What? What is Maggie talking about? Victoria isnโt crazy.ย Adamย is crazy. Victoria was the victim in all this. Maggie is the one whoโs got it all wrong.
โWhat do you mean?โ I ask carefully.
โOh God,โ Maggie moans. โI shouldnโt tell you this, butโฆ well, where do I begin? She was always starting these horrible fights with him. She would scream at him at the top of her lungs. I saw her throw a freaking toaster in his head and it made a dent in the kitchen wall. Can you believe that?โ
I picture the dent in the wall of the kitchen downstairs. But no.ย Adam
did that. When he threw a plate at the wall. โSheโฆ she did?โ
โYes!โ I can picture Maggieโs wide eyes. โShe was intensely jealous of the cook, Irina Brunner. Half the fights they had were over her. She would call Irina a whore and accuse him of sleeping with her. I donโt know if they were sleeping together or notโI donโt think soโbut she would be jealous of any woman he spoke to. I tried to dress as dowdy as possible and just stay out of her way, because I didnโt want to arouse any jealousy on her part.โ
โButโฆโ I think back to more details from the diary. โShe couldnโt have been that crazy. I mean, she worked as a nurse practitioner in a busy emergency room.โ
โYeah. Until they fired her.โ โTheyโฆ fired her?โ
โItโs something I used to hear the two of them fighting about. She blamed him for losing her job, but itโs pretty clear they let her go because she was so nuts. And she couldnโt get anyone else to hire her because of what happened there. Apparently, she was really unprofessional and used to have temper tantrums where she would throw things.โ
Oh my God, could that be true? No. Maggie has to be mistakenโฆ โAnd the worst partโฆโ I hear Maggieโs voice waver. โOne day, she
brought home a gun. Like, an actualย gun. With bullets and everything. Adam was so freaked out. He was begging her to get rid of it, but she kept
saying they needed it for protection.โ She pauses. โIโm hoping after her accident, he got that gun away from her.โ
He did. And I just gave it back.
โAnd then there was this one night when they were having a particularly brutal fight,โ she says, โand Irina didnโt come in the next day to work even though she was supposed to. A few days later, the police showed up asking about her. It was so scary.โ
โWhatโฆโ My voice canโt seem to get out the next words. I have to swallow before I can speak again. โWhat are you saying?โ
Maggieโs voice is hushed. โI swear to God, Sylvia, I think Victoria might have killed Irina.โ
No. No no noโฆ
โI was going to go to the police myself and tell them what I knew,โ she says softly. โBut then Victoria was in that accident andโฆ well, there was no point after that. I figured weโd probably never find out what really happened to Irina.โ
My head is buzzing. My breaths are coming quickly, and I hug my knees to my chest. โMaggie, I gotta go.โ
โAre you okay, Sylvia? You sound funny.โ โI gotta go. Now.โ
Without waiting for a response, I hang up the phone. My fingers are tingling and I feel like Iโm about to have a panic attack. With shaking hands, I type into the search engine of my phone:
Irina Brunner. Long Island. Disappearance.
Immediately, a bunch of hits come up. Itโs true. Itโs all true. Back in February, twenty-two-year-old Irina Brunner disappeared without a trace.
Mack wasnโt the one who disappeared. It was Irina. Who knows if Mack even existed. Probably not. He was probably all a figment of her wild imagination.
And I just gave Victoria back the gun that killed Irina. And stopped giving her the antipsychotics that had been part of her daily medication regimen.
Iโve got to get that gun back. Before something terrible happens.