Page 60 of Cakewalk

“You knew about this?”

“He had a heart attack over the summer, right?” Holden asked, turning to Gigi for confirmation. She sucked her lips into her mouth, not sure how to answer him.

“Not exactly,” she confessed.

“What do you mean, not exactly?” Holden said. Gigi could see the anger rising in him, even though his voice was tempered. But she knew him well enough now to know that his body language was anything but happy.

“Mrs. Hawthorne, can you account for your actions the first few weeks of October?” The detective ignored Holden’s question, his face turning sour.

“I know I told you he had a heart attack, and that I left to get a fresh start, but that’s only partially true,” she said, turning to Holden. How did she explain this? She knew she’d been wrong to lie to him for so long, but she hadn’t expected it to blow up quite like this. “I did leave to get a fresh start. Just when I left, he was alive.”

“Alive…” Holden repeated.

Gigi turned around and paced into the living room, trying to collect her thoughts. She knew she had to come clean. If she and Holden were going to have a future together, he needed to know the whole story. Then there were the two policemen still standing in the entry, waiting for her to explain just how he ended up dead. How was she supposed to know? She’d been long gone by that point. She also had no idea why he would go to the lake in October. He barely tolerated it in the summer, much less once the weather had cooled off.

“I don’t understand,” she said, turning back to the visitors. “I arrived in Vermont on the thirteenth. Officer Nelligan can tell you. He helped me with a flat tire.”

“Autopsy shows that your husband had been dead for some time prior to being found. We suspect foul play.”

“Foul play?” Gigi and Holden said in unison.

They think you killed him. They think you killed him and ran away…

“Gigi, what the fuck is going on here? You said he was dead. But he’s been alive this whole time?”

“Well, apparently not this whole time,” she muttered.

“Not fucking funny, Gigi.”

“Holden, I can explain!” she exclaimed.

“Any explaining will need to be done with us, ma’am. Killing your husband is a felony.”

Gigi turned to the detective, giving him an incredulous look. He could not be serious. Did he really think she didn’t know that? Was there anyone, anywhere who didn’t know murder was a felony?

“I didn’t kill him!”

“Officers, may we have a moment in private?” Holden asked, his teeth clenched and fists balled at his side. Gigi could see the anger radiating off of him, and she wasn’t sure what scared her more, the idea that the cops thought she killed Bradley or that Holden was furious with her.

“We can give you five minutes, max,” Officer Nelligan said, finally speaking up, a sad smile resting on his face. “But then we need to take Miss Gi…Mrs. Hawthorne down to the station.”

Gigi didn’t like the sound of that, but she remained silent as the men stepped outside. She didn’t need to aggravate them any more than they already were. She’d seen enough episodes of Law and Order to know exactly what they were thinking. It was the wife—it was always the wife.

“Holden, I can explain!” she blurted out as soon as the door shut, rushing to him. She threw her arms around him, expecting him to hug her back. Except he didn’t.

His body was stiff against hers as he withdrew from her embrace, giving her the exact same look he had on Thanksgiving. The look turned her blood to ice, stealing her breath for a moment.

“You better fucking get to explaining, Gigi.”

* * *

Holden

Gigi’s husband was dead.

That was not something that Holden would have ever thought would anger him. At least that was the case when he thought the bastard had died of a heart attack months ago, rather than under suspicious circumstances just prior to her arriving in Vermont.

“I don’t know where to start,” she said, her voice already sounding resigned.