Marisol nodded. “Yeah. She did. Anyway, I found out about it. I knew about all his girls. I tried to keep tabs. I was waiting for a good blackmail opportunity, but it never seemed right.”
Connie’s hands shot out, pushing Marisol violently. Stumbling back, Marisol nearly went over the ledge. Her feet scrabbled to gain purchase, the mud disappearing beneath her in rapid fashion. Josie leapt toward her, falling onto her stomach, and grabbing both of Marisol’s wrists. The stiches in her leg burned. “Help me,” she shouted to Gretchen.
Gretchen knelt on the ground, trying to find a place on the ledge that wouldn’t give way and reached over, helping Josie to pull Marisol back onto the ledge. Once she was safely back over, Marisol sat on her rear, chest heaving. She glared at Connie. “What is your problem?”
Connie pointed an accusing finger at her. “My problem? My problem is that you’re a lying, conniving bitch with no backbone!”
“Oh piss off, Connie, with your perfect marriage and your perfect kids and your charitable foundation. You make me sick. Always judging everything.”
Josie and Gretchen stood, brushing the mud from their jeans, positioning themselves closer to Connie in case she tried to knock Marisol into the water again. Josie tried to ignore the pain in her thigh.
Hysterical laughter bubbled up from Connie’s throat. “Me? Judging you? You gave your kid up. You covered up her murder! You slept with Silas.”
“You slept with Silas too.”
Connie shook her head as if to shake off the accusation. “You did all this and then you used my foundation to keep up the lie. That could ruin our lives if it gets out!”
Marisol heaved herself to her feet. “You’re the one talking about going to the police. Well, here we are! With the police.”
“You’re a criminal, Mar. You could have left Kurt decades ago. Instead, you let him take advantage of girl after girl. You let him beat you. You let him sleep with your own daughter!”
“I didn’t let him beat me. Jeez, Connie. Here you go again, judging the rest of us through the lens of your perfect, easy life. You think it’s a simple thing to divorce someone who has nearly killed you on more than one occasion? And for your information, I didn’t let Kurt sleep with Beverly!” Marisol shouted. “It just happened, and I confronted him. I never told him who she was or how I even knew her. I just said I’d seen them together and that I’d followed her and found out she was a high school student. We had the fight to end all fights. He broke my wrist. I knew he wasn’t going to stop seeing her and the whole thing was just too gross—”
Connie said, “So you drank until you forgot about it?”
“No, I asked Vera to intervene, to talk to Beverly.”
“But Beverly was already furious with Vera, resentful,” Josie cut in. “She thought Vera was hiding her father’s identity from her.”
“Well, she was,” Marisol said. “But yeah, Beverly wasn’t about to listen. Then she got pregnant. Vera and I were trying to figure out what to do. I knew that Kurt would not want that baby. He never wanted children. I knew it would end in disaster. We didn’t know what to do and then he killed her. Vera ran off. She came to me. She was terrified and upset. A complete mess. She wanted to go to the police.”
“But you convinced her not to.”
“I couldn’t risk it. What if my secret came out?”
“Vera had brought Beverly up as her own daughter,” Josie said. “She just went along with it?”
“Not at first,” Marisol said. “It took a lot of convincing to get her to go along with my plan, but she did. I told her that Kurt would kill us both if we tried going to the police—or if she went to the police without me, he’d bury her, literally and figuratively. I offered her a life of luxury. All she had to do was shut up, take my money, sit on her ass with her cat, and watch TV.”
“Until Beverly’s body was found.”
Marisol said, “We never knew what he did with it. When Vera saw it on the news, she came back. She took an Uber or something. Showed up on my doorstep. I don’t know what she was thinking.”
“She was thinking that it was time to do the right thing.”
“And Kurt killed her for it,” Marisol said.
“No,” Josie said. “He didn’t. He had no idea she was even still alive. He never even knew she’d witnessed the murder. She didn’t come to him and tell him she would finally come clean. She came to you, and she said she was going to talk. Tell the police everything. Every last detail.”
Connie whimpered. “You killed Vera?”
Marisol turned back to her friend and stared at her for a long beat. From the corner of her eye, Josie saw Marisol’s hands disappear into her jacket pockets again.
“Marisol, stop!” Gretchen cried, but it was too late.
Her right hand pulled a pistol from her pocket. Before she even pointed it at Connie, Josie had her own weapon unholstered and aimed at Marisol’s chest. Gretchen stepped up beside Josie. She, too, had her weapon trained on Marisol.
“Stop,” Josie told her. “Don’t move.”
Marisol took a single half-step toward Connie and pressed the barrel of the gun into Connie’s forehead. Connie’s voice was high and squeaky, almost incredulous, as if what was happening wasn’t real. “Mar, stop! Do you even know how to use that thing?”
Marisol nudged Connie’s head with the barrel of the gun. “I do. Guess who taught me? My loving husband. Ironic, isn’t it? He wanted me to be able to defend myself at home while he was traveling. I hoped one day I’d be able to use it on him, and I did.”
She’d also intended to kill Connie when she brought her out here, Josie realized.
When Marisol didn’t lower the gun, Connie cried, “Mar, what are you doing?”
Gretchen said, “Marisol, calm down. Put your weapon down. There’s no need for this.”
Marisol rolled her eyes. “No need for this? You’re the police. I just told you everything. You think I’m just going to let you slap some cuffs on me and march me to jail?”
Josie said, “You’re outgunned.”
Marisol laughed and needled Connie’s skin with the gun barrel. “Oh really? You think one of you can shoot me before I kill Connie? Isn’t that a whole thing with cops? Aren’t you supposed to preserve life or something? I’ve got a hostage. Don’t you have to negotiate with me?”
“We can talk,” Josie told her. “But not like this.”
A full-body shudder engulfed Connie’s body. Her face was so pale it looked translucent. She said, “She’s going to kill me. If she killed Vera and Kurt, she’ll kill me.”
Marisol didn’t deny it.
In her periphery, Josie saw Gretchen inching closer to Connie. She tried to keep Marisol’s attention on her. “Killing Kurt was a lot easier than killing Vera though, wasn’t it?”
Marisol stared at Josie with narrowed eyes.
Gretchen stepped closer to Connie.
Josie kept talking. “Did Kurt lie for you? He was your alibi for Vera’s murder. Did he know you had killed her?”
Marisol shook her head. “I told him I was going for a run that morning. He had no clue. Then someone from the police called to ‘verify’ my alibi. He said I was home because he assumed I’d just taken a jog right here in the neighborhood but when he got the call about coming to the station to talk about Beverly and Vera Urban, he knew something was up. That’s what started our argument.”