The other man’s obvious prejudice against her could’ve been blamed for the picture he’d painted. But now that I’ve seen her in the flesh, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s spot on. We’ve already established that she killed her husband. Now I just need to know what it is that she’d done to make my wife so afraid. Really, I just want to know if her relatives were involved in any way and if so, how much.
“Oh, that! After Sterling was gone...” Here she looked at me as if to see what I thought about that, maybe trying to figure out if I had picked up on her slip earlier when she all but admitted to killing him. I didn’t blink, just stared at her with as much disinterest as I could muster while trying hard not to gag at the filth that she is. Demented bitch!
“After he died, there was no one to protect her from me. Do you know he tried convincing everyone that I was a danger to her? Me, the woman who gave birth to her. Even my family was beginning to suspect. Until I made them believe that he was being inappropriate with her, that didn’t go too far, though, because of those friends of his. They all stood by him, and before the rumors could take hold, they were squashed.”
“I wasn’t worried though; there were other ways to deal with him and her. I was thinking of ways I could hurt him. I knew he wouldn’t divorce me because he wanted his precious daughter to have both parents, and he wouldn’t want even a hint of scandal attached to her or his name. That’s how I know that you’re the same. All men of a certain wealth are alike when it comes to that. Isn’t that why you’re here? Isn’t that why you want to claim her spawn that isn’t even yours?”
I’m guessing she’s never seen my son because one look would’ve told her that he’s my carbon copy. I have to remember to thank my wife for that, for protecting our child from this creature from the underbelly of hell. “Anyway, those friends of his must’ve been in his ear because the next thing I knew, he was in my face with talk of divorce.” She started to shake with anger as if twenty years had not passed since that day.
“I would’ve lost everything, his hag of a mother had made me sign a prenup, and he even talked of my mental state, saying that he was going to take the child because I was not able to take care of her. As if I didn’t know that he was throwing me out like garbage for her. He’d used me like some kind of vessel to carry his child and then planned to discard me.”
“Don’t listen to the lies; lots of mothers don’t bond with their babies at first. There was nothing different about me. They just hated me, all of them.” Her eyes grew wild, and I didn’t bother telling her that the baby in question was five by this time. I’m not sure if PPD lasts that long, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.
“He thought he could get rid of me and take the child, but I fixed him, stupid man. Stupid, stupid man.” She walked around the room all but frothing at the mouth. Nothing else about her had changed, which was freaking me out. She still looked like a well-coiffed middle-aged woman of means in her three thousand dollar suit and heirloom jewelry. But her eyes told a whole new story.
I didn’t push her to tell me what I wanted to know but let her ramble on down memory lane. The security camera was, of course, both video and audio, so though I hadn’t lied when I told her that no one else was here with us, this is a one-party consent state, which means I can record her to my heart’s content and use her every word against her in a court of law.
She rambled on about her hate for her dead husband before turning her attention back to Giselle. “After the reading of the will, I knew what I had to do. He’d given her everything in life. No way was I going to allow that bitch to steal what’s mine after his death. But it was ironclad. There was no way for me to get my hands on any of it.”
“The fact that I signed a prenup worked against me. But as long as I still had control of her, I had control of her inheritance, at least for a time. I sent her away. I found the cheapest boarding school that was the farthest away. It was strict, so I knew that even if they found her, none of Sterling’s friends would be allowed to visit. I wanted her to suffer, to be alone like I was after she stole my husband’s love.”