Page 81 of Mail Order Bride: A Psychological Thriller

My brow furrows. “Was my husband involved in something shady because—”

“Like I said, he didn't want you to worry. Probably, the less you know, the better.” She leans in close and lowers her voice, “But sometimes he did things he wasn’t proud of. Really bad things…”

“I know he sold drugs,” I say. I don’t know why it comes out, only that I’m already feeling terribly stupid, terribly out of touch, and I don’t like not having the upper hand.

She narrows her eyes. “He tell you that?”

“I guessed.” This is a half-truth. After finding Joel at the Apricot Inn, after he swore he wasn’t stepping out on me, I asked if he had other methods of making a living. He admitted that sometimes when money was a little tight, he found other means. So, he didn’t confess to dealing drugs outright, but he hadn’t denied it, either. I just assumed, and we left it at that. Sometimes you look back on a conversation and see it very differently. Now is one of those times.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she says. “I only know about the bounties.”

“Why did you ask me to meet with you?” I say, “Surely, you could have just written this all in the letter.”

“I’m sure in time you'll work it out in your head.”

She shifts from one foot to the other. “But also, Joel asked me to. He paid me. He loved you a lot, you know.”

“I loved him.”

“Maybe not the same way, though, huh?”

“Again, I don't know what you're getting at.”

“Sure you do. It’s all over the papers. What kind of man your husband was.”

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

Finally, she waves a hand in the air. “Never mind. Stick to the plan. That’s what Joel would have said if he were here. But he isn’t, is he?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“He wanted me to tell you that no matter what anyone says, he loved you. He didn’t want you to worry about anything, but especially not about where he stood.”

“Should I be... worried?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

Suddenly, it comes to me, why she asked me to meet her. She's trying to gauge what I know, which I'm hoping she can see isn't much.

“You might think you didn't know your husband. But take it from someone who's been around a lot of men of his kind—you made him very happy.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” I say, analyzing the distance between me and my car.

“I do,” she says. “I saw Joel. A few months ago. He was up my way on a job. He really looked good. Happier than I've ever seen him.”

I force a smile.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I didn’t come here to kill you or anything like that.”

It wasn’t my first thought, but I hope it’s not my last. I can tell she smells weakness. I can see that she views me as some sort of damsel in distress. Still, she’s not making any sense. One minute she acts like she wants to tell me some big secret, the next she acts like she knows all mine.

She smiles wickedly, like it brings her great pleasure to keep me in the dark. “I mean, if I ever found out you had anything to do with his death… or like, I don’t know… maybe you told some lies or something to the cops… Painted him in a bad light…”

“I didn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “We both know the truth, don’t we?”

“Joel—”

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