Chapter 11 — The Last Lie

Dominic turned when he heard the door.

For a moment, he looked irritated rather than afraid.

“Who let you—”

Vincent crossed the room before he could finish.

The fight struck the side of the sofa.

A glass fell from the table.

Vivian backed toward the hallway, one hand over her mouth.

“Vincent, stop.”

Neither man listened.

Dominic tried to push him away.

Vincent drove him backward.

The lamp toppled, leaving one corner of the room in darkness.

Vivian reached for her phone.

Then Dominic called her name.

She looked up.

The sound he made next froze her in place.

By the time Vincent released him, Dominic had stopped moving.

For several seconds, Vivian stared.

Then she began shaking her head.

“No.”

Vincent stood over the body.

His breath came harshly.

“You took everything.”

Vivian backed away.

“You need to leave.”

He turned toward her.

She raised both hands.

“I’ll say he attacked you. Just go.”

“You think you can fix this with another story?”

“Vincent.”

“You asked Claire to help you.”

Tears ran down Vivian’s face.

“I know. I know what I said.”

“You let me blame her.”

“I was afraid you’d be angry.”

“You weren’t afraid when you stood outside the club.”

She took another step.

He followed.

“I was trying to survive.”

“Claire was trying to survive.”

Vivian’s eyes flicked toward the hallway.

Vincent saw.

“Don’t.”

She stopped.

“I loved you.”

He looked at the bracelet on her wrist.

“You loved what I had.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You left when my father’s money ran out. You came back when mine recovered.”

She swallowed.

For once, she had no answer ready.

Then she tried another.

“Dominic made me stay with him.”

Vincent glanced at the body.

Vivian saw a chance in the movement.

“You weren’t here. I didn’t know what to do. He said he could protect me.”

Vincent looked back at her.

“You were laughing.”

“I was pretending.”

“You were laughing while he put his foot on my hand.”

She began crying harder.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology frightened him with its familiarity.

He had said the same thing across a table.

He had expected Claire to remain there and make something of it.

Vivian moved toward him now, slowly.

“I’ll stay with you. We’ll go somewhere. I don’t care about the money.”

He stepped away from her hand.

“It’s too late.”

From somewhere outside, a dog began barking.

Vivian looked toward the window.

“Someone heard. We need to go.”

“We?”

“Yes.”

She reached for him again.

He caught her arm.

What followed lasted less than a minute.

Vivian screamed.

A neighbor who had already heard the crash called emergency services and gave the address.

When officers entered the house, Dominic lay beside the sofa.

Vivian was near the hallway.

Neither answered when the officers called to them.

Vincent stood in the middle of the room holding a knife.

“Put it down.”

He looked at the officers without seeming to recognize them.

“She lied.”

“Put the weapon down.”

“She lied about my wife.”

An officer repeated the command.

Another moved toward Vivian.

Vincent watched him kneel.

Then he looked at his own hand.

The knife fell.

They took him to the floor.

He did not fight this time.

As they secured his wrists, he began saying Claire’s name.

No one in the room answered to it.

Rachel’s phone rang while we were driving to the airport.

She glanced at the screen and handed it to me.

“Eleanor.”

I answered.

“Claire, are you alone?”

“Rachel’s here.”

“Good.”

Something in her voice made me sit straighter.

“What happened?”

“Vincent was arrested last night.”

“Again?”

“Yes.”

She paused.

“Dominic and Vivian are dead.”

I looked through the windshield.

The road ahead was almost empty.

A truck moved beneath a green overhead sign.

Rachel glanced at me.

I held up a hand so she would keep watching the road.

“Did he kill them?”

“He was found at the scene. The police are investigating the deaths as homicides.”

I closed my eyes.

Not in relief.

Not in grief.

I needed a moment to understand that the people I had seen alive so recently no longer were.

“Are you safe?” Eleanor asked.

“Yes.”

“He’s in custody. I’ve spoken with the detective, and they know you’re traveling.”

“What do they need from me?”

“For now, nothing beyond remaining available. Call me if anyone contacts you directly.”

“I will.”

“And Claire?”

“Yes?”

