Page 9 of What the Wife Knew

Not the reaction I expected. Lowering the lamp, I stepped into the kitchen. The cellphone in my pocket buzzed as Wyatt pawed through a box of his dad’s treasures.

“What are you doing with all of this?” Wyatt’s mouth dropped open. “These aren’t yours.”

I set the lamp on the kitchen island. “Which is why the items are in boxes.”

“Dad has been gone for less than two weeks and you’re getting rid of his stuff?”

Wyatt’s broken expression hinted at the epic battle waging inside him. Whether or not Richmond’s shitty personality defined the sum total of his parenting skills wasn’t clear but probably didn’t matter. Wyatt would feel whatever he felt about losing his dad. No one else owned that. Any apology or accounting he might have needed from Richmond disappeared forever. The fights, the guilt, the happy times, the failures, the comments left unspoken, all dissipated into memories, good and bad, without the sweet satisfaction of having the last word.

Hate and empathy bounced off each other as I struggled to regain my ambivalence. Part of me felt for the kid. I knew all toowell how hard it was to walk a safe path with a shockingly dysfunctional parent.

“Wyatt, listen—”

“It’s not bad enough you killed him. Now you’re going to erase him?”

The latter sounded appealing. I had to wade through the former first. “I didn’t kill him.”

“He had two accidents. Then the third one...”

“Do you understand whataccidentmeans?” Assessing the incidents, who had access to Richmond and the will to end him, played nonstop in my head. Putting those pieces together would take time, and quiet, which meant Wyatt needed to leave.

“He hated you.” Wyatt practically sneered as he said the words. Like he’d spilled some deep secret in a moment of triumph.

Sorry, kid. No surprise.

“We were married.” Saying that out loud always stung a bit.

“He told me...” Wyatt traded talking for fidgeting. He shifted his weight and glanced around. Generally looked ready to bolt.

“What did your father say?” Not the truth. Richmond had an allergy to honesty. But something. “Please explain.”

Wyatt’s head shot up again, giving full eye contact. “He said he would take care of this—of you—and fix everything, but now he’s dead.”

In addition to sucking in general it appeared Richmond sucked at protecting his kids from news they shouldn’t know. No setting of appropriate boundaries here.Shocking.“You’re saying he threatened me?”

Wyatt took a step back. “Don’t twist my words.”

A mix of twentysomething self-righteousness and bad judgment choked the room. I’d been practicing de-escalation formost of my life and put those skills into action now. “Let’s calm down and have an adult conversation.”

Wyatt shoulders fell in a look of total defeat. “Why are you throwing away Dad’s things?”

Pivot to a lie. That always worked. “I was packing them up for you and your sister.”

Wyatt’s hands clenched and unclenched as he stood there, clearly battling the crash of emotions inside him. He’d gone for full drama today, wearing black jeans and a black tee. If he had a weapon, he hid it well. But that led to more questions. Why not come to the door? Why was he really here? Was he planting evidence?

That last one kept my guard up.

“Let’s start over.” I maneuvered to stand on the opposite side of the kitchen island, the safe side next to the drawer with a hammer in it. “How did you get in the house?”

He stared at me.

I returned the stare, daring him to speak. “Say something. Preferably the truth. I didn’t call the police on you, so just tell me.”

“Dad gave me a key and the alarm code.”

“I changed the alarm code after he died. And I’m changing the locks as soon as I can get someone who does that out here. Just so you know.” I hadn’t gotten around to nailing down the security issues and wrongly believed the alarm would be sufficient. Lesson learned.

“He had a secondary code set up. One for me.”

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