***A/N: The comments left on stories do not necessarily represent the views of the author. If you are triggered by talks of self-harm, depression, or related mental health concerns, please avoid the comments in this chapter.
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"Matthew, what are you talking about?"
"He killed her, Aubrey," he said with tears in his eyes.
"But wh-what? Wait." I pressed my palm against my forehead in an attempt to slow my mind from racing. "Do you mean some kind of accident or—?"
"No! I mean . . . maybe. I don't know for sure," he said while wiping his cheek. "But I know what I saw the night she died."
"What did you see? Start from the beginning."
He wiped his cheeks and collected himself, his eyes looking off into the distance as if he were watching it happen. "Mom got really sick when she was pregnant with the twins and she almost died when she had them. She got better, but she never fully recovered. She'd get tired easily, she'd still have days where she wouldn't be able to get out of bed, and some weeks where the doctors would have to stay at the house. A couple of times, they had to take her to the hospital."
His words bubbled up memories of my own. "I'm so sorry."
"But that day was so different. For the first time in months, she felt good. She was able to spend the whole day with us and have fun with the twins. It was like I had my mom back." He wiped his eyes. "We were all so happy. Except . . . Dad wasn't. He would barely talk to anyone the whole day. He looked pissed off, didn't want to do anything with us at all. And that night . . . I saw them."
His brow twisted again. His eyes filled with tears. I rubbed my palms against his arms in an attempt to comfort him.
"They never fought. Ever. He couldn't be upset at her for anything until that night," he said. "I couldn't hear what they were saying but he was mad, squeezing her on the arms forcing her to look at him and stuff. And then the next morning . . . she was dead." He started sobbing. Pulling him into a hug, I let him cry against my shoulder. "They took her out of the house in a body bag. He didn't even cry. He just stood there and watched her body leave, then he went back to work."
My skin crawled. None of it made sense to me but I owed it to him to listen without judgment. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because when I told Mildred, she said I didn't know what I saw. Like I was too young to understand what was going on," he cried. "I don't know if he did it on purpose or if it was an accident, but I know he killed her. Please, Aubrey. You have to believe me."
I didn't know what I thought, but I knew what he needed me to say. "I believe you."
He hugged me again. "Maybe I don't know what happened, but I know him. I know he's never cared about anyone but her, and never let anyone tell him what he should or shouldn't do. Until you," he said. He gripped me tighter. "If you love him . . . If he falls for you . . . I'm afraid he won't fire you if you make him mad. He'll hurt you. Or worse."
I felt sick.
. . .
I was able to calm Matthew down enough to function before he left with his friends.
It was too much to process, too much conflicting information. The man I knew was complicated, yet in many ways predictable. As much as I didn't know about what happened to Lara, nothing he did made me think he would harm her in any way. I even had a hard time believing he would have hurt her the way he hurt me—mercilessly but consensually.
Whether I believed Matthew or not, I couldn't brush it off before I knew more.
"You can watch from here," the therapy administrator told me. "This is just the initial assessment, but you may be able to pick up on some more effective ways to communicate with them on some of the topics you were concerned with."
I forced myself out of my stupor for a moment. "Okay, great. Thank you." She left me alone in the room.
I watched them through the window, their rooms separate but filled with a similar swath of toys. Sebastian chose a coloring set with a pad of paper. Tabitha assembled her blocks into what looked to be a castle. They were rarely separated, but when they were, the differences in their personalities were stark. Tabitha was already blabbing away. Sebastian, on the other hand, had yet to warm up.
"Who told you that you'd be spending time with me today?" the therapist asked Sebastian.
"My Daddy and Aubrey."
"Is Aubrey not your mommy?" He didn't respond. "Where is your mommy then?"
"She's not here anymore."
"What do you mean by that? Where is she if she's not here?"
"She died."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Can you tell me about her?" He shrugged again. "You can tell me anything. Big or small," she encouraged him. "What did she used to do with you? What did she look like? Or maybe even, what did she smell like?"
He kept coloring and didn't look up. "I loved her a whole bunch. I love Aubrey, too. Is that okay?"
"Of course that's okay. We love lots of people in our life, don't we?"
"Yeah."
The tear fell from my eye. I was equally touched to know how he felt about me and pained that he couldn't remember his own mother. There were too many emotions for me to process.
I wiped my cheek and turned to Tabitha's room, bracing myself for my heart to be broken all over again.
"What is your favorite subject in school?" the other therapist asked Tabitha.
