Page 16 of What Happened Last Night

William. As always, he was berating my work. Trying to make me doubt myself. Well, this time, he wouldn’t succeed. I ignored him, continuing to paint, humming to myself as I went.

“And if she’s meant to be you, she’s too skinny. You’ve developed quite the little paunch over the years,” he added.

His words caused my hand to falter slightly, but I knew the smudge mark I made could easily be reworked into a flower. It was a shame his insults couldn’t be so easily reworked into something else in my mind.

I reminded myself that this was just his way. Whenever something knocked William’s confidence, he retaliated by knocking mine. In all honesty, hadn’t that been the cause of all this shit? His confidence was knocked when everyone talked about my mural instead of his building, so he retaliated by sleeping around and making me feel inadequate as a wife.

“It’s not me,” I said quietly, hating that I could hear a slight tremor in my voice as I spoke. “It’s someone who is happy.”

“Ah,” he said. I glanced up at him. His mouth was twisted into a sneer of contempt. It was far from the way a husband should look at his wife. “Perhaps she’s someone who knows how to be a good wife. Maybe her husband doesn’t have to look outside of his marriage for fulfilment because she hasn’t let herself go.”

That did it. I could no longer ignore William and his taunting. I felt something snap inside me. How dare he accuse me of not being a good wife after everything I had put up with from him? How dare he say I couldn’t fulfil him when I had sacrificed so much, risked so much? All for him.

I stood up and threw my paintbrush at him. He ducked, and it missed him by a mile, but it was still worth it to see the flicker of shock on his face as I stalked toward him, so angry I felt like I would explode.

“Just shut the hell up for once, you absolute fucking asshole!” I heard myself screaming at him.

That shocked look flicked back over his face again, and then his smirk came back into place, but this time, it didn’t look quite as cocky.

“I’m just saying,” he said, his tone petulant and nasty. “You wouldn’t want to showcase anything but your best work, would you? You like to play pretend in public and act like it’s all perfect, don’t you? You wouldn’t want the cracks to show and people to know how bad a wife you really are, would you?”

“Are you kidding me? A nineteen-year-old kid is dead because of your actions, and you still somehow think you’re the victim in all of this,” I shouted. “When are you going to grow up, William, and realize that all of this hatred you feel inside is of your own doing? When will you realize that we were meant to be a team, but you made it a competition, and now that you can’t compete, you blame it all on me?”

I knew I had gone too far when I saw his jaw drop, but at the same time, I had only spoken the truth, and maybe it was about time that William heard it.

“You ... you bitch,” he said, his voice quiet.

“No, William.” I sighed. “I’m not being a bitch. I’m being honest. I’m telling you what I should have told you months ago when you first started constantly putting me down. Maybe if I had told you some home truths back then, Candy would still be alive, and we would still have something worth saving.”

He shook his head slowly and then looked me right in the eyes.

“Are you really trying to put the blame for all of this on me? It’s not my fault Candy was unhinged. It’s not my fault she couldn’t deal with our being over. And the only reason I ended things with her in the first place was because of you.”

“Oh, well excuse me for not wanting my husband to fuck some little skank and end up giving me fucking herpes or something,” I shot back.

He shook his head again and then turned away from me. Normally, I’d just be glad the abuse was over, and I could get back to my painting, but he had pushed me too far today, and I wasn’t ready to just let him walk away from me this time. Not until I’d said my piece.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I demanded.

He turned back to look at me over his shoulder, but he didn’t stop walking away.

“I’m going out. I’m going to a bar to get drunk and find someone I can talk to without being made to feel like shit,” he said.

He was gone before I had a chance to respond. I knew what he really meant. He was going out to find some dolly bird to cheat on me with. Fantastic. That was exactly what we needed at this point.

I felt the anger leave me in a rush, replaced by a deep sadness that penetrated my entire soul. I sank slowly to the floor and sat there, my knees tucked up to my chin, my arms wrapped around my legs. I rocked slowly back and forth as the tears flowed.

William had finally managed it. He had knocked me so much that I no longer even wanted to paint. Suddenly, my studio didn’t feel like my sanctuary any longer.

Chapter Ten

Jamie

Ihad hoped a good night’s sleep would help me a little bit with this case. That I would wake up refreshed and with a clearer picture of exactly what had happened to Candy Xavier. Or at the very least, a theory I could prove or disprove. It might even have worked had I have gotten a good night’s sleep. Instead, I tossed and turned in the heat, unable to think straight but unable to put the thoughts of the case out of my mind.

When I finally did fall into a fitful, troubled sleep about four a.m., I dreamed of a couple arguing. I was standing beside a window, listening to them arguing, and the next thing I knew, the couple turned on me and pushed me and I was falling through the window. I woke with a start at 5:17 a.m. and that was the last thread of sleep I managed to cling to.

I gave up even trying to sleep after that, and I went down to the precinct to go back over the case file. I read back over all the interview transcripts, but that only confirmed what I already knew—I hadn’t missed anything. Either William and Carlotta were damned good actors, or they were telling the truth about not remembering the night Candy died. Either way, there was nothing in either interview that gave me a clue as to the identity of the killer.

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