Chapter 4

I found them in the parking lot, standing by Arthur's car. He was trying to calm Juliet down, who was now crying again, this time with real frustration.

I didn't say a word. I marched right up to them and held up the small plaque I'd pried off the bench with my car key.

"What the hell is this?" I demanded, my voice shaking.

Arthur stared at it, his face paling even further. He looked at Juliet, a flicker of genuine anger in his eyes for the first time.

"Juliet? Did you put this on the bench?" he asked.

Juliet's eyes widened in fake innocence. "I... I just wanted him to be close to a beautiful spot," she stammered. "I thought... I thought your mother would have liked it. She was such a kind soul."

The audacity of her lie, the way she invoked my mother's memory again, was staggering. It was like she was testing me, pushing to see how much I would take.

"You thought my mother would like her memorial bench being turned into a headstone for your dead cat?" I said, my voice dangerously low.

"He wasn't just a cat!" she shrieked. "He was my baby! You wouldn't understand, you've never had a child!"

The words hit me like a physical blow. She knew about the miscarriage. Arthur must have told her. That sacred, private grief between a husband and a wife, he had shared it with her. It was a depth of betrayal I hadn't even considered.

Something inside me snapped.

I lunged at her. I didn't slap her this time. I grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back.

"You listen to me," I snarled, my face inches from hers. "You will never speak my mother's name again. You will never speak of my child again."

"Get her off me, Arthur!" Juliet screamed, clawing at my hands.

Arthur grabbed my shoulders, trying to pull me away. "Anya, for God's sake, let her go! You're hurting her!"

I shoved him away with surprising strength and pushed Juliet against the side of the car.

"You want a memorial?" I said, my voice trembling with rage. "You want to honor the dead?"

I took the velvet box of ashes from her unresisting hands. Before she could react, I opened it and dumped the entire contents over her head.

A cloud of fine grey dust filled the air, settling on her hair, her face, her expensive black dress.

She stood frozen for a second, her eyes wide with shock. Then she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"MY BABY!" she shrieked, frantically trying to brush the ashes off herself, smearing them into grey streaks across her tear-stained cheeks. "YOU DUMPED MY BABY ON ME!"

"Anya!" Arthur yelled, his voice cracking with disbelief and horror. "What is wrong with you? That was cruel! That was... monstrous!"

He moved to comfort Juliet, to wrap his arms around the pathetic, ash-covered creature she had become.

"Was it, Arthur?" I asked, my voice suddenly calm, chillingly clear. "Was it more monstrous than what she did?"

"She made a mistake! She was grieving!" he shouted, defending her.

"Grieving?" I laughed, a hollow sound. "You think she cares about that cat?"

Juliet looked up, her face a mask of hatred. "Of course I do! He was everything to me!"

"Then you should have taken better care of him," I said, my voice like ice.

I walked to my car and opened the passenger door. I pulled out the manila envelope Everett's courier had delivered.

I strode back to them and threw the envelope onto the hood of Arthur's car. Photos and documents spilled out.

"What's this?" Arthur asked, his eyes wary.

"That," I said, pointing a shaking finger at Juliet, "is the truth. That's the real reason your father paid her to disappear all those years ago. It wasn't because he was a snob, Arthur. It was because she's a fraud."

He hesitantly picked up a document. It was a veterinary report. Then another. A police report.

Juliet lunged for the papers, but I was faster. I snatched the most damning one from the pile and held it up for Arthur to see.

It was a report from an animal welfare charity she had "founded" in college. An expose written by the student newspaper detailing how she solicited donations for sick animals and then pocketed the money. Several of the animals in her "care" had died from neglect. One of them was a cat named Mr. Darcy. He hadn't died peacefully of old age. He had died of starvation.

"She didn't grieve that cat, Arthur," I said, my voice cutting through the air. "She killed him. Just like she killed the others."

Arthur stared at the paper, his face turning ashen. He looked at Juliet, who was now shaking her head violently, her eyes wide with panic.

"It's a lie!" she screamed. "She's making it up! She's jealous! She's always been jealous!"

Arthur looked from the report to Juliet, and then back to the report. The truth was dawning on him, a slow, horrifying sunrise.

"Is this true, Juliet?" he whispered.

"No! Arthur, baby, you have to believe me!" she pleaded, reaching for him.

He flinched away from her touch as if he'd been burned.

"The report your father compiled is very thorough," I said calmly. "It includes sworn affidavits from two of her former roommates and a canceled check from your father to her, dated one week after she was expelled from university. The memo line reads: 'For your silence and departure.'"

The final pieces clicked into place for Arthur. The fight with his father. The years he'd spent believing he was the victim of a cruel, classist patriarch. It had all been a lie, a story she had spun to make herself the tragic heroine.

He looked at Juliet, but it was like he was seeing her for the first time. Not as the lost love of his youth, but as a manipulative, cruel con artist.

The woman covered in the ashes of the animal she had starved to death.