"I like French class," she answered. "It's fun."
"What is so fun about it?"
"We use a lot of French words in ballet class—I like that one, too. My Aubrey speaks French with Daddy all the time. It's fun when they do that."
"Your Aubrey? Who is that?" she asked.
"The lady who brought me today. She's supposed to be my nanny but I like her way more than that. I think my Daddy does, too. Which is good."
"Why is that good?"
"Because she makes Daddy love us more," she said with a smile. My brow tensed in confusion.
"What makes you say that?"
"He got sad when Mommy died and he didn't want to see us as much. He comes home a lot and spends time with us more now that she's here. He even saved me yesterday!"
"Saved you?"
"Yeah! When I jumped in the water! Aubrey said he would come get me if he loved me and he did."
My jaw dropped.
My mind spun until I felt dizzy. I sat down and hung my head in my hands, trying to make sense of the senseless. She jumped? She was willing to drown herself for his attention? The pounding in my chest and my ears was so loud, I didn't hear the rest of her conversation. I wasn't sure I wanted to anyway.
Only when the door opened a few minutes later was I able to compose myself. "Hi there," the administrator greeted me.
"Hi."
"So, things went really well today but I think it would be great to have them come in again for another assessment," she said. "While they don't seem to be showing signs of trauma, it's apparent they do not have a great understanding of what their mother's death means."
I swallowed hard, keeping my thoughts to myself. "What should we do about that?"
"It will take some communication from the adults in their lives, providing explanations, allowing them to ask questions. We go over best practices with parents after our assessments, but I think it would be good to include you as well. They both seem very fond of you, so being available as a resource to them would be very helpful," she praised me while giving me a deeper sense of guilt. "How did she pass?"
I crossed my arms and tried to fight off my fear. "I'm not sure, actually."
"Oh? Well maybe if you are able to get their father to come with you next time, that should help us discern the best way to broach the subject with them."
"Yeah," I agreed. "I'll talk to him."
. . .
The night after the twins' therapy session, I laid in bed awake. Every creak of the house sent a chill over my skin. It had been months since I felt so uncomfortable in the house—since I felt like I didn't know the people I now considered my family.
How could I have gone this long not knowing Tabby was capable of what she did? How did Matthew manage not to tell me before now? How could I have gotten so close to Augustine and not have seen the guilt he hid behind his pain?
The way he couldn't look at their wedding picture he kept in his drawer, the way he avoided talking about how he lost her while being so open about her in any other context—even the way he couldn't stay in their old bedroom yet never moved any personal items into his new one.
Whatever happened, it happened in that room.
It felt like I had just fallen asleep when the sun began to shine through my window. The glare through the blinds fell across my face. Rather than fighting it, I got up and got dressed, regretting what I knew I would do next.
A quick google search led me to three videos of how to open a skeleton key lock. All of which were easy to replicate. My breath became ragged as I walked down the forbidden hallway. When I reached the ornate doors, I fought off my fear and readied my tools.
I bent the end of the piece of the metal hanger and jimmied it into the lock. It knocked into place. I added the other piece of wire and turned it carefully until . . . click.
The door cracked open on its own. Light spilled onto the carpet beside me. I stayed in my crouched position, my heart pounding. As I looked inside, I expected to feel ashamed for encroaching on something meant to be private—but the reality was worse.
A small foyer led to the main room, but inside it was nothing but a bed. A light layer of dust covered everything, tufts of it floating through the air in the sunlight peeping through the tall windows' heavy drapes. The gold-color sheets were disheveled as if someone had just been laying there. It looked as if nothing had moved, as if time froze the moment her body left the room. The memories were undoubtedly too painful, but for three years to have passed . . . for it to remain in this state was unnerving.
When I felt able to move, I stood up, spotting the shallow entryway table with a collection of frames sitting atop it. Inside, familiar faces smiled back.
The twins looked so small—Matthew too—as they sat in the living room with their parents. Mrs. Montgomery, beautiful, smiling while the sunlight lit up her blonde hair. She looked different than she did in the Paris photo. Her hair was still up in a similar, carefree style, but her face was more hollow. Knowing she was pregnant in the other photo answered some questions, but not the most important.
I set the frame down and saw that the drawer was ajar. It opened without a fight, and inside it was a journal. I lifted it from its home and opened it gingerly.
Photos spilled out. I tried to catch them as they fluttered onto the table and the floor.
