Page 58 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

But now, somehow, Ivan’s dead. A mere day after Kurt’s fatal accident, which looks bad. Very bad.

I pace about the penthouse. I go through the papers from the hospital, all those medical terms, the numbers that mean nothing, and I ask myself:Where did I go wrong?I’d let up on the caffeine powder for over two months now, since I decided to kill Kurt. Yes, I realize that all those years spent messing around with Ivan’s heart probably worsened his condition, but surely, it wasn’t enough to actually kill him this fast? No, it couldn’t be. Whenever I eased up on the caffeine, he’d quickly bounce back to normal. Unless his heart was still bothering him but he kept it from me, because men can’t help but lie.

A surge of anger stabs through me, and I crush the hospital document and fling it at the wall.

“Knock-knock,” Ani says, popping her head in. She actually says the words instead of knocking. “How are you doing?”

“What do you think? My husband’s dead.” It’s surprisingly easy for me to allow a small sob to escape. I am upset, after all. He really was taken away from me too soon.

Ani stretches the corners of her mouth and eyebrows down, making a literal sad-face emoji. “And my brother’s dead. You’re not the only one who lost someone here.”

Typical Ani. Of course she’d make this about herself. I stop moving and just stare at her until she looks away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” she says finally. “I just—I don’t even know what to do. He’s been there my entire life, and now he’s not, and I don’t understand why.” At this, she breaksdown sobbing, sinking gracefully onto the chaise longue. I roll my eyes and grit my teeth before sitting down next to her and putting my arm around her shaking shoulders.

I count to ten and then say, “Okay, enough of that. We need to be strong, Ani. We need to make arrangements.” We need to get Ivan’s body the fuck out of America and back to Indonesia, hopefully outrun any suspicions that might be cast on me after Kurt and Ivan’s deaths. One day apart! I could cry at the thought of my unbelievably bad luck. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll see to it that he’s flown back ASAP and buried in your family plot—”

“No!” Ani cries, pulling away from me.

I blink at her, confused.

“No, are you kidding? His body is not leaving this country until we know exactly what happened.”

My stomach turns to ice. “What do you mean?”

“Mama and Papa are on their way here right now.”

I’m so shocked by this that I almost miss the glint in Ani’s eyes. Almost. As I stare at her in mute horror, her lips tremble like she’s fighting back a smile, and she says, “Don’t you worry, my sweet sister-in-law. We are going to get to the bottom of this.”

And I know, then, that I’ve made a terrible mistake. All those years of planning, all those careful moves I’d made, and I’d missed a crucial factor: Ani. Like everyone else, I never even spared a thought for her. I assumed that I was the only predator around, when all this while, there was another more dangerous creature in the family, and now she’s standing right in front of me, smiling a smile that says:I got you.

27

Jane

Every day feels like a dream. Okay, granted, it’s only been two days since Ted and I had our session with Kathryn, but it feels like something huge has shifted. After that session, I went to the bathroom and cried until my eyes ran out of tears, then I just dry-sobbed until I was completely and utterly empty. I thought of myself as a little kid, and myself as a teen, and myself in my twenties and now, thirties, the whole time believing that I was a sociopath just because I happened to take some stupid online quizzes that told me I was. Just because I thought I was smart enough to do the work of trained psychologists. Just because I had social anxiety and didn’t know how to deal with it. I spent the next hour or so going through my memories, reliving all the social interactions I could think of and identifying all those feelings of apathy and anger for what they truly were—fear and anxiety. How could I have been so wrong about myself? I looked up antisocial personality disorder, and this time, I saw many, many traits that didn’t fit mypersonality. Traits that I had dismissed years ago, telling myself that of course I wouldn’t have all the symptoms of sociopathy, that I was an individual and not a statistic.

Surprisingly, Ted had left me to cry for as long as I wanted, and only when I came out of the bathroom of my own accord did he approach me, with a plate of cheese and crackers and a glass of wine. He gave me a hesitant smile and said, “Thought you might be hungry.”

And I looked at my husband and didn’t hate him.

We spent the rest of the day in Central Park, just walking through the lush greenery holding hands and talking about anything and everything. He asked me how I felt, and I told him “Like a mess.” But after a beat, I added, “But also hopeful.” And that was enough for him. And it was enough for me too.

The next day, we went and did the tourist thing. Went to the Statue of Liberty, got the hats, went up the Empire State Building. We didn’t kiss or hug—we weren’t ready for that yet—but we held hands, and I snapped my rubber band whenever I felt angry and I reminded myself it wasn’t anger but fear that I was feeling. And he snapped his rubber band whenever he talked over me, and then gave me a sheepish smile and said, “Wow, I do that a lot, huh?” After a full day of this, I was tired but like I said, hopeful.

We’re in the midst of packing up for the airport when there’s a knock on the door. I immediately know something’s wrong, because it’s not the kind of knock that precedes the words, “Room service.” It’s the kind of insistent knock that precedes the words, “Open up, we know you’re in there!”

In fact, what the person opposite the door says is worse. “Jane Morgan? It’s Detective Howe. Please open the door.”

Detective Howe. Why’s she here? The old anger resurfaces and I snap the rubber band, but knowing that the emotion is actually fear doesn’t make me feel any better in this moment. Ted looks at me with brows raised, his face largely unconcerned. “You okay?” he says.

I nod. I am okay, I remind myself. There’s absolutely no reason why I wouldn’t be okay. No reason at all. I didn’t do anything wrong.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I flash him a small smile and head for the door, taking a deep inhale before opening it. “Hi, Detective.”

She doesn’t return my polite smile. Instead, she frowns at the scene behind my shoulder. “Are you leaving town?”

“Uh. Yeah? We’re flying back to the Bay Area today.”

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