CHAPTER 37
Thirty years ago
Charlotte ran as fast as her condition allowed, one hand holding her bulging belly. She traversed her yard and the two neighboring properties. Their neighborhood was young, with empty lots scattered throughout the subdivision. One day, custom homes with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Morro Bay would sprawl across the open space. Tonight, they were empty and dark under a moonless sky. The dirt ground was treacherous.
Her eyes tracked the ground. One misstep and she’d fall. She could twist an ankle, or worse, lose her baby. She reached the end of the continent where land disappeared into the ocean and inched her way down the rocky berm. Standing in the knee-deep tide, he was right where the note he’d left taped to the refrigerator said he’d be. The ocean roared, smelling of brine and rotten fish. Moderate waves crashed into his legs, soaking his pants and spraying his back.
“Dwight, what are you doing?” she yelled over the ocean’s anger.
Something struggled at his feet. The water receded slightly, and she noticed he had one foot propped on a rock. Or was it a fish? Whatever it was, it flopped around, as big as a seal.
“Teaching our neighbor a lesson.” Dwight yanked up whatever was in the water. A very drenched, very beaten-up Benton St. John gasped for air. He blinked at her with one eye. The other was swollen shut. Salt water dripped off his eyelashes and watered-down blood off his chin from a split lip. The gash was deep. Dwight hadn’t removed his Freemason’s ring when he punched him.
“Help me.” Benton’s voice was hoarse, tearing through a raw throat. He probably swallowed a lot of salt water. If Dwight didn’t kill him, that certainly would.
“Think about what you’re doing, Dwight,” she pleaded. “Consider the impact on our community. Your campaign! He’s a schoolteacher. He goes missing, people will notice.”
“Think of the impact that will have on me.” He points at her middle. “I’m running for Congress, for Christ’s sake. I can’t be connected to anything scandalous. We can’t be connected.” Dwight had his sights on the Capitol, even the White House. All eyes would be on them, the perfect couple, with their two brunette, jade-eyed children, a boy and a girl.
But Charlotte had gone and ruined it and gotten pregnant. Dwight had gotten snipped right after she gave birth to Lucas and, until her, Benton had never slept with anyone since he married Jean, who was on birth control. In their haste to scratch that itch burning between them, she and Benton had forgotten to use a condom. And Dwight was positive people would know the kid wasn’t his when he, or she, started to look more like the man living down the street than the man Charlotte was married to. There would be no mistaking Benton’s auburn hair.
“How did you find out it was him?” She gestured at Benton, who struggled in Dwight’s grasp. Her husband had him in a choke hold.
“Our little princess, of course.”
“Olivia?”
“She tells me everything, Charlotte. She tells me about the visitors you’ve shown real estate to above the garage. Did you clip your lawn for all of them?” He sneered.
Charlotte grimaced. Dammit. She should have bribed the kids to keep their little mouths shut.
“Benton boy came sniffing. You weren’t here but he was sure curious about that babe in your belly.” The one she refused to abort. She couldn’t kill her own blood.
“It’s not like you don’t sleep around when you’re away on business,” she accused.
“I don’t throw it in your face.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of her swollen belly. She was four months along. It was her third child, so she looked like a house. She’d better not be pregnant with twins. Dammit, Benton. She should ask if twins ran in his family.
“Don’t you, though? I wash your clothes. I smell their perfume. I see their lipstick stains on your shirts. How many have there been, Dwight? Benton and I slept together once. Once!” she shrieked.
Benton struggled, almost slipping free before Dwight hooked his ankle and Benton face planted in the water.
“You can’t kill him,” she tried to reason.
“I wasn’t planning to kill anyone, but you’ve left me no choice.”
“No, I mean you can’t drown him. He’s competed in several Ironmans. He’s trained to hold his breath. He’ll resist you for as long as he can.” Apparently, Benton was some sort of prodigy when it came to competitive swimming. He broke records at his university. It was one of the trivia bits he shared when she first met him and his wife. But if Dwight doesn’t do something soon, someone is bound to stumble upon them.
Dwight makes an exasperated noise. “I’m doing this for you, Charlotte. Don’t you see? I’m trying to curb your appetite before it gets out of control.”
“My appetite? What about yours? It’s just as bad.”
“I’m discreet,” he argued, and she knew he was right. He was subtle with his indiscretions, and this was a lesson she should take to heart if they wanted a life in the public eye.
Benton thrashed in the water and Dwight jerked him up again. “He won’t die.”
“Drowning isn’t as quick as they make it in the movies, honey. Let him go.”
“So he can run to the police and report us? You’re in on this now. Think, Charlotte. You’ll lose this life we’ve built together. You want more money and more prestige than you could ever inherit from your daddy, and I can give that to you. I will give that to you. We’ll do this together, sugar. Don’t let this fool take that away from us.” He gave Benton a good shake and Dwight’s gaze dropped to her hand. “What’s with the knife?”
Charlotte looked at the kitchen knife she’d forgotten to put down after she read Dwight’s note. “I was cutting onions.” There was still translucent skin on the edge of the blade. Her husband was right. She did want that life he could give her. An illustrious, prominent life they could only achieve together, with his charisma and her connections. She knew people, wealthy people, through her parents. But thanks to Dwight’s penchant for violence and her forgetfulness (The fucking condom!), not to mention her refusal to get rid of the baby (She was Catholic, after all.), Benton was now in the way. He would report Dwight to the authorities and see her as an accomplice. They would be ruined. Her dear children would grow up without their mommy and daddy. She’d give birth locked up in a cage like an animal. They couldn’t have that.
She plunged the knife she’d just used to chop up dinner into Benton’s gut. She’d recently sharpened the knife and the blade went in smoothly. His eyes widened in shock, and for a split second she felt mirth dancing in hers. Fascinating. Slicing through flesh is like carving a chicken.
She stabbed him again and again and again as Dwight watched on with horrified interest, as if he was stunned his wife could commit such a monstrous act, until he snapped out of his stupor and bellowed, “Enough!” He dragged Benton’s limp, lifeless body farther into the ocean. They watched the tide take her lover away.
“We need to get rid of the knife,” Dwight said when he returned to her side.
“But I have to finish dinner.” She rinsed off the blade and her hand in the cold water.