“Lisa, calm down,” Gwen said.
Lisa whipped her head around. “Mind your own business, Gwen. This doesn’t involve you.”
Aimee stood up. “I’ll get the salad.”
Gwen stood as well. “I’ll get the buns.”
Lisa watched the two women walk inside the house. Behind her, one of the twins let out a sharp scream followed by peals of laughter. She looked at the kids, the four younger boys jumping on the trampoline while Kai and Noa played catch with Sababa. Despite the idyll playing out around her, Lisa felt unsafe. She knew that if Aimee discovered the truth, she would lose everything. Lisa got up and went to sit in the chair next to Anton. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she hissed.
“I didn’t know she was coming here,” he said in a low voice. “Do you think she’s here to track down Michael?”
“No, I don’t think Cathy Stocker is here to do anything, because Cathy Stocker is dead. Someone killed her.”
Anton’s lip began to twitch. “That can’t be true.”
Lisa glanced at the kitchen window, where Aimee was watching from inside, and waved. She looked back at Anton, but this time she forced herself to smile. “Oh, it’s true. She was murdered for talking to you.”
Anton looked sick, like he might throw up. “If she’s dead,” he whispered, “who the hell has Noa been visiting?”
“I have no clue. But it’s probably not very good, is it?”
“We need to tell Aimee,” Anton said. “We need to tell Scott. Everything.”
“No, we don’t.”
“We have to warn them. They deserve to know.”
“Anton, we are neck-deep in this.” Lisa looked up and saw Aimee and Gwen coming back outside through the sliding glass door. “We’re not telling anyone anything. Here they come. Now plaster a smile on your face and keep your damn mouth shut.”
47
NOW
“I knew it,” Gwen says. “You knew the whole time that Anton was blackmailing Scott. You knew about his past. That’s why you warned Aimee to keep Noa away.”
“Can we go into the kitchen and talk about this?”
“What’s there to talk about?” She watches Lisa walk past her toward the kitchen. She follows Lisa through the living room, past the dining room table, which is now empty of Anton’s things. She stops short when she sees the two hideous pewter candlesticks Anton gave her back on the table. Barb. She must have pulled them out of the donation box and put them back.
Gwen makes a note to toss them later and enters the kitchen to find Lisa looking through her cabinets. “I forget. Where do you keep your alcohol?”
Gwen stifles a laugh. “You’re delusional. We’re not drinking together. I don’t want you here.”
“But you want answers, don’t you? Aha!” Lisa bends down and opens the wine fridge. She stands back up, now holding a bottle of white wine with a rubber stopper in it. “Mind if I?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Lisa seems to glow from within, giddy with a strange energy. She grabs a wineglass drying on the dish rack and fills it. “God, I needed that,” she says after a big sip. “You sure you won’t join me?”
“You don’t seem freaked out that I know. Aren’t you worried?”
“About what?”
“That I’m going to tell the police. That I’m going to tell Aimee.”
Lisa flinches and Gwen knows she’s made contact.
“Imagine what Aimee will say when she learns that you were blackmailing her husband.” Gwen takes a step forward, enjoying the way Lisa’s eye has started twitching. “That you allowed sweet little Noa to go over to this crazy woman’s house, a criminal, actually, and you never told her who Cathy really was.”