Heather swallows hard, color rushing to her porcelain cheeks. “I have nothing to hide, Skye. I figured you might connect the dots. But the fact that Burke chose you to prey on was a coincidence. Life is full of them. There are a lot of shitty guys out there.”
“Bullshit.”
“That Max LaPointe certainly seems like a real scummy one.” Heather shrugs again, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
The air in the room goes still. I feel violated, exposed, as if I were sitting across from Heather completely naked. I inhale slowly, letting it all sink in. Confirmation of something I already knew in my gut.
“You really did your research on me, Heather.”
“Yes. When I found out the identity of the woman who was sleeping with my husband, my curiosity was piqued.”
“Oh, is that it?” I cock my head at her, suddenly boosted with confidence. “You were completely oblivious to Burke’s scheme? I don’t think so.”
“Believe what you want, Skye. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Why, because you think there’s no evidence?”
Heather’s eyebrows jack up at this, and I know I’ve caught her off guard.
“Look.” I sigh, meeting her gaze. “My mom used to say that it’s important to keep your side of the street clean. But I’ve realized in the past few months that maybe she didn’t always take her own advice. That maybe she wasn’t … the woman I thought she was.”
Heather stares at me, the expression in her eyes indiscernible.
“I’m not going to go after you, Heather.” I shift in my seat. “My lawyer is a shark and one of the best in the Northeast, and if I told him to find evidence that you collaborated with Burke, he’d dig something up in a matter of hours. Believe me. But that’s not why I’m here.”
Her eyes narrow. “What do you want?”
“I’m going to give you a choice, Heather.”
“Are you, Skye?” Her tone is mocking.
“Yes. I think you and Burke fucked up, but perhaps so did my mother.”
Heather jaw tightens. “Your mother got away with murder. Literally.”
“My mother should’ve made things right with you a long time ago. But she’s not here—only I am—and I can’t apologize for her. I can’t justify her actions. I don’t justify her actions. Speaking of, I know things about you, too, Heather.” I pause, remembering what Burke said at the Oyster Bar in January. “I know that you spent a great deal of time and energy trying to emulate my mom. And it’s funny, because for so much of my life, I’ve done the same thing. You and I have more in common than I ever expected. But my mother wasn’t perfect, Heather.” There’s a block in my throat, and I swallow it down. “So, that two million dollars that disappeared from my bank account and magically landed in your neighbor’s account weeks before she died? That two million I know you have? It’s yours. Go do whatever you want with it.” I let that sentence hang in the space between us, watch as Heather’s eyes instantly glitter at the mention of all that money.
“Or you can return the two million and keep Burke. I’ll work with my lawyer and get the charges dropped—as many of them as I can, at this point—and you can have your marriage back. It’s your decision.”
Heather’s expression instantly hardens. I hold her stare, listening to the background noise of the coffee shop: clinking utensils, coffee beans grinding, the hum of a dozen different conversations.
“And why would you make me an offer like that?” Heather asks eventually.
“Because you deserve something.”
Heather considers this. “Well, I can’t have my marriage back.” She snorts. “Seeing as Burke doesn’t give a shit about me.”
The moment between us is sticky and stretches on for several long beats. “I’m sure that’s not true, Heather.”
“He doesn’t love me. Not anymore.” Her eyes land on mine, a shock of emerald. “He fell in love with someone else, Skye. You of all people should know that.”
I’m suddenly debilitatingly tired. There’s a pain behind my forehead. I just want to get back in the car with Lexy and go home.
“I can’t stay long,” I say quietly. “Just choose. Do you want the money?”
Heather brushes a loose strand of hair from her temple and drains the rest of her coffee. Then she tilts her chin down slightly, just once. A nod. Her lips spread into a contained smile.
My answer.
I sit in silence as Heather signals to the waitress for the check. I’ll let her leave the cafe first—the last thing on earth I would do is give Heather Michaels the satisfaction of watching me do my knocks.
“By the way, Skye.” Heather stands, and she’s shorter than I realized. “Your mother knew Burke. When I first met her, the two of us were dating. She never liked him, always said I could do better. She thought he was trash and that he was always going to be an addict, that he’d only cause me pain. Just figured you might like to know that.”
A stream of sunlight spills through the windows and washes over Heather’s face. But I can see her eyes—the enduring spite that lingers there, the quality of a person who steamrolls through life without due remorse. All too quickly, she is gone.
I stay for a few more moments, absorbing Heather’s words. I let them land. I let them sting. Then I leave the cafe, and Lexy and I drive south in the yellow winter sun.
Chapter Fifty-One
Burke
FEBRUARY 2020—146 DAYS WITHOUT SKYE
I am numb. Empty. Brian Dunne says that based on his most recent conversation with Skye’s lawyer, I’m looking at a longer prison sentence than anticipated, somewhere between five and eight years.
Somewhere between five and eight years. That isn’t two years, which Brian originally mentioned as the cap. Two years was daunting, but fathomable. I survived one year at MCC; I could make it through two if I had to. But somewhere between five and eight? That’s five to eight years of my life I’ll never get back. Five to eight years I’ll be absent from the lives of my children.
I think about how I could be in prison when Garrett gets married and starts having babies, my grandkids. I think about how Hope could marry that boyfriend of hers while I’m still locked up. I think about Mags, eighteen-year-old Mags, with her inquisitive eyes and fragile self-esteem—I imagine her having to explain to her friends that her dad’s in jail, and why. I think about her graduation and the job interviews she’ll go on and how she’ll fall in love. And I think about me, sitting in a cell for five to eight years, missing all of it. I think about the year I already spent in jail, and all that I missed then—Hope’s birth for God’s sake.
According to Brian, the grand larceny charge is what’s fucking me. Bigamy, surprisingly, is a minor felony that’s essentially ignored in most criminal cases, but grand larceny is a grave crime, made graver by the high amount stolen and the fact that I’m unable to pay any of it back. The two million dollars is gone. A paper trail shows a mobile transfer I made to the bank account of a Georgina C. Lucas on October 3, the same Georgina Lucas who was our next-door neighbor for nearly twenty years. She died of lung cancer on October 28, three weeks later.