is a mess, and in this moment I’m so happy I could cry.
“We almost forgot,” he says, holding out the Fonz.