“How is that possible?” said Cindy.
“Nell and I aren’t close. She doesn’t tell me anything. She hasn’t even been here to visit me once,” said Kendra.
“I can understand why,” said Cindy, bitterly.
“Why?” Kendra’s eyes flared.
“She’s going through hell.”
“Nell’s always going through one hell or another,” Kendra voice grew harsh. “The truth is she can’t stand me, never could, not even when she was a little girl. I told you before, she preferred her father. For some reason I never understood, he adored her. Whenever he was home, she was the one he’d spend his time with.”
“You couldn’t have liked that very much,” said Cindy.
“In the beginning I didn’t,” said Kendra, the muscles in her face trembling. “But I got used to it. You get used to all kinds of things as time passes.”
“Like your husband having a second family?” Cindy had to dig at her. Kendra was ready now to talk. She had no reason not to. There was no way out of here for her if she didn’t.
“Not that,” said Kendra. “I got used to him having a relationship with Heather,” Kendra said. “That only went on for a few years. Heather was different from me. A side dish. I could deal with it.”
“But a second family?” Cindy wasn’t letting go. “He must have been gone so much. You deserved better.”
“I had what I needed,” Kendra said flippantly.
“That’s not how it looks to others,” said Cindy.
“What difference does it make how it looks? Everyone’s made up their mind. They decided I did it the first day Paul was found. Book closed. Case completed.”
Kendra got up from the bench and walked to the small windows that lined the room. It was dark out and the winds were starting. “Storm is coming soon,” she said.
“You’ll be safe here,” said Cindy.
“I’m not safe anywhere, anymore,” Kendra said.
Cindy came up beside her. “How long did you know about his other family?” she asked. She needed more and more details, couldn’t help feeling that somewhere, buried, in the center of this morass, one unexpected memory would untie the entire web.
“What makes you say I knew them?” asked Kendra trembling.
“Don’t play games with me!” Cindy was on edge. “This is your last chance to get free.”
“If I knew that Paul had two families,” Wendy cringed, “that would only make it look worse for me.”
“Not necessarily,” said Cindy. “Tell me the entire truth. One fact leads to another. You’ll set me on the right trail.”
“I knew about them for the past seven years,” Kendra finally whispered.
Cindy stopped breathing. “How did you find out?”
“It happened strangely. One day I saw a snapshot on the floor of Paul and a boy of about eleven, Graham. The boy was clinging onto his father. I looked and looked at it for a long time, thought the photo must have fallen out of Paul’s pocket.”
Cindy took a long, slow breath. “Awful!”
“Not really,” said Kendra. “It was actually fascinating. This child looked exactly like Paul’s brother, who had died when he was young. The minute I saw the photo, I knew this child was Paul’s son. So, I thought it was a love child. I had no idea that he’d actually married the mother. But it was fantastic to find the photograph. Proof of something you knew all along deep down, but couldn’t put your finger on. It makes you feel like you’re crazy.”
That was exactly the way Cindy felt about this case.
“I showed Paul the photo a few days later, before he was about to leave on his usual trip. He stared at it horrified. Then he stared at me. At first he tried to lie, said it was some kid from a charity he was working with. That didn’t go over with me for a minute. I slapped him hard, in the face.” Kendra smiled now, thinking of it. “He needed that slap, he deserved it.”
Cindy felt chilled. What else had she done to Paul over the years to make him pay for this?
“Paul got scared. For a minute he was going to slap me back, but then he looked in my eyes. What did he see? I often wonder. Maybe he saw that I didn’t care.”
“I just need the truth,” I told him.
“The kid’s my son,” he said, terrified.
“You know, Paul was a tremendously weak man. Despite his grand life and big cover, underneath he lived like a crazy person and was terrified of being found out. And he was also very rich. Whatever he touched brought him big money. It made him think he could rule the world, do whatever he liked.”
“You stayed with him because of the money?” Cindy zeroed in.
“No,” said Kendra, “definitely not. I had an income of my own. I could have built my tour business any time I wanted. Look, at first I just thought he had a kid with someone else, I had no idea he was married. I’m not saying that wasn’t rotten -.”
“Why did you stay?”
Kendra turned and walked away from the window and began slowly pacing back and forth.