Page 53

Epilogue

Lizzie

I deleted my Instagram account after everything that happened. I didn’t want to scroll or be scrolled. Once you’ve been on a tour of the sausage factory you don’t really want to eat another hot dog.

When I sold the book, my publisher was annoyed by my decision to delete my Instagram account.

They were worried that I wouldn’t be able to promote myself and the book, but Olivia stepped in.

She promised we’d sell the book on Bex’s platforms and no one had to worry about me doing anything but writing it.

“You deserve this,” Olivia reminds me all the time. “We make our own success.”

But the truth is that Olivia has made us all a success. Me, Bex, Veronica, and countless other women. She truly doesn’t kiss and tell. We never know what she’s doing behind the scenes or with who, and I don’t think we want to.

I’m slightly terrified of her. Everyone seems to be. Even Bex and Veronica.

Veronica is truly something else. We did hours of interviews for my book and I still don’t feel like I know her at all. When we started out talking about how she viewed Marsden and Gray’s toxic history together, I couldn’t stop asking her questions.

“It was unhealthy,” she told me. “Ever since they were kids. Marsden wanted what Gray had. His family’s money and his power.

He never felt like he was good enough even after he became a pro athlete.

He always coveted Gray’s life. The two of them pushed each other harder and harder.

Who could be the bigger man? Who could have the more perfect-seeming life? ”

It was a big thread in my book, the toxic jealousy between those two men. We hear so much about catfights and jealousy between women. It was refreshing to write it the other way around.

Veronica is hard for me to like, but once I knew her whole story, I had to have compassion for her.

She was practically promised to Marsden from the age of twelve and married off before her eighteenth birthday.

She went from her father’s home to her husband’s and she never got a chance to be herself. Until now.

Now the Smith triplets own the Sensoria outright. Olivia made that happen too. Veronica says she’ll never get married again and I believe her. If I’d endured half a lifetime of Marsden Greer, I’d swear off men too.

“Nice toast,” Veronica says now, as she sidles up to me at the bar.

“Thanks. It only took me twenty years to get to be Bex’s matron of honor.”

“They seem happy.” She nods to Dan and Bex. He’s massaging her shoulders and she’s leaning into his chest. “But you never know who is happy and who isn’t. Right?”

It’s true. I think I’m happy now, genuinely happy.

I feel useful and successful. I feel validated in a way I haven’t in years.

Peter and I are slowly emerging from the haze of early parenthood and a season of career instability.

The money helps. It always helps and anyone who says it doesn’t is lying to you.

“I think I have your next book,” Veronica says.

“Is it about you?” I ask.

“It’s about all of us.”

“I’m listening.”

“What did Bex tell you about Dr. Carmichael?”

The name rings a bell. He was her ob-gyn, I think. He did her fertility treatments. I say as much.

“He was my doctor too. He treats all of us. Or treated. I stopped seeing him. I desperately wanted a daughter, you know. Every time I got pregnant I hoped and I prayed that it would be a girl. A couple of times it was! I knew it from the early tests. But I miscarried each of those times. Each time was after a visit to Dr. Carmichael. That always seemed to satisfy Marsden. He wanted all boys. And I can’t help but wonder what kind of role Dr. Carmichael played in helping my husband get exactly what he wanted.

In helping all of the men out here get exactly what they wanted. ”

My jaw drops. I can’t even comprehend what she’s saying. Is she insinuating that Dr. Carmichael made her miscarry her girl babies?

She nods like she can read my mind and whispers, “He’s sick. Someone needs to take that bastard down. You should ask Rebecca about him. He did things to her too. I know it. Olivia told me. We’ll keep you in the book-writing business as long as you want. The prairie is filled with secrets.”

“To be honest, it’s more of a desert out here than a prairie.” I’ve always wanted to say this, ever since I saw the first #PrairieLife hashtag pop up in every rural area in America. “Prairies are typically in the Midwest.”

“This place is whatever we want it to be,” Veronica snipes back. “Think about the book idea. Olivia told me to mention it to you.”

Olivia has made a fortune off of both these women, and off of me. Yet, she blends seamlessly into the background of it all.

I don’t know why I’m so scared to push Olivia more about what she knew about Grayson’s murder and when she knew it, who told her what details.

There’s still something that doesn’t add up for me and I know it has to do with how she manipulated both Bex and Veronica behind the scenes throughout the entire situation, how maybe she even played them off each other when it was beneficial for the outcome.

She’s managed to turn the horrific deaths of two prominent men in this state into a windfall for all of us.

She truly does make her own success every single day.

I’ll push her for answers eventually. I keep promising myself that I will.

I watch Olivia now. She’s helping Bex’s littlest one walk through the garden. I wonder when these kids will decide who they want to be or how they want to brand themselves. How long until they have their own YouTube channels and TikTok accounts?

I wonder if Olivia will still be around when they make those choices. If she’ll be their managers too. I gaze over at her as she holds both the toddler’s chubby hands over his head, helping him walk as Stacy films the two of them in the distance.

Ever the puppet master. Always pulling the strings.