“Oh, I know. You beat yourself up. But you never talked about it, not with anybody else. No one saw it. No one knew the truth. Everyone only saw what you wanted them to see. You never told anyone you’d fucked up that bad.”

“Apparently I hadn’t.”

“And I thought many, many times about telling you. I really did. But the longer it went on, the longer the years stretched, it was harder and harder to do. And then this thing with Jen and the letters . . .”

“So you used it against me one more time.”

“I didn’t want it to end that way. I didn’t want any of this to happen. You have to know that.”

I took two more steps, until I stood over Blake. Years of guilt, years of hot wires of recrimination searing my insides.

Years of stuffing it away from Amanda . . . when I didn’t need to.

My fist came back and forward with as much force as I could muster and cracked him across the jaw. The feel of my knuckles against his flesh satisfied me more than I could have imagined, and the jolt of pain that shot up my arm seemed like a small price to pay for knocking Blake off his knees and onto the floor. I stepped in for more, hoping to hit him again, but Aaron took hold of my arm and pulled me back, spinning me across the room so that I stumbled and landed on the floor.

“Enough,” he said. He waved the gun back and forth between the two of us. “Am I the only sane one here? You two are a couple of prizes, aren’t you? Liars and home wreckers and frauds. I don’t care who did what now. All I wanted was for the two of you to see how worthless you both are. It’s time to tie up all the loose ends. Hell, they’ll find you in this basement in about twenty years when someone finally shows up to finish these town houses.”

“Aaron, just leave my family out of this—”

“No chance. It’s a going-out-of-business sale. Everything must go. Everything and everyone.” He pointed the gun at me. I stared down the menacing hole at the end of its barrel. “You first, so I can better enjoy killing him.”

“Aaron, don’t. . . . If you and Dawn want something . . .”

My full bladder nearly burst. Images of Amanda and Henry flashed before me. Smiling. Laughing.

I’ll never grow old, I thought. I’ll never have another child. Never have a grandchild. I’ll never see Henry do anything. . . .

From out of the darkness across the room, Blake lunged toward Aaron, grabbing him around the legs and taking him to the floor as a shot fired in the quiet space.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

I spent a moment in a state of disbelief.

A shot had been fired somewhere. At me? Near me?