She checks her tablet. “There, it’s gone through. How about we drink to that?” She reaches for her glass and holds it up. “Cheers.”
“Will that be all?” Daisy asks.
Kat angles her head. “That’s all.”
“Can we go?” Daisy asks.
Kat holds her hand toward the door. “Be my guest.”
“I swear, we’re not done here,” Jon says.
“Maybe you aren’t,” Kat says quietly. “But I am.”
DAISY
October 31, 2019. Thursday.
Three hours and forty-one minutes before the murder.
Daisy sits like a stone as Jon drives. The wipers clack across the windshield. Fog is thick as they near the bridge.
“What did she mean, ‘Maybe you aren’t done, but I am’？” Jon says.
Daisy clenches her teeth and fists her hands in her lap. Her pulse is high. Too high. She’s not going to do this now. Because she is done. She should’ve been done with Jon when Charley happened. She was stupid. Cognitive dissonance—that’s what it was. She wanted to believe something different, but men like Jon don’t change their spots.
They just learn. They evolve. Adapt. They figure out how to be more careful, how not to get caught.
“We’ll get it back,” Jon says for the tenth time. “We’ll get our money. All of it. Talk to me, Daisy. Please, dammit, just say something.”
“You said you were with clients, Jon. Mia? You have got to be kidding me. And you call me a fool for falling for her yoga-mom ruse? Meanwhile some female in lipstick and a tight dress just has to look at you a certain way and you can’t keep your dick in your pants. And what did she mean about those other men?”
“I was set up. I was drugged and set up.”
“Because you’re an asshole! Because you can’t think beyond your dick. You are a weak, vulnerable target. You and your fragile male ego. I—” She swipes tears from her face. “I knew you were lying. Deep down, I knew. But I so badly wanted to believe you. I thought with our son coming soon that things really could change. And this business with a private investigator? Looking for dirt on a colleague? That Waheed guy probably deserves your promotion one thousand times over. He deserves every goddamn ounce of that new COO job. And you deserve exactly what you got.”
Jon swerves as a car cuts in front of him. He almost clips a motorbike in the next lane. He curses violently.
“She sexually assaulted me—her and those men. They drugged me and handcuffed me to a bed.”
Daisy stares at her husband. It’s like she doesn’t know this man at all.
“And I suppose you didn’t go up to her room willingly? You didn’t want it?”
“Not like that, I—” His voice catches. Daisy sees tears on his face. “I don’t even know what happened, Daize. I don’t know if I had sex with those guys. I don’t even recall their faces.”
“Do you see what just transpired here? Do you honestly not see? She just gave you a small taste of your own medicine.”
He slams on the brakes, almost hitting the car in front of him.
“Just focus on driving before you kill your unborn child,” she snaps.
“This is bigger than what she did to me. This is more than just the money she took.”
“You mean the money you willingly gave her when she asked.”
“It’s blackmail. Extortion.”
“Why? Because you could be charged and tried and go to prison if this gets out?”
“Goddamn it, that’s exactly what I mean, Daisy. She’s not going to go away. For all I know, she’s going straight to the cops tomorrow to hand over that footage. That’s all she ever wanted when she was sixteen, to see my ass in prison.”
Daisy leans her head back and closes her eyes. A hardness coalesces around her heart. “Might be better that way.”
“What are you saying?”
“You don’t even have a job. You’ve lost it all. Everything. Everything we tried to build all these years—”
“You’re not hearing me. She’s going to come back at us, Daisy. That woman is going to come asking for more. She has this power over us now, and she’s not done. She’s taken her pound of flesh, but she can still turn me in. As long as she exists, she has power over us. You heard her—there’s no statute of limitations for sexual assault in this province. We need to fix it. Fucking bitch. I swear I will—I’ll kill her. She has power over us as long as she is out there.”
“Jon.”
He goes quiet at her tone. He turns the Audi down their street. Such a pretty street, thinks Daisy. Such an attractive house they live in. But now it looms like a prison as they pull into the driveway.
“What?” Jon asks.
“Are there others?”
“What do you mean?”
“Will others come out of the woodwork if this gets out? Have you crossed lines with other women? On work trips, with employees, with other exotic dancers, sex workers? If Katarina goes public, will they suddenly all have courage to come after you, too?”
He stops the car in the driveway and turns to face out the side window.
His silence is her answer.
Daisy opens the passenger door and pushes up out of the seat. She holds her coat over her head against the rain as she makes for the door of Rose Cottage. There is only one mission on Daisy’s mind. Pack a bag, get her car keys. Leave this house. Leave him.
Daisy goes straight upstairs, finds a suitcase, throws in some cosmetics, underwear, pajamas, a change of clothing. She fishes her document safe out of her underwear drawer and places it in her suitcase on top of her clothing.
Jon appears in the bedroom doorway. “Daisy, listen to me—I mean it. She has power over us.”
“No. Not us. She has power over you, Jon.”
“We’re a team. This is our reputation. We—”
“We were never a team. I see that now.” She shuts her suitcase and hefts it to the floor. She drags it to the bedroom door.
“Your parents will be raked through the mud with this.”
“I’m done. We’re done. Step aside, please.”
He reaches for her. “Daisy—”
“Stay away from me.” She points her finger at his face. “I swear, if you come near me, I’ll take this stuff to the police myself.”
“Why were you so fucking stupid to keep that footage in the first place? This is your fault. If this footage did not exist, none of this would’ve happened.”
Daisy pushes past her husband. She drags her case, which thumps down the stairs behind her. He comes after her, follows her past the kitchen island, and cuts her off on her way to the front door.
“And if your mother hadn’t gone and paid her parents—”
“Then they would have had a paternity test done, Jon. Maybe it was your baby. Maybe it was one of the other guys’ baby. But whoever made that baby might have turned on you and the other guys involved in order to share the blame. Same with Charley—she would’ve been tied to you forever. These girls didn’t just go away. I cleaned up after you, and the NDAs are so they couldn’t come back without paying huge fines they can’t afford. I kept the documents for that reason. I kept the footage in case you turned out to be the total asshole you are.” Daisy is so angry that she’s shaking. Which makes her worried for the baby. She needs to get out of here, calm down.