Page 136 of Our Last Resort
I hated lying to him. But that, too, was part of the punishment.
When the cops requested to speak to me, I agreed. They asked about Gabriel and Annie. Did they fight? Had Gabriel said anything to me? Did I have any reason to think he might be involved?
Sometimes. No. No.
I didn’t lie. I didn’t volunteer any information. I answered the questions, and then I left the police station.
I’d had time—not a lot, but just enough—to get ready, to plan.
William Brenner? He didn’t come to this hotel planning to kill his wife.
That wouldn’t make sense. Here? In a place both public and secluded?
No. Sabrina’s murder was committed on impulse.
They were arguing. Sabrina defended herself. That must have taken William by surprise. Maybe she was galvanized by meeting Gabriel. Maybe my brother reminded her that she wasn’t alone in the world.
That’s the part of the argument I witnessed. Then I went away. The fight must have continued.
Maybe Sabrina threatened to divorce William.
It’s so easy to picture, now that I’ve seen the murder weapon. The rock tells me everything I need to know.
“I’m going to leave you,” Sabrina says, in this version of events. “The second we come home. I’m getting a lawyer, and then I’m getting a divorce.”
William opens his mouth, but Sabrina continues, indomitable.
“Oh, I know,” she says. “You’ll ruin me. You’ll takeeverything I have. I won’t have anything left after you’re done with me. But you know what? It will be worth it. I’d rather sleep under a bridge than in your bed for even one more night.”
She walks away.
Maybe she picks up her pace. Maybe she tries to run away from him, in the end.
She doesn’t see it happen.
She doesn’t see her husband, stunned and outraged. Doesn’t see inside William’s mind as he pictures it: the divorce settlement, always public to a degree. People will talk. Court papers will leak. He knows this better than anyone. He has made a career out of airing other people’s dirty laundry.
Sabrina doesn’t see him panic. She doesn’t see him hobbling after her. Doesn’t see him realizing he’ll never catch up to her. She doesn’t see herself the way he sees her, slipping out of his grasp, his secrets tumbling out of her pockets.
Sabrina doesn’t see William bending to retrieve one of the decorative rocks from a planter by the pool. A white marble chunk from Italy.
Maybe he doesn’t think it will do much damage. Maybe he thinks it will just knock her out. Stop her long enough for him to bring her back to the suite, nurse her back to health, win back her affections.
Maybe he forgets that he was once a promising baseball player. Maybe he forgets about muscle memory, about the hours his body spent learning how to throw.
Sabrina doesn’t see him hurling the rock, aiming for the back of her head.
In this scenario—and maybe that’s why I want to believe in it—Sabrina doesn’t know it’s happening until the last, blinding second.
She doesn’t die afraid. It’s the last thing she thinks, in this version: When her loved ones are told—her mother, maybe, and friends from her former life—she would like them to know that she wasn’t scared.
In my head, she dies hopeful.
She dies running toward a better life.
The Ara is in sight, this uncanny valley of beauty. Gabriel will have reached the police station by now. Are they taking his photo? His fingerprints? Is he sitting in the same interrogation room I sat in just yesterday?
He needs me to think faster. Be better.
