Page 51

V ictor cursed as he watched his wife collapse, belly first, on the stairs.

Everything fell silent after that, but to my surprise, Gina’s head was still moving.

That’s when I realized he’d shot her in the calf.

Blood trickled down her leg as she moaned.

She began to cry as she reached for the gunshot wound, but in doing so, she ended up skidding all the way down the wooden steps.

Victor clutched her good leg, flipped her over, and dragged her across the basement on her back. She cried out as he fumed, hiking her up and pressing her back to a wall.

“Eddie, are you kidding me?” she cried. “You fucking shot me!”

I looked down, noticing the bottom of the rope wasn’t tied at my waist. He’d knotted the rope around my chest and behind my back, but not at my waist. I shifted my arm, trying to move the rope’s end, but that only caused the knots above to squeeze tighter.

“You don’t understand, Gina. I did what I had to do for you,” Victor said.

“What did you do, you asshole?” she demanded, wincing again.

“She was going to ruin us and everything we’ve built! She found us here and she threatened your company—our marriage. She wasn’t going to stop until she took everything.”

Gina grimaced. “You mean everything I’ve built!”

Victor looked taken aback as his wife glowered at him.

“You wouldn’t have been able to build any of it if I hadn’t been keeping Emily with me every day,” he retorted.

“This weekend is the first time where you’re actually with us, and you aren’t even really here, Gina!

You’re still on your fucking phone. Still emailing. Still on those stupid Zoom calls.”

“I can’t just stop working because you want to watch a fucking movie, Eddie! God—oh, my God. My leg. It’s bleeding badly!”

“Daddy?”

Victor twisted around and most of his anger seemed to rinse away in an instant when he heard the small, innocent voice. Emily stood in the middle of the staircase holding a pink teddy bear and gazing at the puddle of her mother’s blood on the step below her.

“Oh, Em, baby.” Victor hustled across the basement, hiked up the stairs, and scooped her up. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed, baby. Come.”

It was frightening how quickly he could change up. Menacing at one point and sympathetic the next. Victor glared at me over his shoulder, tossing a warning look that said don’t try a fucking thing .

The door slammed shut, echoing through the basement. I dropped my head and closed my eyes again, thinking of a way to get the hell out of here. Why had Victor killed Eve? Surely whatever she’d done couldn’t have been that bad—not to the point where he needed to murder her.

“He killed her.” I opened my eyes and cut my gaze to Gina. She was already staring at me.

“How can you be sure?” she asked.

“That’s what I’ve been told.” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “The Reeds—they live across the lake. The girl, Rory, said they found Eve’s body one morning in their rental house. They said she was already dead.”

“But how could it have been Eddie? I mean, how did you know for sure?”

“I didn’t know for sure . . . not until he pointed the gun at me.”

“God.” Gina squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry this is happening,” she breathed. “ So, so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is!” she wailed, throwing her head back.

“I—I knew he was seeing someone else. I knew he was having an affair. She wanted to be sure that I knew. She just kept coming back, bragging, telling me to leave him. She told me she’d been sleeping with him for months .

I asked Eddie about it, and he confessed to it.

I wanted a divorce, but he suggested marriage counseling.

He wanted to make things work . . . for Emily.

I wanted the same thing, so I stayed. I wanted to move on from it and he said he’d take care of the pregnancy and that he would convince her to—”

“Wait, what ?” My throat thickened with emotion. “Pregnancy? What are you talking about?”

“She was pregnant with his child! She sent me a photo of the pregnancy test. Her blood work. Everything . She could’ve photoshopped it, sure, but something told me she wasn’t joking. This felt real, and that was going to be my last straw with Eddie. I wanted to be done.”

“When was this?” I asked. “When did she send you the photo?”

“About two or three weeks ago, I think. I was so angry. I told him I’d take everything from him, including Emily, if he didn’t fix this. It just doesn’t make sense that he’d go and kill her. I thought he’d have her get an abortion or pay her to leave us alone. I’d even suggested that he do that.”

“But she didn’t,” I whispered.

Of course, she fucking didn’t. Because that’s Eve.

She craved the upper hand. She liked being the one in control because, for the longest time, she was powerless.

She probably didn’t even love Victor. She used him.

Saw what he had with Gina and wanted it for herself.

She blackmailed him, infiltrated his life.

Found out where he lived. Now I could piece it together.

She knew Victor and his wife owned a house on Aquilla Lake. He probably dealt with her way beforehand and told her to terminate the pregnancy. She didn’t want their affair to end, but I bet Victor stopped responding to her because he wanted to fix his marriage.

She likely got upset and wanted to get back at him, so she thought of ways to bother him.

She lucked out with finding the cottage and only booked it to be near him.

She wanted to disturb his peace, prove that he couldn’t just use and discard her like trash.

She was slowly causing him to unravel. Setting off his temper.

Pushing him too far. Always pushing people too damn far.

Victor must’ve appeared at Twilight Oaks twice.

The first time, when Lincoln left, was probably to serve her a warning.

Mrs. Abbot said she saw Eve walking around their side of the lake.

Victor must’ve noticed her too and that set off his alarm.

Things were going good with his wife, but Eve was lurking around, ready to sabotage it.

But the second time Victor visited her was his last straw. She must’ve done something horrible—something to really set him off. So, he killed her. But it didn’t make sense that he’d left the body for the Reeds to find. Why hadn’t he covered his tracks?

Unless . . .

He saw Eve with Alex and Damian that night.

That, or she told him all about it. She probably bragged and shoved it in his face.

She probably never got rid of the baby. And if she was carrying Victor’s child, how did that make him feel, knowing she was intentionally ruining herself because of the seed he’d planted?

How did it make him feel to know she was still carrying the baby at all?

Victor wanted to pin the blame on Alex and Damian.

She’d had sex with them at the same time.

Their DNA was likely all over her, inside her even.

Even if the police found out the baby was Victor’s, he could’ve admitted to the affair happening, but said Eve was stalking him and his wife.

He could’ve fabricated a whole story to protect himself and then pinned her death on the Reeds, and he would’ve gotten away with it . . . if I hadn’t intervened.

Knowing this, it was why Alex had taken her things, cleared the house, and got rid of the body.

They had no clue who killed her but knew they’d be suspects if her body was taken in for forensics.

They likely consulted with Sheriff Reed right away and told him everything, swore their innocence, and that was why he assisted them.

That was why he had Eve’s car. The broken necklace in the fireplace I couldn’t fully understand, but the Reeds could’ve tried burning that along with her clothes to get rid of evidence.

Thinking about it now, Sheriff Reed knew how this would play out if anyone else other than him discovered Eve’s body. He knew a dead girl who’d slept with his nephews would jeopardize his reputation and status, so he helped them cover it up.

The only question remaining was what the hell had they done with her body?