Page 108 of Saltwater

It seems the police have been right this whole time. That it was always going to be one of us—all of us—that killed her.

“He killed Lorna,” I say. “To prove to you, what? That he loved you?”

That he loved your money?I think it, but I don’t say it.

Naomi’s actions are coalescing into something monstrous and vicious. Her jealousy, her desperation. The leverage she wielded against her own husband to blackmail him into killing. The way she ruthlessly removed every threat to her relationship. I wonder if there was ever a time she considered removing me. Two women dead, her husband dead. And still, she’s haunted by the mistake Marcus made thirty years ago.By me.

“Have you considered the cost of what you’ve done?” I say.

I mean losing Marcus, the only thing she seems to love. But she says:

“Oh yes, so very much like a Lingate to worry aboutthe cost.” She laughs. “Do you realize how broke you all would have been all these years without me? Do you understand that?”

“Naomi,” I say, “you have been incredibly generous.”

“You don’t understand,” she says. “But you will.”

There is something about the way Naomi seems to grow excited, agitated, as she lists the things she has done for us—the illusion she has allowed us to keep. It snuffs out the feeling of freedom I had earlier, as I walked back to the villa. In its place, dread blooms.

“Do you think Ciro will still want you when you are poor?” she says.

She spits the last word.

I’m not poor.

I can sell the contents of the house, get a job. But I had assumed, maybe stupidly, that she might help me. And I don’t know what it will be like without her support. None of us have had to experience that.

Yet.

“Like marries like,” she says. “That’s what my mother told me when Marcus and I got engaged. But even so”—she drains her drink—“they made me get a prenup, my parents.You never know,my mother said.You don’t want to be responsible for his debts. You want to be sure he doesn’t take you down, too.She was right, my mother. You and Ciro won’t need a prenup.”

She holds out her glass and shakes it at me.

“Would you?” she says.

I stand. “What are you drinking?” I ask.

“Vodka,” she says. “Neat.”

I take her glass to the bar cart and look for the vodka while she continues behind me.

“Do you know what my prenup withyour fathersays?”

“No,” I reply over my shoulder.

“That we leave the marriage only with what we brought into it,” she says. There’s a smugness to her voice.

I pop the top off the vodka bottle and then I see it, at the back ofthe bar cart, where I left it earlier: the little cup full of Naomi’s pills. The loose ones I corralled when she was passed out two days ago. Hidden by the forest of bottles, their presence has gone unnoticed.

“Do you know,” she says behind me, “what Marcus brought into our marriage?”

“I don’t,” I say.

“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing. Do you think he ever knew what nothing really meant?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

I forget what her question was. I’m only half listening. I’m looking for the vodka, but distracted by the pills.

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