Page 92 of What the Wife Knew

“He said he couldn’t fake an allergic reaction and I had to help. I was nervous and added too much extract to the sauce on the sandwich.” Wyatt hesitated but this didn’t look like the usual twenty-something melodrama. He expected a big reaction to his news, probably shock or wailing.

I was too busy basking in a brief moment ofI knew itsatisfaction to feel anything else.

“He started eating the sandwich when he saw you coming back from your run. I thought he’d take one bite, but he ate half the thing. He was lecturing and got into it and...” Wyatt stopped to take in a huge gulping breath. “He was so pissed. I thought he was going to kill me.”

“Knowing Richmond, probably.” Being on the losing side of blackmail blew out Richmond’s boundaries. Turning Wyatt into the latest Dougherty fatality wasn’t inconceivable. If a plan allowed Richmond to slither away from trouble he’d do it, regardless of what that meant for anyone else.

Tension had Wyatt in a stranglehold. Disclosing the truth diffused some of the nervous energy radiating off him but not all. “Dad staged the thing with the car. I helped him after, but that was all him. He said he needed leverage against you. He wanted people to think you were unstable and dangerous.”

Richmond’s big plan. I could see all the pieces now. His goal was to put pressure on me so I wouldn’t use the evidence I’d collected against him.

At seventeen he’d dreamed up a complex, diabolical masterpiece with moving parts, different locations, and an element of surprise. As an adult, he relied on shrimp extract delivered by his son. Quite the fall of the evil empire.

“He thought he’d run me out of town.” I could almost hear Richmond’s planned future threat. The grating sound of his gloating as he warned me about evidence he’d planted and the line of witnesses he’d cultivated to speak against me. He’d insist he won, and Ihadto make a new deal. My evidence in exchange for him not going to the police.

The bargaining wouldn’t have worked, but he probably knew that, too, or he would have moved faster and not landed in that box.

“It was weird. He was, like, desperate. Furious but saying he had to be careful. That we couldn’t mess up.” Wyatt shrugged. “Then I screwed up the sauce.”

“That’s outrageous. He should never have asked you to help him. You are his son.”

Well, look at that. Kathryn being a reasonable person and decent parent. I almost clapped. “Your mother and I don’t agree on much, but we do on that point. If your father had a problem with me, he should have handled it and left you out of it.”

“Okay.” Kathryn seemed to shake off the horrid news. “Whatever Richmond did or didn’t do doesn’t change what needs to happen here. Today.”

She meant me. Get rid of me. My hand tightened on the paperweight. “You insisted I tried to kill Richmond a few minutes ago. That was your whole reason for your being here, your excuse to come after me, and now it doesn’t matter?”

“You did kill Richmond.” Old Kathryn had returned. The perfect diction. The annoying self-satisfaction. “You came up behind him with that bat and hit him.”

She tried to hold on to that story, but she’d said too much. Only one of us realized that. “It’s funny how you knew about the bat. About the money Richmond offered. Hell, you knew the amount and offered the same. One hundred thousand dollars.”

She waved off my point. “The part about the bat was in the news.”

“It wasn’t.” I’d looked for any mention of the murder weapon. Elias told me the police would hold the information back and that’s what happened.

“You’re twisting the facts instead of facing them. That’s what liars do,” Kathryn said.

Dissembling. The performance wasn’t one of her best. She said the words but couldn’t sell them. She wove a narrative that absolved herself and kept her halo intact.

Watch me smash it to pieces.“You’re saying everyone is a liar but you.”

Wyatt frowned. “What bat?”

We were done. There was nowhere for this train to go. I bet on my instincts and went all in. “Is this how you want Wyatt to find out the truth about his father?”

That stopped Kathryn for a second. “He already knows about the surgery allegations. We haven’t been able to avoid seeing and hearing them.”

Nice try. “I mean Annapolis. The school. That map.”

Kathryn’s expression turned carefully blank. All anger and passion gone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Poor Wyatt stood there, looking lost. The confusion showed on his face and echoed in his voice. “One of you please explain.”

Kathryn’s arm moved. The bat rose a fraction, not even an inch, but my brain shifted into gear. I lifted the paperweight and launched it. Aimed for the bat but hit Kathryn’s arm. Probably more from surprise than pain, she yelped and let go.

The yelp turned into yelling. “You bitch.”

She hissed when Wyatt touched her as if she might break into pieces. Her body rocked back and forth. She held her arm. Doubled over in pain, cradling it. She touched her wrist then her elbow.

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