“Don’t touch him!” Susan shouted, pointing Joyce’s gun at her.
Joyce turned to her coolly. “Stop waving that thing around. You’re going to hurt someone. Again.”
Susan didn’t move. The barrel remained pointed at Joyce’s chest.
Simon turned back to his patient.
Joyce figured there was no harm in taking a moment to explain what needed to happen next. “Susan killed Trina,” she began.
Simon ignored her. “I need clean towels. Thread. A sterilized needle.” He barked out the orders like he was in his surgery.
Nobody moved. Susan looked expectantly at Joyce. Laura stared at the ground.
Joyce continued, letting her eyes fall on Laura. “And Laura killed Dermot.”
“What?” Susan flinched.
She thought about Susan poking the gun between her ribs earlier.
“Why would I kill Dermot? I was in love with him. He’s the father of my baby.” Laura walked over to the kitchen counter and started rattling around in the drawers.
“What are you doing?” Joyce asked.
“I’m looking for a needle and thread.” Laura bit the words between her teeth.
“You killed my brother?” Susan wavered on her feet. She gave a quick glance to Joyce and then leaned back against the kitchen counter. “What am I going to do?”
“Why else would anyone kill him?” Joyce’s feet hurt. She should have worn more comfortable shoes. She sat down on the couch, which was tilted back with its cheap frame. Her knees bumped up above her waist, so Joyce stood up again.
“I don’t know. Drugs. Revenge. Irritation.” Laura came back to Simon with a plastic hotel sewing kit, a roll of paper towels, and a lighter. She snapped the lighter open and brought out the flame, running the needle through until it burned an angry red.
Laura passed the materials to Simon, who snatched them without a word. He kept his focus on his patient. This time.
“Irritation?” Joyce echoed. “What about jealousy?”
“Well, if it’s jealousy, then why wouldn’t it be you? Or your husband? Or Addy, even?”
“Because none of us were in love with him.” Joyce only loved one person, and he was slowly killing the woman underneath him.
“What about the initials in the tree trunk, by the trailhead Dermot always liked? The initials were J.L. It must stand for Joyce…” Laura’s thoughts trailed off.
There was a long pause where no one spoke.
“Joyce Lynch. That’s her maiden name.” Simon leaned back on his heels. A neat incision with black stitching covered the left side of Addy’s shoulder. He took a deep breath and leaned down to listen to his patient’s breathing. His eyes locked on Joyce’s. “I think she’s going to make it.”
A glimmer touched his face. “I did it,” he said quietly to his wife.
“So you were in love with Dermot.” Laura pointed a finger at Joyce.
“No, no I wasn’t. It was just a stupid carving, something we did after a day spent outside on the trails. Playing out fantasies. Being passionate. It was something silly.” Joyce thought about the other passionate things they’d done.
“I’d thought it meant he was in love with me.” Laura’s brow furrowed as she spoke.
“The only person Dermot loved was himself.” Joyce couldn’t believe she had to remind everyone of this.
“Is she going to be okay?” Susan asked.
Joyce snapped her attention back to the woman with the gun. She couldn’t tell if Susan was hoping Addy would live or die. Joyce wasn’t sure which outcome was more likely from her husband’s frantic treatment.
Simon silently held his fingers to Addy’s wrist on her uninjured side, taking her pulse. He frowned, then stood to move past Susan and wash his bloody hands at the sink in the small kitchen.
Joyce could have screamed at him for moving so close—within grabbing distance—of Susan.
Susan, who’d killed Trina. Susan, who’d stolen Joyce’s gun and shot Addy. All because she was a dissatisfied wife and mother.
Figure it out, she wanted to scream at Susan. We’re all miserable in our little lives. Figure out what makes you just a small bit happier and do it.
Susan stared ahead. Joyce could almost see the wheels turning in her brain.
Having Simon show up was unfortunate, but Joyce could work with this. Her eyes trained on the lighter, considering her next move.
Originally, she’d planned to bring Addy here with Laura and Susan to have a supposed big meet-up about Dermot and all his faults. Addy would be horrified after Victor’s visit to her office, and once Joyce pulled out the gun she knew Laura and Susan would have to listen to her instructions just as carefully.
Joyce saw Laura go into Dermot’s room that night, after Trina left. She’d followed Trina that evening, as she’d been in the habit of doing over the past year. Sometimes to follow Simon during his surveillance of Trina’s life. Sometimes just to feel a hidden control over the woman who was ruining hers. Joyce stayed at the opposite end of the hall, but in view of Dermot’s door, even after Trina left, because she didn’t want to admit to herself that she was jealous of Trina in a way she’d never been jealous of her husband.
Trina had to ruin everything, even Joyce’s fun.
If she’d known Laura was going to kill Dermot, Joyce would have stepped from out of the shadows and put herself between the girl and her lover. Dermot was promiscuous, but he was sweet in his way.
He didn’t deserve to die. Not from Joyce’s perspective, at least.
As it stood, she’d left after she saw Laura go into the hotel room. Joyce had thought there was no point in staying. She’d thought she already knew the ending.
Joyce had also suspected Susan was the one who killed Trina. She’d asked Victor to do some checking up on Dermot when she first realized both she and Simon were sleeping with him—one can never be too careful about potential blackmail—and Victor had uncovered Dermot’s lingering family connections, including an older sister with a history of institutionalization at a mental hospital. Meeting Susan at the nail salon had been a magnificent stroke of luck and meant Joyce didn’t need to track Susan down herself and lure her to town.
After that, it was easy for Joyce to see an ending to this year of hell.
Technically, she hadn’t needed to include Addy in all of this—what did the girl know about Joyce’s life or have to do with Trina and Tom? And Addy’s only mistake with Dermot was sleeping with him. But then Joyce noticed Addy’s growing interest in Trina, and Addy was the one who discovered Trina’s body. There was no way to be certain Addy didn’t know about Joyce and Simon’s double-dipping with Dermot, or what Trina may have told her about Simon’s accident with Tom. It would be so easy to wipe the slate clean entirely without her in the mix too.
Plus, controlling other people was an adrenaline rush like no other. Just like she would tell Susan, if she would only listen: You need to make your own happiness in this life.
Every woman for herself.
Simon and Joyce could start their life without any reminiscences of their past mistakes, and anyone who would connect them to Trina would be dead. As would anyone who could remind Simon about Dermot.
Susan had been the perfect scapegoat for Joyce’s plan.
And she still was.
