Chapter 18 - BRENDA’S FINAL CONFESSION
Brenda came to see me one last time before leaving New York.
She looked nothing like the woman in the crimson gown.
No designer dress.
No perfect makeup.
No smug smile.
She placed a small velvet box on my desk.
Margaret’s emerald necklace.
“You kept it?”
“She gave it to me after the party.”
“Why?”
“She said once you were gone, it would eventually belong to me anyway.”
I opened the box.
The emeralds glittered beneath the office lights.
“So why return it?”
Brenda shrugged.
“It was never mine.”
I studied her.
“Neither was Andrew.”
She gave a humorless laugh.
“I know that now.”
She sat down.
“There’s something I never told the investigators.”
My expression changed.
“What?”
“The first time Andrew kissed me, he talked about you afterward.”
I remained silent.
“He said you were smarter than him.”
“He sounded angry about it.”
Brenda looked toward the window.
“I should have understood.”
“What?”
“A man who resents the woman he loves will eventually resent the woman who helps him betray her.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Brenda continued.
“At first, I thought winning meant making him choose me.”
“Then he did.”
“And?”
“I realized I had won a man capable of doing to me exactly what he did to you.”
She pushed a phone toward me.
“There’s one recording left.”
“What recording?”
“Andrew talking to Margaret.”
“When?”
“The night before the party.”
I played it.
Andrew’s voice filled the room.
I want Mariana gone.
Margaret answered.
Then be prepared for the company to fall.
Andrew laughed.
It won’t.
She needs me more than I need her.
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The central lie of our marriage.
He truly believed I stayed because I needed him.
Not because I loved him.
Brenda stood.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at her.
“For helping frame you.”
“For standing there when he hit you.”
“For smiling.”
Her voice weakened.
“I wanted you to look small.”
I nodded.
“You succeeded for about thirty seconds.”
She almost smiled.
“What happens to me now?”
“That depends on the investigators.”
“And you?”
I looked around my office.
“I go back to work.”
Brenda walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
“You know what Andrew said when he realized the accounts were frozen?”
I waited.
“He said, ‘She wouldn’t dare.’”
Brenda opened the door.
May you like
“I think that was his real problem.”
“He never understood that you could.”
