Page 80 of The Woman at the Funeral

Or had life just turned him ugly, selfish, evil?

They were questions I would never have answers to. The only person who had them was dead.

“I’m actually here with a request,” I said. Again, did Ronny actually tense, or was I looking for things that weren’t there?

“I already paid for the grave marker,” she said.

“Oh, no. That’s not it. I was wondering if you had Matt’s laptop.”

“His laptop?” she asked, brows scrunching. “Why?”

Was that a normal amount of curiosity, or was it pure suspicion?

Fuck.

I was losing it.

I needed to get my head on right.

Without thinking, I started, “I ran into Blair—”

“Thatwoman,” Ronny sniffed. Her chin jerked up. “Always walking around like this. Too good for everybody. All Matt did was complain about how much she was always nagging him. Don’t know why he stayed with her when she made him so miserable.”

I choked back the urge to jump to Blair’s defense.

I could still smell her sweet skin, taste her on my tongue, could still feel how fucking world-changing it felt to be deep inside her.

But this was not the time or place to defend her. If I wanted Ronny to talk, I had to not put her on the two of us at odds.

“He must have had reasons to stay,” I reasoned.

“You know Matt. He was too nice to tell her he couldn’t stand her anymore.”

A strange growl moved up my throat, and I had to cough to cover it.

“Here. Have a soda,” Ronny said, dipping into the fridge to grab me one. “It’s the air in here, so dry. But me and mine, we’re thinking of moving. Get somewhere warm and sunny. Away from the noise.”

Suspicion had me wondering if it was just Matt’s father’s retirement finally. Or if they thought they might come into money some other way.

“The whole family?” I asked.

“Yeah. Danny might have to hang behind for a few more months. Probation. But the rest of us, we’re moving on. Get a nice house on the beach.”

As far as I knew, there was nowhere in the country where you could get beachfront property without dropping a mint. And Ronny and her family? They never had two nickels to rub together.

I tamped down my anger and forced a smile.

“If anyone deserves an easier life, it’s all of you.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “The city just isn’t the same without Matt.” That emotion, at least, seemed genuine. “So what did that bitch have to say?”

“Oh, we were just talking about her wedding, and she mentioned all of the images were on Matt’s laptop. She wanted access to them.”

“Why, so she can post about it on that hoity-toity blog of hers? Get all kinds of sympathy for the husband she treated like dirt?” Ronny rummaged around in a drawer, reaching into the back to pull out a pack of smokes, then leaning down to light it with the stove flame. She moved over toward the window, cranking it open, and blowing the smoke out. “Anyway, Matt’s laptop wasn’t there. I thought that ice princess stole it and hid it.”

She couldn’t steal something that, technically, belonged more to her than Matt’s mother. But that wasn’t going to help, so I kept it to myself.

“We looked all over for it. And his phone. And his tablet. I know he had them. Seen them with my own two eyes. But they were nowhere to be found.”

---