What was eating at him? There was only one thing for it.
“What’s bothering you, Zack? Please tell me, love,” I blurted out.
“Jennifer, can I ask you something?”
He sighed deeply and took a deep shaky breath.
“Of course, fire away,” I told him, dreading with every fibre of my being what he was going to say.
“Do you think I should have taken the blame for killing David?”
Why on earth was he bringing this up now of all times?
“No, but I try not to think about it, Zack. Look, don’t beat yourself up about it. He was a scumbag who deserved it. I mean, he assaulted me and tried to rape me twice. Don’t forget about the poor girl he raped at university,” I told him.
“I am so glad I followed you that night. I was suspicious of David too and I wanted to confront him. I had a good idea that he was the one chasing you all over the place but I wasn’t 100% sure. It could have been Alex or a number of other people with a grudge against me. I looked for my gun but I couldn’t find it. I got the shock of my life when I walked in and saw him about to rape you! I have never been so mad in my life. I couldn’t bear anyone hurting you, Jennifer.”
“Well, it’s all over now. I don’t suppose Phoebe’s body will ever be found though. I had your gun. I found it in your study, taped underneath the desk.”
“You had it. That explains things. Her body might be found eventually,” he whispered.
He was staring at me intently with a strange pained expression on his handsome face. His mouth opened and closed again.
“I doubt it,” I said, “as David is clearly the only one that knows where she is buried and he can’t tell us.”
“But Jennifer, you do know why I had to kill him, don’t you? I had to protect them. You understand that, don’t you?”
His blue eyes flashed dangerously in the fading sunlight as we suddenly stopped walking. I spun around and faced him.
“Look Zack, darling, stop right there before you say anything else. I don’t want to hear what you are going to say, so please, I am begging you, just don’t!” I told him, meeting his stare.
My heart was pounding and my throat was dry. I gave him a look that told him I knew what he had done and I had accepted it.
Now was the time to move on and look to the future.
I had figured out shortly after David’s death that Zack was behind Phoebe’s murder. I reckoned that he had paid David off, made sure he had a water-tight alibi and moped around for a reasonable amount of time to make everything look as it should. She was against the merger and she was making his life a living hell with affair after affair. It also sounded like she was a lousy mother too.
David had dropped enough hints to me about Zack’s involvement. Zack had the motive and the means to kill Phoebe.
But at the end of the day, David had pulled the trigger, not Zack, and I focused on that fact. He had felt he had to silence David before he blabbed to the police. But if he admitted all of that to me I knew that I wouldn’t be able to turn the other cheek. It would go against the integrity I possessed as a policewoman. If he didn’t say the words out loud, I could just pretend that he wasn’t involved.
It was a bit like my abortion that I buried for six long years. I also should have told the truth that Zack was the one that killed David, but I hadn’t.
I was as culpable.
I was as guilty.
So there it was.
I had made a pact with the devil.
There was always the chance that I was completely wrong about the whole thing but if I wasn’t, I would bury this secret until the day I died.
I loved him far too much to do anything else.
“Okay, if you wish, baby.”
Tears formed in his tired eyes as he pulled me into him. I embraced him, stroking his hair gently as he started to cry quietly. I held him tightly to me.
Zack purged himself of his guilt as I silently told him to let it go. He needed to release himself from it and start over again.
I hugged him even tighter as he cleansed his soul. My dress grew wet with his tears.
“Zack, I love you so much and I understand. We need to close this chapter and start a new one. I want to start over with you. Please let me,” I told him, looking up deeply into his swollen bloodshot eyes.
My own face was soaking wet with tears.
“I love you so much too, Jennifer, and that means a lot to me.”
He wrapped his arms around my body. I stroked his hair gently and kissed his warm neck. We stood for some time as I felt the unbelievable burden lift from him.
“Come on, let’s go and get something to eat. Baby Cole is starving,” I laughed, looking up at him and rubbing my rounded tummy.
“Okay, baby.”