However, when Ryan offered his credit card at the register, Penny nearly gasped with relief. She made a noncommittal noise of protest, but he waved away her offer to split the bill. Clutching her bowl, Penny followed Ryan outside to a shaded patio. They took seats opposite each other at a warped, rusty table and equally misshapen café-style chairs. They were blissfully alone.
“Is it…” Ryan glanced at Penny’s stomach. “Is it mine?”
“He,” Penny confirmed. “It’s a boy.”
“If you’re nine months, and I’m counting right…”
“You’re counting right,” she said softly.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” Ryan shoved his spoon into his yogurt and let it sit there. “Did you stop coming to class so I wouldn’t notice?”
“I’m not sure the baby’s yours.”
“But nine months ago…”
Penny dug her spoon into her bowl and took a bite. The edges of the frothy, bright colors were starting to melt into a brownish soup while she waited for poor Ryan to put everything together. He looked incredibly perplexed. He didn’t seem to sort out what Penny was saying until she winced. Then she nodded, and he sat back in his seat. His fingers toyed with the edge of his spoon.
“You think the baby is his.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Ryan eventually sighed. “I suppose that doesn’t matter now.”
“What do you mean?” Penny said. “What doesn’t matter?”
“We can still be together,” Ryan said. “I’ve wanted to be with you since the day we met.”
“But that’s—”
“The other guy isn’t still in the picture, is he?”
“Er, no. He’s not. He’s, ah, dead.”
“So it was Roman.”
“I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry.”
“If there was a chance the baby was mine, you should have come to me, too.”
“I didn’t think the chances were equal!” Penny leaned forward, her hands gripping at the table with her outburst. She recovered, sat back. Continued quietly. “I went to Roman first because I figured there was a bigger chance it was his. I…um…saw him more than you.”
“You hoped it was his.”
“For a moment, maybe. But I was wrong. Very, very wrong.”
“When he died…”
“We weren’t together. I broke things off in October of last year.”
“That’s one short-lived romance with one long-term consequence.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Does your family know? Anyone else?”
“A few friends,” Penny said. “That’s it. My family doesn’t know. I didn’t know how to tell them.”
“We can tell them together.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ryan steeled his face. “Roman might have been an asshole, but that doesn’t mean we all are. If there’s a chance this baby is mine…”
“I don’t know if it is,” she reiterated. “I would have to do a paternity test to know for certain. That’s so embarrassing. I never thought I’d be the type of girl to have to say those words.”
To her surprise, Ryan leaned forward and grasped her hands. He looked into her eyes. “Penny, you’re the type of girl I haven’t stopped thinking about for months. We can try this again, the right way this time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We went on three dates.”
“Sometimes, you just know.”
“And sometimes, you don’t know,” Penny said firmly. “What if this turns out to be Roman’s child?”
Something flashed through Ryan’s eyes. “I don’t need to know for sure. The chance that it’s mine is enough.”
“That’s crazy.”
Before Ryan could respond, Penny hunched forward and gripped the table hard. Ryan’s eyes narrowed in concern.
“Oh shit,” she said. “My water just broke.”
THIRTY-NINE
Four Months After
June 2019
Eliza waited in the same small, concrete room where she’d waited several times before. She’d met with Anne, with Penny, with her lawyers. Her routine was comforting, which was somewhat alarming, considering she was still in prison.
Marguerite’s voice rang quietly through the room. “Eliza?”
Glancing up, Eliza noted the bestselling author looked preened and professional. No more wild hair and wilder accessories. She wore simple black slacks topped by a crisp, white shirt. Her hair had been tamed into a sleek bun.
Eliza smiled across the table, which had the funny side effect of making the author cringe. Finally, Eliza Tate knew the rules of the game.
“Hey,” Marguerite said softly. “How are you?”
Eliza stared directly into Marguerite’s eyes. The funny thing about being arrested for murder was that nothing really scared her anymore.
Marguerite’s eyes flashed as she looked wildly around the room, scanning to see if someone was listening. Maybe they were. Eliza couldn’t be sure. She didn’t care.
“You’ve always been a sucker for a good publicity stunt,” Eliza said. “Getting me arrested for my husband’s murder is your best yet, I’ll admit.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Coming forward after Roman’s death, laying out the pieces of the puzzle for the police—it was a good PR move, I’ll give you that. Get ahead of the rumors. Start playing Marguerite the victim. It’s probably what I would have told you to do.”
“I was just telling the truth.”
“You were playing Nancy Drew for the public,” Eliza said. “Sharing in all those interviews about how my poor business was floundering, and didn’t I need Roman’s life insurance payout to stay afloat? Or maybe I killed him out of rage because he’d gotten one of his students pregnant. You didn’t hold anything back, did you?”
Marguerite swallowed hard but didn’t deny any of it. “If you’re so innocent, why are your fingerprints on the murder weapon?”
“I don’t know,” Eliza said. “Did you put them there? It’s possible, you know. There were two wineglasses missing from my house.”
“Why would I take a wineglass? I have plenty of money.”
“To go with the cake knife,” Eliza said. “It’s possible to transfer fingerprints from one surface to another; I looked up the technique. The prints probably weren’t even usable, but that doesn’t matter, because my DNA would have been on the knife, along with remnants of Roman’s blood, and that’s the really important bit anyway.”
“I hope you realize how far-fetched this all sounds.”
“It’s simple actually. Brilliant. You set me up for it,” Eliza said. “On the afternoon of February 13, you even suggested that I’d kill Roman with a knife. But when I didn’t take your bait, you marched in and did it yourself. You were so sweet to keep me involved, though… leaving all traces of evidence pointing my way.”