Liv Constantine - The Last Mrs. Parrish

“Sure, ma’am.”

I went up to the fourth floor and found the door marked “Hanson Investigations.” I’d found the agency online, using a computer at the library. I went inside to a small, empty reception area. No one sat behind the desk, but a door behind it opened, and a man walked out. He was younger than I’d expected, clean-cut and kind of cute. He smiled and walked toward me, his hand outstretched.

“Jerry Hanson.”

I shook his hand. “Daphne Bennett,” I said. The chances that he knew Jackson or anyone in our world were slim, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

I followed him into a pleasant room with bright colors. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he took one of the armchairs and indicated I should take the one across from him.

“How can I help you? You sounded pretty shaken up on the phone.”

“I need to find out if someone who’s gotten close to me is who she says she is. I have her fingerprints.” I handed him the bag. “Can you find who they belong to?”

“I can try. I’ll start with a criminal check. If her prints aren’t there, I’ll see if I can reach out to some folks who might be able to tap into private databases where she might have been printed for a job.”

I handed him the newspaper article with her picture. I had circled her face. “I don’t know if this will help. She claims to be from Nebraska, but I don’t know if she made that up. How long will it take before you find anything out?”

He shrugged. “Shouldn’t take more than a few days. If we find a hit, I can put together a full report for you. To be safe, let’s say next Wednesday.”

I stood. “Thanks so much. Text me if there’s any delay; otherwise, I’ll see you on Wednesday. Is noon good?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that works. Listen, Mrs. Bennett, be careful, you hear?”

“Don’t worry. I will.”

I took the stairs, feeling as though I would jump out of my skin if I didn’t keep moving. I thought about all the intimate conversations, the parts of me I had shared with her. Julie. My darling Julie. If she did anything to make a mockery of my sister’s memory, I didn’t know what I would do. Maybe it would just be a misunderstanding.

I got back into the cab to head home. Now all I had to do was wait.

“It’s not good, Mrs. Bennett,” Jerry Hanson said as he slid the manila folder across the desk toward me. “There’s quite a bit to look through. I’m gonna take a walk, get some coffee. I’ll be back to discuss everything with you in about half an hour.”

I nodded, already immersed in the file. The first thing I saw was a newspaper article with Amber’s photo. Her eyes were heavily lined with black, and her hair was bleached platinum blond. She looked sexy, but hard. Only her name wasn’t Amber. It was Lana. Lana Crump. I read the article, then looked through the rest of the document. My hands shook as I put down the last piece of paper. I broke out in a sweat, reeling from the betrayal. It was far worse than I’d imagined. She had made everything up. There had been no sick sister, no abusive father. I had let her into my life, my children’s lives, let her get close to me and told her things I’d never shared with another human being. She had played me, and brilliantly. What a fool I’d been. I’d been so blinded by my grief over Julie that I’d actually invited that jackal into my life.

My heart actually ached. She was a criminal, a fugitive. And what she had done — it showed such a clear lack of conscience, no remorse. How could I not have seen it?

Her entire life was here in these pages. A new picture began to form. A poor girl from a small town consumed by jealousy and want: covetous, predatory. She’d mapped out a plan, and when it had failed, she’d exacted her revenge. She had fooled everyone there too, had turned another family’s life upside down, irrevocably damaged them, then run away. Then she’d taken on a different identity. A chill passed through me as I thought of the real Amber Patterson’s disappearance. Had Lana had a hand in it? Now I understood why she always hid from cameras. She was afraid of someone she’d known in her other life seeing her photo.

The door opened, and the detective returned. “How did someone like you get mixed up with someone like her?”

I exhaled. “Doesn’t matter. Tell me, according to this, there’s an open warrant out for her. What would happen if I called the police?”

He leaned back in his chair and tented his hands. “They’d pick her up, call the Missouri police, and have her taken back there to stand trial.”

“What kind of sentence does perjury and jury tampering carry?”

“Varies by state, but it’s a felony and usually carries a prison sentence of at least a year. The fact that she skipped out on bail is going to add some time as well.”

“What about what happened to that poor boy? Will that factor in?”

He shrugged. “There’s not a punitive component to the criminal charges, so not technically. But I’m sure the despicable intent will sway a sentencing judge, even if he or she doesn’t admit it.”

“This is all confidential, right?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you asking me if I’m obligated to turn her in?”

I nodded.

“I’m not an officer of the court. This is your report; you do what you want with it.”

“Thank you. Um, this has nothing to do with Amber, but I need you to look into one more thing for me.” I filled him in, handed him a folder, and left.

I hailed a cab and had it take me to the bank — the one twenty miles from home, where Jackson didn’t know I had an account or a safe-deposit box. I looked through the file one more time before putting it away. A picture caught my eye: a woman who must have been Amber’s mother. That’s when I realized the other thing she had done — and that is what convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Amber, aka Lana, was as devoid of a conscience as Jackson. That revelation was liberating. It meant that I could proceed with the plan that I had begun to formulate in my mind.

I wasn’t going to turn her in. No, she wasn’t going back to Missouri to serve a measly couple of years in prison. She was going to get a life sentence right here in Connecticut.

If there’s one thing living with an abusive psychopath has taught me, it’s how to make the best of a bad situation. Once I recovered from the betrayal, I realized Amber could be the answer to everything. It was now obvious that she’d only used me to get close to Jackson. She had manipulated me into getting her a job so she’d be right there every day. But the problem was, Jackson wouldn’t be as easily fooled as I was. And as cunning as Amber was, she had only half the picture, no real idea what made him tick, what turned him on. That’s where I’d come in. I would feed her the information she needed to succeed in turning his obsessive focus from me to her. Little by little, I would play her, just as she’d played me.

I had to make him want her more than he wanted me. His money, power, and meticulous planning ensured that my only way out was for him to let me go. Up until then, he’d had no reason to do so. That was all about to change. I decided that I needed to pretend that he had once cheated on me. I wanted her to believe there was a crack in my marriage, that Jackson was capable of being tempted.

We met at Barnes & Noble that Saturday, and when she approached, I almost didn’t recognize her.

“Wow. You look fantastic.” Her hair was no longer dishwater brown, but a beautiful ash blond, her brows shaped into perfect arches over thick, luscious lashes and perfectly applied eyeliner. Contoured cheekbones, just the right amount of blush, and glossed lips completed the picture. She looked like a different woman. She hadn’t wasted any time transforming herself.