Page 66 of Promise Me Never

Isabel stared at her. Then she shook her head, slowly. “You keep looking at my necklace. When you went to visit Devon’s father? What, a picture of her wearing it?”

“What are you talking about?” Savannah said, trying her best to hide her terror.

“You’re a terrible liar, Savannah. Which is such a shame because I really liked you. And with Poppy gone, I had been looking for another female friend.”

Savannah looked at Isabel in dismay. She had left Isabel alone in Bennett’s office when the doorbell rang. That would have given her time to plant the evidence. “You put the phones in the closet when I went to answer the door. Didn’t you?”

Isabel smiled, and Savannah’s heart sank. How could she have ever believed Bennett was responsible? But why would Isabel kill those women? It didn’t make sense.

Isabel’s hand went into her purse and when she pulled it out, she was holding a gun. Savannah gasped. Savannah’s Glock. She must have taken it when Savannah was in the bathroom.

She had to think. What could she say to defuse the situation?

“You don’t have to do this. I won’t say anything to anyone. I’m your friend.”

Isabel stood and pointed the gun at Savannah.

“We’re not friends,” Isabel hissed. “I’m supposed to be his wife. Not you! I’ve loved Bennett since I was fourteen.”

She was pacing now, her grip on the Glock unwavering. “He was supposed to be my husband. No one understood. Do you have any idea what it means to be destined to be with someone? I’ve spent almost my entire life waiting for him, loving him, taking care of him, and he was stringing me along for years.”

“But you told me that you were just good friends.”

“Some friend. Bennett would have sex with me, then the next day say we had to be friends. He kept promising me that one day we’d be together. And then he married Poppy.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Savannah was trying to absorb this new information. “You said after she died you came and stayed with him. Were you together then?”

Isabel nodded. “Slept in the same bed for two months. Then my father got sicker, and I had to go back to his farm. Bennett promised he’d wait for me.”

“I thought you and Poppy were good friends.”

Isabel stopped pacing. “We were good friends. I loved her. She was special. But she was gone.” Her face shifted into a nasty snarl. “And then he married you.”

“I’m sorry, Isabel. I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Bennett. Even his sister didn’t get it.” She was talking faster now, her breath coming in short bursts.

Why was she bringing Bennett’s sister up now? She was in a manic state. Savannah had to try to calm her down.

“His sister, Janie?”

“Yes! She came to my apartment unexpectedly one night. She found Bennett’s high school ring in my room. We had been drinking and she didn’t feel well. She went into my bedroom to call Bennett to come and pick her up. I forgot that I had left the ring on my nightstand. I used to wear it sometimes.”

Savannah did her best to keep her voice even. But she was shaken to her core.

“Why did you have his ring?”

“Louisa had cheated on him and he wanted his ring back. But she wouldn’t give it to him. She ran off. I followed her from the house so I could get it back for him. I caught up with her a half a mile from the house. She was ready to cross over the stream. We fought. She wouldn’t give me the ring. Stupid bitch. I hit her on the head and took it. She fell into the stream. I didn’t know she was going to drown.”

“So when Janie saw you had the ring that night, she realized you must have hurt Louisa?”

“Janie was going to tell Bennett. It would have ruined everything. Janie was my best friend, she should have taken my side. That’s what I told her, but she started yelling. Calling me a murderer. We were out on my balcony. I didn’t mean to push her.” She shrugged. “She shouldn’t have betrayed me.”

She thought of how Bennett blamed himself for his sister’s death. How it had haunted him and changed him. And here, Isabel was to blame all along. She was the monster. Savannah was horrified. How had she not seen how unhinged this woman was?

“Why did you keep sticking around if Bennett kept choosing other women over you?”

“Because I knew that they didn’t mean anything to him. Still, Bennett was so insensitive that he actually believed I was okay with him seeing other women. I’d stop by to party, and drug them both. There are drugs you can give someone to get them to go along with you, so the women walked themselves down to my car. My father’s farm has a deep well. That’s where I dropped them.”