It wouldn’t be mine anymore. Not when this was all over. Dwayne had made sure of that. I had read the fine print on the rental agreements, the ones that outlined what you could and couldn’t be sued for if someone got hurt on your property. Accidents were covered. Your junkie husband pushing a billionaire down the stairs was not. He would probably go to prison, probably for a long time, but I’d be handed my own life sentence. Everything I’d worked for, the life and the future I’d finally started to build here in a place where both were so hard to come by, was about to go up in flames.
I sat down heavily in one of the deck chairs, and put my head in my hands. Dwayne squatted beside me.
“We just have to get our story straight,” he said. “So they understand it was an accident.”
“An accident?” I snapped. “You pushed him down the stairs and he broke his neck. How is that an accident?!”
Dwayne grabbed my hand and peered urgently into my face. “But it wasn’t like that! I didn’t push him down the stairs. I hit him, and he kind of reeled backward, and then he fell down the stairs. Doesn’t that mean it was an accident? Like, legally?”
“No,” I said. “Jesus Christ. Legally, you fucking killed someone. And what about the drugs? Are we going to tell the cops how that was just an accident, too? You were running through the house with a syringe full of dope and you tripped and fell on top of Adrienne and whoopsie, the needle went in?”
“That’s not funny, Lizzie.”
“I’m not laughing, Dwayne. What did you think would happen when I got here?”
“I don’t know! I thought you’d have an idea! You’re so fucking smart, right? You always act like it, like you’re so much smarter than me!” He was shouting now, flecks of spittle flying off his lips and landing in his beard. He stood, started pacing, and his voice grew hoarse. “I’m not a bad person. I’m not a bad person! I just made a mistake! They can’t put me in jail for one mistake!”
“Oh, DJ,” I said, and my voice broke. It had been years since I’d called him by the nickname. “Of course they can. And you know what’s great? You called me, and now I’m involved. That’s what it looks like now, like I was part of it. So probably, we both go to prison. You’ve fucked me over, too.”
Dwayne sucked his teeth, sighed, and eased into the deck chair beside me.
“I guess that’s how it is, huh?” he said matter-of-factly. He looked over at me, a funny little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I fuck you over. You fuck me over. And on and on. That’s just our whole fucking life, isn’t it? That’s just what we do.” He sighed. “So fine. You want to call the cops?”
I looked out at the lake. The sun was dipping lower, casting long, deep shadows across the water. Somewhere on the opposite bank, a loon began its loopy call, laughing hysterically all alone. We sat, listening, and then both jumped when another, closer bird suddenly screamed in response. Calling across the water to its mate. They shrieked together as the breeze grew stronger, as the trees creaked and groaned above. From the bedroom behind us came the light rattle of Adrienne, snoring. I wondered briefly if I could somehow pin the entire thing on her. That we’d shown up to welcome them to the house and found them just like this: one stoned and sleeping, one stone dead. The police might believe that, I thought . . . for five seconds, until Adrienne woke up and spilled her guts.
I sighed.
“Shut up and let me think,” I said.
He did.
It was two hours later, close to sunset, when Adrienne woke up. I stood in the doorway, watching her. She struggled to a seated position, but there was no grogginess or confusion in her expression as she gazed back at me. I shifted uneasily. Her eyes narrowed, and she cleared her throat.
“I thought the police would be here by now,” she said. “My husband is dead, isn’t he? I know he is. Dwayne killed him. I saw it. Why aren’t they here?”
I stepped into the room. “We were waiting for you to wake up. We need to talk.”
“Talk about what?” she spat back, rubbing her eyes. “Jesus, what time is it? And where’s Ethan? Has he been just . . . just lying out there? You just left him there?!”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” I said, and looked over my shoulder at the hallway behind me. This was Dwayne’s cue: I beckoned and he stepped into the room, taking a few steps toward Adrienne before he seemed to think better of it and came to an awkward, hovering stop, halfway between us. He looked from me to her and back again.