That probably sounds bitter, but I don’t mean it that way. If anything, I was in awe of her. At first, at least. Before the murders.

33

I’d never seen anyone more determined to get what she wanted than Bea. Not even me. Like I said, I’d always been the type to seize on opportunities that presented themselves, rather than the person to go out and make those opportunities happen, which is what Bea did.

I think that’s why I liked Jane so much right from the start. She was like me—always looking for an opening, then twisting to fit that opening. I’m sure she thought she was fooling me, thought I’d bought her whole act, but I recognized too much of myself in her not to see what she was doing. Whatever souls were made of, mine and Jane’s were the same—or at least similar enough.

But Bea—Bea was a totally different beast.

My breathing sounded watery and thick, and I closed my eyes.

I should be thinking of what to do now, how to get the fuck out of here, but all I could think about was Bea.

Last year. That dinner. Blanche was flirting with me, I knew. What her intent was, though? No fucking clue. I wasn’t from the South, but I’d lived here long enough to learn that flirting was like a second language with these people, or a casual hobby. Back home if someone had looked at me like Blanche was looking at me, I would’ve been sure they were ready to fuck me. Here, there was no telling.

Her hand was on my arm, her body close enough that I could feel the press of her breast against my bicep. I liked Blanche, definitely didn’t like Tripp, and Bea was so focused on Southern Manors that I was beginning to feel like I never saw her anymore. But sleeping with her best friend seemed like more trouble than it was worth, and honestly, I liked Bea’s money more than I liked sex anyway.

But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a little fun, seeing Bea get jealous.

So, I didn’t do anything, but I didn’t try to avoid Blanche, either. I was in charge of her renovation, so it wasn’t like I could brush her off. Lunches in the village to review architectural sketches and bathroom fixtures. Afternoons at her house to look at paint samples. Texts to confirm our next meeting. All of it seemed harmless to me, but god, Bea got pissed off.

And it wasn’t like I hadn’t known what Blanche was doing. I was just the latest prop in whatever cold war they’d been fighting since they were kids. But it had been nice, having Blanche pay that much attention to me. Bea was so busy building her empire, she’d stopped looking at me the way she used to.

The way Blanche did.

So maybe I encouraged it a little. Maybe I flirted back.

Maybe I left my phone unlocked so Bea could snoop to her heart’s content.

Still, it would’ve just blown over eventually if it hadn’t been for the shit about Bea’s mom.

Another afternoon at Blanche’s house, but this time, she went to kiss me, and yeah, I let her. Just for a little bit. I was curious to see how far she wanted to take it, and honestly curious to see if I was more interested than I thought, but strangely enough, I wasn’t. Blanche was pretty, and clearly into me, but there was no real spark there, and after a little bit, I pushed her away, gently.

“We can’t do this,” I remember saying. “Bea doesn’t deserve this.”

And fuck me, but that had been the wrong thing to say.

I could still see Blanche’s face twisting into something almost ugly. “Bea?” she’d all but sneered. “Do you even know Bea?”

The words were so angry that I wondered if she was drunk. But no, that was just sweet tea in her glass, and her gaze was sharp.

“Did you know her parents were both drunks?” she asked. “Did you know her name isn’t even Bea?” Blanche poked herself in the chest with one finger. “I gave her that name. She was Bertha when I met her.” A disbelieving snort. “Fucking Bertha.”

I’d known about the name thing and wasn’t sure why Blanche was making such a big deal out of it. I didn’t like going by “Edward,” so I never had, and I didn’t give a shit that Bea had felt the same about Bertha. But I didn’t know that her parents were alcoholics, and I didn’t like getting caught off guard.

“Did you know that they found her mother at the bottom of the stairs when Bea was the only person in the house?”

I saw in her face that she regretted the words the second they were out, saw the brief flaring of her nostrils and widening of her eyes that meant that even she thought she’d gone too far, but I kept my face carefully blank.

“You just said yourself that she was a drunk. Drunks have a tendency to fall,” I replied woodenly.

“Yeah, well.” Blanche hesitated, and I could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes. “This drunk fell about two weeks after she embarrassed Bea at her big reception for Southern Manors, so.” She shrugged. “You do the math.”

It was ridiculous to think that Bea would’ve had anything to do with that. Or so I tried to tell myself.

But then, I began to wonder.

There had been a secretary at my construction business, Anna. She’d been pretty and cute, right out of college, and Bea had wanted her gone from the second she’d met her. I hadn’t done anything about it because Anna was a good worker, and hell, I had no intention of being the kind of creep who hit on someone who worked for him, so it wasn’t like I was staring down daily temptation.

But then petty cash started disappearing, and one day when Bea was up at the office to bring me lunch, she’d opened Anna’s desk drawer to grab a pen and there, shoved in the back, had been the missing money.

Anna had cried and sworn she hadn’t taken it, but what could I do except fire her?

Nothing about it had ever sat right with me. Anna hadn’t seemed like a thief, and Bea hadn’t wanted her there, and it had been Bea who found the cash … it was all too neat.

I hadn’t said anything, though, because I didn’t even know what to say. I certainly didn’t like thinking that my wife could be so manipulative.

And I shouldn’t have said anything about her mom, but that night, the very same fucking day Blanche had told me about it, I’d opened my damn mouth.

“You didn’t tell me your mom died in a fall.”

Bea looked up from her laptop, her face bathed in the pale glow of the screen. She was wearing her glasses, her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, and she looked so young all of a sudden, so different from the polished, poised Bea I was used to.