Page 83 of What the Wife Knew

In good news, the gate was locked. My alarm app wasn’t pinging out a warning. No police in the driveway. No screaming.

I forced my mind to focus. Portia was my concern right now. The girl was near tears. She’d been dropped into this sucking vortex when her dad died and none of this was her fault.

Some of it was mine, so I unlocked the car door. “Get in.”

Portia didn’t argue. She plopped in the passenger seat and shut the door. Instead of talking, she fiddled with the window button.

Now what?“Can you call her? There are ways to track her phone. We could try that.”

Portia shrugged. “She left her cell in the kitchen.”

Of course she did. Not smart. Kind of annoying. Totally seemed like something Kathryn would do to piss me off... or she didn’t want anyone to be able to track her.

I kept that concern to myself as I drove down the lane toward the house. Only my mom’s car sat in the circular driveway. That didn’t solve Portia’s problem, but it solved mine. No run-in with Kathryn today. She was somewhere but not here.

“Her car isn’t—”

Portia pointed. “I think that’s it.”

The side drive. The one that ran along the house, hidden from the road. The same one Thomas used. Time to rip the pavers out and bulldoze the whole thing to keep unwanted company from using it.

I pulled forward and there it was. A fancy black sedan. “Is that her license plate?”

“I don’t know.” But Portia’s grim expression said she assumed yes. “She’s in the house, isn’t she?”

Stay calm.I thought the words then let them repeat in my head like a mantra. An angry Kathryn was a dangerous Kathryn. One of us in the car—unfortunately me—had to be the adult.

“She couldn’t get inside.” I made the comment more to reassure myself than Portia.

“Then where is she?”

Good question. If Kathryn was looking for a fight she could have rung the doorbell and... “My mom.”

“What?”

Oh, shit.I threw off my seat belt. Every instinct told me to rush inside and break up the inevitable knock-down fight. The connection between Mom and Kathryn promised a bruising battle. Anything could happen. My money was on Mom to win, and she sucked at winning.

Lost in a nightmare about the showdown in my house, I forgot about Portia for a second. She sat in the passenger’s seat all wide-eyed and tense. I probably shared the same look.

“Look, it’s okay. I’ll figure this out.” I opened the car door. Portia reached for the handle on her side at the same time. “No. You stay here. Promise?”

She didn’t answer right away. I waited for a nod then I took off. I didn’t have time to weigh the possibility of her upholding her part of the deal. I needed to be in that house.

I rushed up the side steps. The thudding of my shoes warning the ladies about my impending arrival. Juggling keys and my bag, I opened the door and walked into the mudroom. I needed my hands free in case I had to break up a fight or something worse, so I dropped everything on the table.

Silence enveloped me. The only sound came from my harsh panting.

Momentum propelled me through empty rooms on the way to the front entry. Kathryn stood there looking uncharacteristically disheveled. Her purple wrap dress had pulled to one side and snagged high on her hip. The tie belt was about an inch from coming undone. She didn’t have her usual expensive bag. Her arms hung at her sides. She kept grabbing fistfuls of material from the skirt part of the dress and letting go. Over and over.

Pale face. A glassy-eyed blank expression.

No sign of Mom.

I had a million questions. “How did you get in?”

“You ruined everything.”

That voice, so distant and hollow. Not her usual racing words and overblown comments. She teetered on an invisible edge.

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