Page 50 of Control

There was a moment of collective silence. I should have said something or asked another question, but I was reeling. Somewhere over the course of the four to six weeks before Annie was murdered, her ex had come back to town, looking to reconcile. Was it possible he knew what had happened to her?

For a few moments, everyone sat in that silence and ate. Eventually, I felt compelled to get back to digging. This was far too important not to say anything. But I didn’t get the chance.

As though I hadn’t already been given enough information to sort through and consider, Bethany felt compelled to pile onmore. And everything she said was wholly unexpected. “I never understood it.”

“Pardon?”

“It made no sense to me why Annie turned Mark down. The man was perfect on paper. He adored her, and they could have lived such a happy life together,” she reasoned with a disappointed shake of her head.

“She wouldn’t have been happy,” Clover cut in. “If she gave up her dream of having children, Annie would have been miserable. And considering she’d dedicated her whole life to caring for others and looking out for them, I’m glad she turned Mark down. She deserved to put herself first when it came to her dreams for her own future. You know how important that was to her, Bethany.”

Bethany sighed. “Of course, I do. I just think she should have reconsidered things, because Mark was perfect for her in every other way.”

Clover shook her head and leaned toward me as though she was about to tell me a secret. But she never lowered her voice, so everyone at the table heard each word she said. “Bethany’s simply feeling sympathetic to Mark, because she understands his plight. Given that she’s been in love with someone for years, and the guy barely seems to notice her existence.”

“He knows I exist,” Bethany spat.

Clover smiled. “Of course, he does. But the fact that Reed hasn’t pursued you, despite your efforts, has made you a little testy.”

“Reed? You mean, Reed Sanders?”

Bethany pressed her lips together, almost as though she suddenly recalled she was sitting across from Ty and me. But Clover didn’t hesitate to confirm I’d guessed correctly. “She’s loved him for years.”

“Yeah, and I’m just unlucky. Not even my best friend could hook us up with one another,” she mumbled.

Reed.

The man who’d been so undeniably irritated when Ty and I were at the Sanders’ residence days ago. As insightful as the conversation had been already, it seemed it was about to get even more interesting.

“So, Annie tried to set the two of you up?” I asked.

Bethany nodded before looking away. Evidently, that hadn’t gone well.

Shifting my attention to Clover, I pressed, “Wouldn’t Reed take advice from his sister and ask her friend out?”

“Oh no,” Clover answered, her voice grim. “Reed and Annie were almost always at odds with one another. Well, he was at odds with her. She tried her best to keep things cordial between them, but he refused.”

Feeling like I was about to lose my mind and needing something to calm my racing thoughts, I didn’t think twice about it. I sat back in the booth, reached beneath the table, and sought out Ty’s hand on my thigh. He didn’t hesitate to release my thigh and flip his hand over to grab hold of mine.

“Why would Reed be at odds with her?”

Bethany was quick to defend him. “He’s a businessman. He views things very differently than Annie did, and he was worried she wasn’t looking out for herself.”

Clover vehemently disagreed. “That wasn’t it. Reed was looking out for himself, not Annie. He was so terrified that all the good work Annie did was going to lead to the family’s fortune being squandered away. Annie always found new causes, and though she did plenty of fundraising within the foundation she’d set up to donate to the causes most important to her heart, she still sought donations from her family.”

“And how did her parents respond? Were they worried about it?”

Both women shook their heads. “Annie was a daddy’s girl, so Sully would hear her out and do whatever he could to make her happy. Monica has always been concerned with the family’s image. Not donating wouldn’t paint the family in a good light, so she never fought her husband on it, whether she agreed with the cause or not.”

It was nice to know Ty and I weren’t crazy when we’d been in that interview with Monica and Reed. There had clearly been some tension, and the more I heard from Bethany and Clover, the more suspicious I became of everyone involved. Hoping for more information, but not wanting to make it seem like a true investigation, I took a bite of my toast and redirected back to the one person I wasn’t sure I had quite enough information on just yet.

“Whatever happened with Mark? Did he just give up after Annie rejected him?”

“No. No, he was persistent, willing to do whatever it took to win her back, so he’d show up at places that he knew she’d be. He went to her house on at least two separate occasions to talk to her and try to convince her. She felt awful about having to continuously reject him, but she refused to concede on her dreams.”

I was compiling a list of names in my head—everyone I now believed could be a suspect. The worst part about all of it was that it wasn’t anyone removed from Annie. Everyone on the list was someone I wholeheartedly believed Annie loved in some way, shape, or form. Could she have been killed by someone she trusted?

I could only bring myself to glance briefly at Ty and see he must have been compiling the same exact list in his own head.

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