The Teacher(77)

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Chapter Sixty-Eight

ADDIE

AFTER DETECTIVE SPRAGUE leaves our house, my mother looks like she’s going to have a stroke. Her face drains of all color, and I’m pretty sure her last remaining brown hairs switch over to being white.

“Addie,” Mom gasps. “What was that? What did you do?”

Deny everything.

I drop my eyes, playing with a lock of my messy hair. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if my own hair turned white before the end of this. “I didn’t do anything. I was here all night.”

“Tell me the truth, Adeline.”

My mother can see right through me when I’m lying, so I try a different strategy. “Look, she thinks I took the car somewhere, but I bet that car in the garage won’t even start. We haven’t used it in so long, I bet the battery is dead.”

The last time my mother drove the car was at least two months ago, when she was considering selling it. Ultimately, she decided to keep it for me, even though the thought of driving that man’s car makes me sick.

“Maybe,” she says slowly. She swivels her head to look at the garage door again. “Fine. Let me check.”

My heart leaps as she grabs the car keys from where she keeps them in the bookcase. I hurry after her as she marches out to the garage. She doesn’t say a word as she unlocks the door and slides into the driver’s seat. She fumbles with the keys for a moment before fitting them into the lock.

“Mom,” I say. I realize I’m holding my breath. She hasn’t driven my father’s car in such a long time. I bet it won’t start. And then I’ll be off the hook, right? If I didn’t have a car last night, I couldn’t have done anything to Mrs. Bennett.

Slowly, she turns the key.

The engine roars to life so loudly that I have to take a step back. The garage quickly starts to fill with exhaust fumes. Really, she should turn it off now, but instead she just sits there, staring glassy eyed at the windshield while the garage fills with toxic fumes.

“I didn’t even know it would start,” I say pleadingly.

Finally, she reaches out and kills the engine. She pulls the keys out of the ignition and steps out of the car. She looks me straight in the eye.

“What happened last night, Adeline? I want the truth.”

“Nothing,” I say softly. “I was home.”

“Did you do something to Mrs. Bennett?”

“No, I… I would never…”

Anything I say next will be a complete lie. I have done terrible things in my sixteen years. I pushed my father down the stairs. I was stalking Art Tuttle. I slept with my teacher. I knocked out Mrs. Bennett with a frying pan.

But I’m not sure anymore if I killed her.

“Please tell me the truth, Addie.” My mother’s voice cracks. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.”

I wonder what would happen if I told her everything. If I told her about my affair with Nathaniel. About how I went to the Bennett house last night and I smashed Eve Bennett on the head with a frying pan. What would she do if I told her everything?

The truth is, I’m not sure I want to know.

In the end, I recognize that it will be Nathaniel’s word versus mine. And he’s going to deny everything.



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Chapter Sixty-Nine

NATE

I RECEIVE another phone call a few hours later from Detective Sprague, just before I am about to go to bed.

They have had no luck so far locating Eve, which isn’t terribly surprising. They have verified that she definitely never took the commuter rail, which also isn’t terribly surprising. All these roads are supposed to lead back to Addie.

“Also,” she adds, “I spoke with Adeline Severson.”

Addie. I wonder what she must have thought to herself when the police showed up at her door. I’m thankful she has no credibility. “Oh?”

“I definitely think she has something to do with your wife’s disappearance,” Sprague tells me. “I’m going to talk to her again tomorrow. And I’m trying to get in touch with the principal at your school.”

“Good,” I say.

Higgins will tell the detective all about what Addie did last year. Between that and the letter I saved, she will appear extremely unstable. When they do eventually exhume Eve’s corpse, all the evidence will lead to her. Her fingerprints are even all over Eve’s car.

I just have to do my best to distance myself from her. I’m fairly sure she did not tell anyone about the two of us. Eve was the only one who knew. And now I have deleted the Snapflash account that connected us.

I’m sorry, Addie. One of us has to take the fall for this, and it can’t be me.

“I’ll touch base with you tomorrow,” Detective Sprague promises me.

“I appreciate it,” I tell her, turning up the charm. I can’t outright flirt, since that would be highly inappropriate, but the more she likes me, the less she will suspect me. “Whatever you can do to find my wife…”

“We’re going to find out the truth about what happened to your wife,” she promises me. “Hang in there, Mr. Bennett.”

“Nate,” I correct her in a choked voice. I prefer to be called Nate, although I loved the way Addie would say Nathaniel in that adoring tone of hers.