“What he did last night is his responsibility.”

I looked down at my carry-on.

“I know.”

I meant it.

I had taken his money out of my life.

I had taken his name off my future.

He had chosen what to do with the space left behind.

After I ended the call, Rachel pulled into the departures lane.

“What happened?”

I told her.

She parked and sat motionless with both hands on the wheel.

Then she whispered, “Jesus.”

I waited while she took a breath.

“Do you want to postpone?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to decide immediately.”

“I’ve decided.”

She nodded.

Outside, the air was cool.

Rachel took my suitcase from the trunk.

We stood beside it longer than we needed to.

“Call when you land,” she said.

“I will.”

“And eat something.”

“I will.”

“And don’t tell me you’re fine just because you don’t want me worrying.”

That made me cry.

Not much.

Just enough that she set down the suitcase and held me.

“I’m not fine,” I said.

“I know.”

“But I’m going.”

“I know that too.”

At security, I put my bag into a tray.

The hospital envelope stayed inside.

I watched the bag pass through the machine and took it from the other side.

No one asked what I carried.

No one knew.

For a moment, I was simply another woman looking for her gate.

My phone rang before I reached it.

The detective.

I answered.

“Ms. Bennett, do you have a minute?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been speaking with Mr. Moretti and his attorney. A question has come up about the paternity report you showed him.”

I stopped beside a window.

Beyond the glass, an aircraft was being loaded.

“What question?”

“The laboratory named on the document has no record of issuing it.”

I looked at my reflection.

For weeks, that envelope had remained in my bag.

Separate from the papers Eleanor prepared.

Separate from the evidence I gave the police.

“I understand,” I said.

“Did you create that document?”

The answer came without hesitation.

“Yes.”

The detective went quiet.

Then she asked, “Why?”

“Because he thought blood was the only thing that could make the baby matter.”

I heard someone speaking near her, then the sound of a door closing.

“Are you saying you don’t know whether he was the father?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you ever obtain an actual test?”

“No.”

The medical pages from his folder had been real.

His certainty had not.

I had taken that uncertainty and given him a conclusion he could not bear.

The report had never come from a laboratory.

It had come from me.

“Ms. Bennett, we’ll need to discuss this further.”

“I’ll speak through Eleanor.”

“All right. I’ll contact her.”

I did not ask whether it was over.

I did not pretend the lie became true because I had a reason for telling it.

Whatever questions remained, I would answer them with my lawyer beside me.

The recording was real.

The schedule was real.

The hospital report was real.

Nothing I had put on that separate page changed what Vincent had done before he ever saw it.

After the call, I rang Eleanor.

She answered immediately.

“The detective will be contacting you,” I said.

I told her about the report.

All of it.

She listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she exhaled slowly.

“Thank you for telling me plainly.”

“I should have told you sooner.”

“Yes.”

There was no comfort in that answer.

There was honesty.

I could work with it.

“We’ll address it,” she said. “Don’t make any further statements without me.”

“I won’t.”

“And keep the document.”

“I have it.”

The boarding announcement began while we were still speaking.

Eleanor heard it.

“Go to your gate. Call me after you land.”

I ended the call and sat for a minute before joining the line.

In my bag were two envelopes.

One held a lie Vincent believed.

The other held the footprints of a child I had loved before anyone asked whose blood ran through those small feet.

Only one of them deserved a place in the life ahead of me.

I would keep the other until the questions were finished.

Then I would let it go.

At the aircraft door, the attendant smiled.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

She pointed me down the aisle.

I found my seat, put the bag beneath the one in front of me, and fastened the belt.

My phone lit with a message from Rachel.

Made it through?

Yes, I wrote. Boarding now.

Her reply came at once.

I’ll be here when you need me.

I looked out the window.

The airport workers moved away from the plane.

There was still grief waiting for me.

Appointments.

Statements.

A divorce to finish.

Mornings when I would wake expecting a movement beneath my hand and remember there would be none.

Leaving did not erase those things.

But Vincent would not be beside me when I faced them.

I rested my palm on the bag at my feet.

Then I lifted it, placed it in my lap, and watched the plane begin to move.