Page 118 of Collateral Claim

“Nope,” she says.

“Oh no. Is it worse?”

“Much worse.”

I throw up my hands. “Well, she ought to have seen someone.”

“You.” Slada taps my shoulder. “She won’t see anyone besides you.”

I sigh. “I’m flattered, but if she needs a specialist, she will have to see someone else.”

Slada pins me with a scary glare. It’s like there are two parts of her. This one and the one who smells like springtime and giggles. “Doc, listen, people here barely trust their own shadows. They’re not gonna go off to see strangers about their health. It doesn’t matter if that makes no sense to you or not. This is how things are. We almost had a riot when you left. The staff from the clinic and your patients organized a town hall where they voted you in as the mayor and demanded that Endo bring you back at all costs. The dungeons were full.”

“Oh no. Not the dungeons.”

“Hell yes, the dungeons. I imagine if we hadn’t locked up the group that threw rocks at our boat in the harbor, we’d have people coming here with pitchforks.”

I’m looking forward to getting to know her and putting together the parts of her that make her whole. She seems like an interesting woman, to be sure. “That’s crazy.”

“I guess you made an impression. If Endo weren’t in love with you, he would have had to bring you back if only to prevent the townspeople from turning on us.”

She thinks Endo is in love with me. It’s one thing to speculate whether he loves me since he rescued me from a very bad arrangement by marrying me right next to the corpse of the groom-who-never-was, and quite another to have a woman, who I believe Endo regards as his sister, say he loves me.

“I love him back,” I tell her.

“Be sure to tell him that. Endo needs you to tell him that. Do you understand me?”

“I think so.”

“If you don’t understand…anything that’s going on around here, ask me. Just ask me. I’ll be around.” With that, Slada closes and locks the front doors.

My heels click over the red wooden floors all the way to the kitchen. I open the fridge, look for the cake, bend, and peer into the back. No cake. But when I close the fridge, I spot it and gasp. My hands fly to my heated cheeks.

Mary placed a five-foot-high wedding cake inside a tall glass refrigerator. Decorative dim lights cast a soft glow on the diamond-shaped sugar crystals that bedazzle the frosting.

There’s no way I’m cutting into this piece of art before I take a picture. I snap several images and send them to Charlotte. We dropped her off at Josh’s parents, where Beatrice had stayed during the wedding. I didn’t want Beatrice to see me walk downthe aisle in the mourning dress, and I asked Charlotte if it would be okay if we didn’t tell the child I was marrying Wilfred.

She would find out eventually, but by then, she would be older and I would have a chance to explain myself. I didn’t want her to see me cry at my wedding. I didn’t want to have to lie to her about why I was marrying a man I didn’t care about. I didn’t want to lie to her at all, and I hope someday, my sister tells her the truth about her biological father.

My sister is sleeping, but she’ll see the pictures in the morning. I look for the map Endo drew for me so I could find his room. It’s still where he left it before, on the tray on the counter. A slice of cake sits next to the steak knife. No fork. I cut a piece and eat it straight from the blade, catching my reflection in the window.

Obsidian wedding dress. A knife in my hand.

I lick the blade.

I can have my cake and eat it too, Mommy.

Someday, when my new therapist and I unpack all the truth bombs my dad dropped on me during the most stressful time of my life, when I feared for my life and the lives of people around me, I’ll visit my mother’s grave and talk to her, to get my grievances off my chest. But for now, I don’t want to think about her. Or my dad. Or anyone other than the man who has been honest with me from the start.

Endo never pretended he was anything other than who he is. And he’s my husband now.

I fist the knife, grab the map, and follow it to his bedroom.

Chapter 49

Careful, might turn you on

Scarlett