I picked them up. There were five photos total, each one a picture of only the two of them. They were young. Augustine's hair darker, Lara with her hair undone and not a stitch of makeup. She was beautiful without trying. They were always smiling, one of them always looking at the other. In the last one, they were lying together in a bed, Augustine covered his eyes while displaying a wide, laughing smile.
I realized that I didn't know either of the people in these pictures.
He didn't smile like that anymore. Not that I had seen. Even though he smiled more now than when I first met him, it was nothing like this. This was a smile free of guilt, free of grief.
This was the smile of a man in love. The kind of love I hadn't experienced. The kind I had only seen from afar.
It didn't make sense. Or, maybe I didn't want it to.
. . .
I couldn't eat that night or all the next day. My stomach was in knots, my body sore from constant anxiety.
Sebastian read his book aloud. I sat curled up in his bed next to him, stroking my hand over his delicate locks. I looked over and found Tabitha already passed out in her bed. It was painful to know the playful, little girl had been hiding such dark thoughts, but she was young and misguided. The last thing she needed was for someone else to abandon her.
"I think it's time for you to go to sleep," I told him. His pout was his only form of protest. I climbed out, tucked him in, and turned off the lamp. "Goodnight, Bastian."
"Goodnight."
I kissed his forehead and left the room. My stomach rumbled. Food. Whether you want it or not, you still need it. I went down the stairs to grab something small from the kitchen but stopped dead in my tracks.
Augustine.
His dark suit made him look sinister in the shadows cast by the moonlight. He stepped further into the dim light and I could see his grin. I continued down the stairs toward him, my nausea returning.
"You're back," I said.
"I am."
"Already," I whimpered. My urge to cry returned suddenly and intensely.
"Yes." He pulled my face closer a pressed a kiss to my lips.
I pulled him closer, making the kiss linger. With his lips against mine, I tried to remind myself of the man he was—tried to convince myself he wasn't the monster I was led to believe.
Our lips separated and I could barely look at him. "I need to talk to you about something," I said.
He grinned. "Alright," he agreed with a seductive tone. He didn't have the slightest idea.
He pulled me with him in the direction of his office. A shiver crept up my spine. My stomach turned when I thought of the words I needed to say to him.
Once we were inside the room, he closed the door and pushed me back against it. He lifted my wrists and pinned them beside my head. My breath became choppy as my body danced between the fear and excitement it gave me.
"I need to feel you. Right now," he whispered into my ear before nipping it with his teeth. "I need you wrapped around me."
He kissed me hungrily, his hands sliding from my wrist down my sides. He pulled up the hem of my dress to reach under it and start to take off my panties. I shivered when he bent down to drag them down my legs. I felt the tears building.
He stood and I tried not to look him in the eye, afraid he would see my fear. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders to try to slow him down, to try to hold onto the Augustine he was before I ruined his image. His teeth sank into my neck, and his hands dropped to his fly. "Stop," I whispered. He treated it the way he always did. "Red!"
He dropped his hands from me immediately and stepped away. "What's wrong? What did I do?"
"Nothing. I . . . I need to talk to you."
His brow furrowed with a mix of confusion and worry. "So you used your safe word?" he asked me. "What is it you need to discuss so badly?"
I hugged myself, subconsciously shielding myself from him. "Matthew told me something."
"And what might that be?"
I looked at him, the tears clouding my eyes. "He thinks he saw . . . He thinks you did something," I watched as his eyes narrowed into a glare and felt my brow stitch. "I don't want to believe him. I want him to be wrong. But I can't know for sure unless you tell me, and if you don't tell me, I won't know what to believe. I won't know what to do," I rambled as my vision clouded.
"Spit it out!"
I stared him in the eyes and a tear fell down my cheek. "He thinks you killed Lara," I said, my voice pinched and shaky. His expression faded from confusion to something unreadable. His eyes dropped from mine. "But I know you didn't. You loved her. You would never do anything to hurt her, ever. There is absolutely no way you could have done that." He crossed his arms while painful silence settled between us. ". . . Right?"
He wouldn't look my way. He only stared ahead of him with a furrowed brow and shook his head—not in denial, but in disbelief. His lips parted but he never answered.
My heart dropped to my feet.
"Did you kill Lara?!" I shouted through my tears. He looked at me again, but still, he was unable to find his words. "Oh my God," I cried.
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A/N: Thank you for reading! Please be sure to vote, comment, and add to your library if you want more!