Page 58 of What Happened Last Night

He still looked at me, and I risked a glance at the detective who was watching Morrie, the gun still trained on him. I could see it in the detective’s eyes. He believed me. He knew my story was true. If I did get out of this alive, I wasn’t going to prison. At least, not for murder.

“You did,” Detective Del Rey said. “You’ve made your point, Morrie. Now let me do my job and arrest your daughter’s killer.”

“No chance,” Morrie said, his voice still sounding agitated. “He doesn’t deserve to get off with this so lightly as just getting sent to prison. He took my daughter’s life, and with it, the parts of mine that were worth anything. He deserves more of a punishment than prison. He deserves to really suffer.”

I glanced at William. He was standing with his head down, looking at the ground. For once, it seemed he had no smart comments to make, and he wasn’t even trying to deny my words. Something about the way his shoulders were slumped and how he looked so pathetic made me want to try and help him. He saved my life. I didn’t owe him a life sentence, but I figured I did owe him at least the same in return.

“Mr. Xavier?” I said.

“What?” Morrie snapped.

“Please, Mr. Xavier, put the gun down. I know you’re hurting, and I get it, I really do. But shooting me isn’t going to make you feel better. It’s only going to mean that you end up in prison.”

Morrie made no effort to lower the gun and I continued. I desperately wanted to make him see that a lot of the blame for this fell on Candy herself. I wasn't saying she deserved to die, and I hated to victim blame, but all the events leading up to her death were her own doing.

I wanted to remind Morrie that Candy was happy enough to fuck around with a married man, happy enough to try to end a marriage. And then when that didn’t work, she was the one who broke into my house. She was the one who was armed. And she was the one who came at me with the knife.

I knew if I said any of those things, I was effectively signing my own death warrant, so I tried a different tactic instead.

“Please, Mr. Xavier, you don’t need to do this. Your daughter wasn’t killed in cold blood. You don’t need to avenge something that was essentially an accident,” I said. “And nothing you do here is going to bring Candy back.”

“Don’t you dare say her name,” Morrie snapped, waving the gun aggressively toward me. “Don’t you fucking dare say her name.”

“I ... I’m sorry,” I stuttered, realizing too late that I was pushing Morrie too hard.

“No, you’re not sorry. You’re just trying to save your own ass. That and that scumbag husband of yours. But you’ll be sorry in a moment,” Morrie said, his tone falling quiet and dangerous sounding. I swear, I could see the madness flashing in his eyes in that moment. “I’ll make you fucking sorry, all right.”

I closed my eyes as I saw Morrie’s finger starting to tighten on the trigger of the gun.

Chapter Thirty-Two

William

Iknew I must be making myself look guilty by standing here, not saying a word. And I knew everyone must be waiting for me to intervene as Morrie held his gun on Carlotta. Especially Carlotta. I could see how she kept throwing me desperate, pleading glances out of the corner of her eye. But I just couldn’t speak at first. Because, of course, my mind chose right then to open the final floodgate and show me the full truth of what had happened the night of Candy’s death. No, Candy’s murder. I had to be able to call it what it was, even if it was only ever to myself. Because I knew it. I was guilty. I was guiltier than I knew, guiltier than even Carlotta knew.

I knew then that I’d had a plan all along. When I had seen how Candy was reacting to my breaking up with her, I had been irritated by her childish demands that I leave Carlotta and run off into the sunset with her, but I wasn’t overly worried about it. It had seemed like a ridiculous response to a breakup but nothing more sinister than a young girl who had believed an affair to be more than what it was.

And then I had spotted Candy’s car at the end of our driveway, and I knew she wasn’t going to just get bored of trying to get me to come around and give up and go away. And I knew that her ranting and raving at me weren’t going to be enough for her. Not for much longer, not when it wasn’t getting her what she wanted. Me.

I debated getting a restraining order against her then. I thought I could play it clever and explain to the judge that she was mentally unbalanced and was stalking me, talking nonsense about our supposedly having had an affair. It would have covered me if the story came out, and I was confident I could pull it off. I mean, I was a businessman, a famous architect, and Candy was an ambitious young intern, determined to climb the career ladder at any costs. Or so I would have made it seem.

But then I had gotten to thinking. It was clear that Candy blamed Carlotta for the whole thing, and I mean, she was right. It was Carlotta who’d pushed me into her arms. It was Carlotta who’d found out about us and demanded that I end things with Candy. It really was all her fault. The whole damned mess started and ended with Carlotta. So I decided to use Candy’s rage to my advantage.

When she would rant and rave, I would say just enough to hint to her that if Carlotta were out of the way, we could be together. That Carlotta was the only reason we were apart. At that point, I didn’t really expect anything to come of it. Not like what did. I thought maybe Candy would start tracking down Carlotta and ranting at her. That Carlotta would get sick of it and just fucking leave. But no. It all got out of hand.

I could clearly remember what had been going through my mind that night now. It all started when Candy started screaming at me about not wanting an abortion, about wanting us to be family. That was a fucking joke. Me. A father. I couldn’t even take care of my own life if this was anything to go by.

“I don’t want a fucking abortion. I want us to be a family. You, me, and our baby. How can you just write our baby off like this?” Candy yells. She pauses and smiles knowingly. “Is it because Carlotta is here? You can drop the act, William. Just tell her you love me, and we can start our life together.”

In this moment, I know what I can do to get out of this. To clean up the whole fucking mess and get out of this without losing the house, without losing the money, without looking like the bad guy. I’ll be the victim, the one everyone says is brave, a hero, maybe. Certainly, the wronged party in it all. And all I have to do is let this play out, subtly suggest that Candy is right.

I can see by the crazed look on Candy’s face that she’s lost her goddamned mind. If I find the right words, the right expression, I can get her to kill Carlotta. I know I can. And once she’s done it, I can kill her and end this whole thing in one clean sweep.

My story will be that she burst in here like a nut job, which is completely true. That she killed Carlotta in a fit of jealous rage, which again will be completely true because I’ll make sure of it. Once Candy has killed Carlotta, I’ll go to her, wrap her in my arms, tell her I love her. And then I’ll walk her slowly toward the window as I hold her, so slowly she won’t realize we’re moving until it’s too late, and then I’ll shove the fucking psycho bitch right through it. My story will be that she killed Carlotta before I came to my senses and then she went for me and I killed her in self-defense.

It’s perfect, and I know it will work. When the corpse of your wife, covered in stab wounds from a knife that only has Candy’s prints on it, is found beside you, what other explanation could there be? Especially when you know how to play the grieving widower to a tee.

I just have to work out what to say to push Candy over the edge without Carlotta working out what I’m doing and interfering with the plan.

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