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Chapter 4
Jack
VANILLA AND BROWN SUGAR. That’s what I remember Nora smelling like when we dated.
And I’m certain I’m remembering correctly, because it’s the very scent I tried so hard to remove from my life after our relationship ended.
I washed every blanket she ever used. I dry cleaned my couch cushions. I even detailed my dang car trying to escape the lingering scent of her presence in my life.
But tonight as we drive back to her office, I find myself desperately wishing she smelled like that familiar—and oh so intoxicating—vanilla and brown sugar combo. Instead the only scent filling the car is my practical, boring, run-of-the-mill Dove shampoo and body wash.
Only wafting off of her hair and body, my shampoo smells anything but boring.
And it’s killing me that I had nothing to do with making her smell like me. She doesn’t smell like me because I’ve been holding her or because, as I’d once thought would be the case, she woke up in bed next to me as my wife. No, she smells like me because she showered in my guest bathroom which is stocked with the same Dove shampoo and body wash that I have in the master bath.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that she’s also wearing one of my sweatshirts. As soon as she got in the shower I threw her bloodstained clothing into the wash, but a cycle of laundry takes a long time. So in the meantime I loaned her one of my sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants my sister Joy left behind when she came to stay over Christmas.
When we were dating, Nora would perpetually borrow my sweatshirts, and she never returned them. Not that I minded. In fact, I never even asked for them back after I broke up with her.
I wonder what she did with them.
Probably burned them.
Seeing her in one of my sweatshirts again after so many years is messing with my head. My hands flex and unflex on the steering wheel as I fight the instinct to reach over and take her hand. My arms, driven by muscle memory, want nothing more than to stop this car and pull her against me.
But, not only would that be wildly inappropriate given that we're not together anymore, it’s also the last thing she needs after the night she’s had.
My hands flex on the steering wheel for an entirely different reason now as I think about what happened to her. The anger that burns in my chest is like a wildfire that I have no idea how to fight, let alone put out.
“So you said we’re going to stage a murder?” Nora’s soft voice floats across the space between us, yanking me from my inner battles. “Why not just hide the body?”
“Hide the body where, exactly?” Thanks to my pent up rage, the words come out harsher than I’d intended, and Nora flinches.
“I don’t know,” she says defensively. “How about the bottom of the lake?”
“The lake is still mostly frozen,” I reply. “There’s no way we could get out deep enough to actually throw the body somewhere it wouldn’t resurface in two or three days' time.”
She shudders. I get that a lot in my line of work. Murder really gives people the creeps.
“Okay, well, you have lots of land. We could bury the body.”
“No.” I dismiss this, unease churning in my stomach.
“Just no?” she says incredulously. “You’re not even going to entertain the idea that burying the body might be smarter than staging some elaborate murder scene?”
A muscle in my jaw ticks. “Fine,” I bite out, “you want to bury the body on my land? Let’s talk that through. What if I move—is that something I should disclose to the buyer or should I just wait for them to find the body on their own?”
“You? Move?” Nora shakes her head. “C’mon, we both know that’s never going to happen. You love that place.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I focus really hard on the road in front of me, willing my emotions to stay below the surface.
By some miracle she doesn’t notice my agitated state; instead she sighs heavily and says, “But it doesn’t matter because I really can’t ask you to do something like that for me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve already made you culpable enough in this murder. Asking you to bury the body on your property is taking things way too far.”
The funny thing is, she’s wrong. I’d bury a hundred bodies in my backyard if it meant protecting her. My hesitation has nothing to do with her asking too much of me.
But I can’t admit that to her.
Nor can I tell her the truth.
