Page 73 of I Did Something Bad
“Yes?” I can’t ascertain if I can’t place the voice because I don’t know whom it belongs to, or because it still feels like I’m processing the world from the other side of a dirty windshield.
“It’s Dipar.”
“Dipar? Hey! How… are you?” I ask, my brain going from blankto a hundred in a matter of seconds. Is this a trap? Are the police listening? Do I really watch too muchSVU?
“I’m good, thanks. Just got back from holiday. After I found out about Jared, my girlfriends decided I needed to take some time off to process and they essentially kidnapped me to the beach,” she says with a stifled laugh.
“That sounds… good,” I say. I know it’s such an incompetent adjective in this context, but the past twenty minutes are all collating into something so unmanageable that “good” is about as expansive as my vocabulary is at the current moment. “They sound like good friends.”
“They are. I’m… calling to thank you,” Dipar says after a pause. “You… you saved my life. And you don’t even know it.”
“What?” If thisisa trap, I have to hand it to her, it’s a good one. If the police are trying to disarm me, it’s working.
“I know why he was stalking you.”
The blood shoots to my head like a bullet. I instantly know what she means, but it’s like there’s a barrier that my brain has erected to protect me from the whole truth, even if it’s precisely what I’ve been searching for this whole time. “He as in—”
Her voice sounds muffled through the thumping of my heart in my ears. “Jared,” she says.
My fingers seize around my phone. “Why?”
“Because I was pregnant and he thought I got an abortion.”
It feels like someone’s turned on the windshield wipers to try to give me a clearer view, but not quite managing to. “Why would he think that?”
Dipar’s rueful laugh gives me the answer first. “Because I did.” Ifeelher dragged-out inhale and exhale more than I hear it. “I’d been wanting to leave him for a while,” she says, voice lowering. Now I’m certain this call isn’t being tapped, at least not to her knowledge, because she’s talking with the solemnity of someone who was going totake this to the grave. “When I found out I was pregnant, IknewI couldn’t have a child. Definitely not now, and absolutely not with him. I had the abortion and spent the night at my sister’s, and when I came home the next day, he’d found the pregnancy test while taking out the trash. I lied and said I hadn’t wanted to tell him until I could confirm at the doctor’s, but when I went, it turned out I’d miscarried. AndthenI told him that the whole thing got me thinking, and I didn’t see us having a future together, and that my sister was waiting downstairs, and I would be packing my bags and leaving. He must’ve sensed that something was up, hadn’t believed that I had a miscarriage, and when he googled about abortions in Myanmar—”
“My article was the first hit.”
“Yes,” she confirms. “I would know because it’s what saved my life. I emailed you under a fake name and fake email, and you connected me with your friend. That’s how I got your number, by the way. I don’t want you thinkingI’mstalking you, too.” We share a short, bitter laugh.
“Why… are you telling me all this now?” I’m scared to know the answer, but I’m more scarednotto.
She draws in another long inhale. “The police talked to me the day after you found me, that night at the club. I had to remember to be shocked at hearing about Jared’s death.”
“Did you tell them—”
“No,” she cuts me off. “Like I said, Jared was not a good person, and somehow, I knew I shouldn’t be telling them that you’d been asking about him, too. But anyway, that’s not why I called. I’m calling because—” Another inhale, another pause. “They came again yesterday. Or, more precisely, I went to see them. They called me while I was away, something aboutnew evidence,so I explained my situation and told them I’d come in as soon as I was back in town. So I finally did, which was when they showed me… the phone.”
“The photos,” I say, blood pounding at a thousand decibels against my eardrums.
“Yes.”
“They… didn’t tell you about the phone before? Because that’s how they found out his identity, which was how they must’ve tracked you down.”
“I’m pretty sure I was also on their suspect list, so they didn’t want to show me all of their cards.”
“And… now?” Now she’s no longer on their list. Which leaves—I can’t even finish the thought.
“Now they must be getting desperate, because they showed me the photos,” her voice slices through my anxiety. “And then they told me your name and what you did and asked if I knew you, or if Jared had known you, if there was any way your paths would’ve crossed, and as soon as I heard your full name, it all clicked. I knew what he’d done. I knew what…” She hesitates, but I already know how the sentence ends. “You’ddone.”
I’m already crying, and no matter how deeply or frequently I suck in air, it’s not enough oxygen. “It was self-defense, I swear!”
Dipar’s voice, however, remains level. “I know. I knew that must’ve been the case. Which is why I also told the cops that I had lied to them the first time, when they’d asked me if I knew anything about the fight that he’d gotten into before he died.”
“Dipar,” I say, ice spreading from my fingertips down to my toes. “You can’t… What did you—”
“That he didn’t take the combination of the miscarriage and breakup well. That he showed up at my sister’s place that night. I knew she’d back me up if it came to it. But I told them he was drunk as always, which was true. And then I remembered them telling me about the marks on his face, and I explained that things got physical when I refused to get back together, and at one point he had mepinned against a wall and the only way I could make him let go was by grabbing the nearest sharp object, which was a pen, and stabbing him in the ear, which was why he had those injuries. Obviously, none of that was true, but it could’ve been. Anyone who knew Jared wouldn’t have been surprised at that.”
