Page 76 of I Will Ruin You

The room went quiet. Something was going on here. With both of us. I knew what was going on with me, the tension I was holding in, how I was replaying in my mind what had happened in Billy Finster’s garage. But Bonnie was holding back something, too.

She bit her lower lip and looked away. I knew that look. She was on the verge of tears and was determined to hold them back. She was deciding whether to tell me why she’d been sitting here alone in the kitchen, getting drunk.

She suddenly blurted out, “I almost had an accident on the way home.”

“What?”

“I got your text, had picked up Rachel, and I was turning into the driveway when this asshole tried to pass me. Nearly T-boned me.”

“Jesus. You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m sitting here, aren’t I? But it never would have happened if you hadn’t gone out and I didn’t have to get Rachel. We could’ve been killed.”

So if they’d been hurt, it would have all been on me. Okay. I didn’t believe this was what had her so preoccupied. She was channeling, getting angry with me about one thing to cover up something else.

I broke the silence that had lasted the better part of half a minute. “What’s really going on, Bonnie?”

“I could ask you the same,” she said. “Why’d you go out?”

I countered, “Did you even go to Marta’s?”

Bonnie finished off whatever was left in her coffee mug. She set it down with a bang, stood up, and said, “I’m going to bed.”

“Bonnie, please, talk to me.”

“You talk to me,” she said.

I knew what I needed to tell her, but I couldn’t make the words come. I’d opened up to her earlier in the evening, told her everything, but things had changed. One problem had been replaced by another that was potentially far worse.

Exponentially far worse.

She walked straight past me on her way to the stairs. That was how our day ended. I was keeping something big from her, and she was clearly keeping something big from me.

We were in some deep kind of shit here.

Thirty-Six

Marta, as anyone who knew her could have predicted, did not take any extra time off despite spending Saturday night to Sunday morning in the hospital. Ginny, who’d catered to Marta all Sunday, ordering her to rest, making her linguini primavera for dinner, made a few vain attempts Monday morning to get Marta to take another day or two to make sure she was okay, but Marta would have none of it.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Gonna find that bitch.”

That part Ginny understood. She wanted that bitch found, too.

At least Marta had the morning and early afternoon of Monday to rest up before her shift started at four. While she waited to head in, Marta linked up to the department’s computer system to look up possible suspects, or, as they liked to put it, “persons known to the police.” She scrolled through hundreds of photos, pausing occasionally when she found someone who might be Cherise Fowler’s supplier—and Marta’s attacker—then moving on to the next batch of headshots.

She made herself a tuna sandwich at noon and continued scanning while she ate. Ginny texted three times to ask how she was doing, the first two times Marta responding with a simple Fine and then on the third FINE!!!!

As if that weren’t enough, there had been the occasional text from her sister seeking detailed updates. How was she feeling? Could she bring her anything?

Enough already.

When she got to work at four, her boss wanted a word with her. Once Marta had persuaded him she was fit for duty, she went to it, finishing up a few reports, making some calls to a contact with the DEA to see what she could learn about fentanyl distribution in this part of the state.

When she had only an hour left in her shift, a call came in about a body.

Two uniformed cops in a black-and-white Milford police cruiser had been on a routine wander when they were passing the Finster house and noticed the side door to the garage was open, the light on inside.

People didn’t generally leave doors open and lights on late in the evening. The cops decided it was worth a quick look-see. Maybe the homeowners had gone to bed, forgotten to lock up the garage, leaving themselves vulnerable to theft.