“What did he not do?” She pushes her hair back, showing me the scar on her jaw. “See this?”
I nod, surprised. She’s never, ever talked about the scar, and I never dared to ask, assuming it might be a sensitive topic. “Yeah.”
“He and his buddies used to call me Scarface in high school.”
“Ouch.” Although Kim seems cool about the scar now, and nobody would make fun of her about it, the situation had to be terrible when she was younger. The teen years are pure hell. Mine were awful too, all because my family was poor.
“Every time he and his idiot friends saw me, they’d yell, ‘Say hello to my little friend,’ in bad Cuban accents.”
I laugh, but I’m thinking, Douchebags! I wish I could go back in time and hug the younger Kim. “And they lived?”
“Only because it isn’t worth going to jail for. And there were the popular kids.” Her expression turns ugly. “You know the type.”
“No way,” I say. “You had to be popular in school, too. You’re gorgeous.”
She gives me a small smile. “Let’s just say I was a late bloomer.”
Still. She had to have been pretty underneath the gangly awkwardness of puberty, which her immature peers were probably too stupid and shallow to notice. “So why did Salazar lend you to him?”
The knuckles around her fork whiten. “Somehow he’s friendly with Dane—ugh—and he convinced Salazar he really needs a fake date to his ex-wife’s wedding.”
“Do people actually go to their exes’ weddings? I mean, seriously? I thought that only happened in romance novels.”
“Of course not. I mean, yes, I might consider going to an ex’s wedding if I wanted to warn the bride. Or to poison him so he’s permanently impotent.”
My mouth parts. I can totally see Kim doing it. “There’s a poison that does that?”
“I don’t know…but Google does.” She winks.
Our server appears, interrupting our bizarrely morbid conversation. He takes away our appetizer plates and replaces them with our entrées—slow-roasted duck with berry and mushroom sauce. It smells amazing. He also refills our drinks, then leaves. Maybe he caught a whiff of Kim’s plan to find erectile-dysfunction-inducing poison and doesn’t want to stick around a second more than he has to.
“Anyway, back to the topic.” Kim cuts into the duck with more zeal than necessary, apparently not realizing that it can’t fly away. “Wyatt has a child. And it’s this child who needs closure after the divorce, and this wedding is supposed to give it to her. So she knows it’s over between her parents.”
Sympathy stirs for the girl.
“I’m actually thinking about murdering Wyatt. It can’t be that hard to get away with. There are lots of people—potential suspects. Like his ex.”
I let out a shaky laugh at how serious she sounds. “Don’t tell me you’re going to frame his ex.”
“Why not? Serves her right,” Kim mutters.
Oh wow. What’s the story there? “At least do it behind the girl’s back,” I say, unsure how to calm Kim down. “Otherwise you’ll traumatize her.”
Kim nods vigorously. “Sure. She’s better off without her asshole dad.” Then she mutters, “Or her bitch mom.”
“Um… Right.” I can’t think of anything else to say to her angry plan. I know she doesn’t really mean that thing about killing him. At least…I don’t think so. But there’s part of me that disagrees with her assessment about not needing a dad. I wish I’d had one growing up. Even though Mom said he was a great guy who would’ve loved me if he’d known me, the tiny bit of consolation I get from that isn’t enough to make up for the fact that I only had one parent, when everyone else had two.
As we finish lunch, I wonder if I should look for him again. Bradley Brown is going to be hard to locate, even starting with the fact that he was in Dillington over twenty-seven years ago before Facebook and Google tracked people everywhere. But Nate has connections. Maybe he could help…?
I sigh. I probably shouldn’t impose on Nate like that. We just normalized our relationship and decided to make our marriage work. I don’t want to shake things up by asking him to do this and that, making him feel like I’m using him or taking advantage of his network.
Maybe if this were a normal marriage—where he and I were both madly in love and had gone through the entire dating, proposal and wedding process—I might feel different. But for the moment, I should be careful. Trust isn’t love, and it could easily be damaged if both parties aren’t mindful.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Evie
After lunch, Kim drives me to the apartment we used to share. We drop by a bookstore on the way to get some cardboard boxes so I can pack my things.