Page 107 of Her Dark Lies
He stands and moves to the shelves behind me. I watch as he pulls out a thick old book. He opens the cover and out comes a slim notebook. “I found this after she died. I kept it... I don’t know why I kept it. Maybe to remind myself. You know how the memory of terrible things tends to lessen over time? I didn’t want to forget. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.”
He hands it to me. The notebook is worn, well used. I flip open the cover. The handwriting is tiny, cramped, so dark on the page that it seems impossible that the paper didn’t rip under the weight of the pen scratching across it.
It doesn’t take me long to ascertain that the writer is disturbed beyond reason. In the way of all genius, most of what I’m reading makes a certain kind of sense, but then it drops off the edge of reason into clear insanity.
J was out late again last night. He swears he was working, but I know he is lying. Surveillance to begin tomorrow. Will use 4G Spark nano GPS tracker, adapt with extended battery—no reason to think this behavior will change anytime soon. If I find him under the moon, I will kill him. If I find him under the sun I will not.
Surveillance commenced. Laid in a bridge to his T1 line that allows for a wired keystroke analysis. He bears watching. He mustn’t be trusted.
40,000 years ago, paintings in Chauvet Cave—did they know what was coming? Were they prepared for their extinction? Did they have one last party before they died, dancing around the fire naked and leering? Insert 6. They are watching again.
I watch him when he sleeps. Wonder what it would feel like to slip the edge of a dagger into that spot where his heartbeat pounds at the skin. To see the blood purl through the opening in his skin. What does he taste like inside?
J not cheating so far as I can tell. His nocturnal ramblings are simply running errands for B. GPS track shows straight lines between 500 and 1500 longitudinally aspect ratio. What happens on the jet stays on the jet. Flower agate is needed.
It goes on and on like this, page after page, some entries rational, some jumbled, convoluted remarks and observations that would make sense only to the writer. Threats of violence against Jack, his family, even herself.
“She doesn’t seem to be in her right mind,” I say, flipping the pages.
The book falls open. The spine is broken here, and an entry halfway through catches my eye. It has been circled, again and again and again, the swirls wild and fierce, and here the paperhasbeen torn by the pressure of the pen.
Darling darling darling darling darling darling you will miss me when I’m gone fuck you DARLING.
I finally look up, confused. “There was a note, earlier. I totally forgot to ask you about it. In the vanity, in the bath. It said ‘Don’t you miss me, darling?’”
“See? This is all too weird. I’m telling you, Claire, I think this might be Elliot’s doing. Screwing with us. Trying to disrupt the wedding. Trying to chase you off.”
“But why? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know. Because I’m trying to get out of the business? Because I’m finally happy? Because he’s sick in the head? Because Amelia is divorcing him? Because he had a thing for Morgan, and he’s upset she’s dead? Because he killed her and it might be about to come out, so he’s making it look like we’re crazy? Damned if I know.”
Because by marrying Jack, I will take a third of his estate? And that means less for Elliot in the long run? Surely, he’s not that greedy. Though this kind of money is worth killing for.
“He hit on me, you know. At his wedding. He was bombed, and cornered me. I pushed him away.”
Jack is looking at me as if I’ve just given him the scroll to decipher the Rosetta Stone.
“Wow. He’s an even bigger asshole than I thought. He screwed around with Morgan, too. Though she took him up on it, apparently.”
“Oh. That’s...awkward.” I close the notebook and set it on the table next to me. “Why would Elliot want to hurt you like that? You’re his brother.”
“God knows.”
“Why would he want to hurt Henna? And what would he have to do with Malcolm, who wasyoursecurity? I mean, Malcolm was clearly trying to drag me off somewhere. Were they in league together, and he was taking me to Elliot? So he could do what to me?”
“I don’t know. Before she died, Morgan was trying to blackmail the family. She’d been spying on me, on Elliot, and figured out how our business arrangements worked. When she signed the NDA, I thought that meant we were safe. But on our honeymoon, I found some correspondence. She’d been mapping everything out. You can see from the notebook she was surveilling me. I found her electronic footprints all over my computer, my phone, my car—she’d put a GPS tracker in my wheel well.”
He takes a huge breath, spikes a hand through his hair. Little droplets of water splash on the hearth and rise as tiny fragments of fog, and the dogs watch him intently.
“I need to know it all. I need to know the truth of what happened to Morgan.”
I feel his body tense beside me. “Claire, I’m not sure I know the whole truth.”
“Then go back to California. The story is she fell off your boat, was swept away. She died at sea. That’s not true, is it?”
“No. She didn’t go off the boat in California. That’s what we told the media. She disappeared from here. From the island. We came here for a family meeting. It didn’t go well. She made her threats, and then she ran out into the night. There was a terrible storm, like now. We split up to look for her, and somehow, she went off the cliff.”
Jack’s face is tortured and he’s babbling his confession now, talking so fast I can hardly follow.
