Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN WHO THOUGHT SHE WAS REPLACING ME
Jessica asked to speak with me.
I said no.
Then yes.
Not alone.
Samuel.
Her lawyer.
Detective Bishop allowed no discussion that could compromise the investigation, so the meeting focused on civil matters and personal information Jessica wanted to disclose voluntarily.
She entered the conference room without makeup.
I hated that I noticed.
She looked smaller than she had beside my bed.
“Evelyn.”
“Don’t.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
Her face reddened.
“Everything.”
“Specificity helps.”
Samuel glanced at me.
I ignored him.
Jessica swallowed.
“I’m sorry I slept with your husband.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry I came into your bedroom.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry I measured the windows.”
My hands trembled slightly.
Still.
“I’m sorry I talked about your death while you were alive.”
That one mattered.
Not enough.
But real.
“Did you know he was harming me?”
“No.”
“Did you ever suspect?”
“No.”
“Did you think it was strange how involved he was with my food?”
“I thought he was taking care of you.”
“So did everyone.”
She cried.
I felt nothing.
Then she said:
“He told me you hated me before the affair.”
I almost laughed.
“I didn’t know you.”
“He said you had investigated my company.”
“No.”
“He said you told him I was vulgar.”
“No.”
“He said you tried to get me removed from a hotel project.”
“I never knew you were attached to it.”
Her face changed.
David had built a version of me for Jessica too.
Cold.
Arrogant.
Controlling.
Jealous of younger women.
She believed she was entering a marriage already emotionally dead.
Again:
convenient.
Still not an excuse.
Then she showed me messages.
David:
Evelyn doesn’t know how to love anyone she can’t control.
Another:
When she’s gone, I want a home that feels like you.
Another:
Don’t let guilt make you weak. She would destroy you if she could.
He had prepared Jessica emotionally to treat me as an enemy.
Not a dying stranger.
That explained some cruelty.
Not all.
Then Jessica said:
“There was another woman.”
Samuel looked up.
I did too.
“What?”
“Not an affair. I don’t think.”
She told us David sometimes met a woman named Hannah.
Early thirties.
He called her unstable.
Said she wanted money.
Jessica once asked whether Hannah was an ex.
David became furious.
He said:
“She is nobody you need to know.”
Jessica later saw a photograph in his desk.
David.
Much younger.
A woman.
A little girl.
Hannah.
His daughter.
I knew David had a daughter from his first marriage.
I had never met her.
He told me Hannah cut contact years earlier after being manipulated by her mother’s family.
His first wife, Rebecca, died before I met him.
Cancer, he said.
Hannah blamed him irrationally.
I had respected the estrangement.
Never contacted her.
Jessica had been told something similar.
But six months earlier, Hannah came to the gate.
David refused to let her inside.
Security footage confirmed it.
Hannah remained outside eighteen minutes.
Then left an envelope.
I had never seen it.
Jessica said David burned it in the fireplace.
“What did she want?”
“He told me money.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes.”
Then Jessica looked at me.
“I don’t anymore.”
That was not the major twist yet.
May you like
But it brought the unexpected witness into the story.
And this time, none of us let David explain her before we heard her speak.
