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“You’re the one who took them from my apartment?”
“The knife was easy. I held on to that for a while. You didn’t notice it was missing, which was a small relief.”
“You were biding your time.”
“I didn’t plan on the big event being the eve of Valentine’s Day, but it’s fitting, don’t you think? He didn’t deserve romance. That afternoon, when I heard y’all talking about murder, I couldn’t hold back. I listened and waited, like I’d been doing for months, and it paid off. Talk about destiny. It had already been planned, and then you all tied it up with a big, fat bow. There was a nice sprinkling of evidence and motive for everyone. Plenty to go around to muddy the waters.”
“You went into Eliza’s house? How?”
“It’s easy to get through the door when it’s left open. Eliza left in such a rush, she didn’t bother to close it. Quick jaunt upstairs and voilà. Roman was naked in the shower, rinsing off his latest conquest, when I got to him.”
Penny winced. “That is awful. He didn’t deserve to die.”
“He did.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
“You’re welcome. I made a difficult decision, but it was for the best, Penny. For us. I’m telling you it was fate.”
“Fate is not an excuse for murder.”
“It was too easy to do it. It was destiny. The rest, after the murder, was a fucking cakewalk. I just had to plant a little seed of doubt in everyone’s mind to point the attention away from us. Y’all wanted Roman dead, so that part was easy. You know it’s true. Even you doubted your closest friends.”
Penny didn’t respond, because that bit was true. She’d wondered if Eliza, Mark, Marguerite, or even Anne had been guilty over the course of the trial. Had she truly believed one of them had done it? That was hard to say.
“I decorated the murder weapon with Eliza’s fingerprints— transferred from the wineglass, easy peasy, thanks to you. Anne’s a nutcase who hides it well. All I had to do was turn up her issues with postpartum depression and booze. It was a bonus people thought Mark did it. But that man doesn’t have the balls to do what I did.”
Penny’s skin crawled. She’d moved in with this man. She’d thought they could be a family, that he could be a father, maybe a husband. Had she ever gotten it wrong.
“Don’t go feeling sorry for him,” Ryan said. “Roman was the scum of the earth. I couldn’t risk you ever going back to him. I knew you wanted him to be the father. I waited for months— months—for you to tell me about my own child. I had to watch from a distance as you grew our baby, and I had to pretend to be surprised when you finally came clean to me.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“I had to walk into that ridiculous office that you called a job opportunity and pretend to run into you. Pretend to count on my fingers back about…oh, nine months. How thick do you think I am? You should have told me about my son. What you did was fucking rude, Penny.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I didn’t know who the father—”
“The baby is mine. I know it.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“I told you, it’s fate,” Ryan said. “We’re destined to be together. We always were. From the day you walked into class, I knew I’d have you. One way or another.”
“It was all an act. The nice guy. Letting me go out with Roman.”
“I am patient. I am a talented actor, even if the world hasn’t realized it yet. I am intelligent—far more intelligent than that imbecile Roman. I was patient. Watched, waited.”
“You mean you stalked me. Spied on my every move.”
“The four of you women talked about how to murder a man in your book club. You wanted it; you set me up. Who the hell cares if the courts never get a conviction? Roman’s out of the way, and that’s what matters. Everyone’s better off for it—you, Anne, Eliza, Marguerite. You should all be thanking me.”
“It’s not your job to play God.”
“I wasn’t playing God. I was just helping to scoot our destinies along in the right direction. A gentle touch, if you will.”
“A knife to the heart isn’t very gentle.”
“No, but it was pretty damn poetic. Not bad for a struggling actor.”
