Well, he’s right. But I keep scrubbing at the stain, hoping it will come out. After a minute, Ethan comes into the bathroom to join me. He comes up behind me, slipping his arms up around my waist. He drops his head and kisses my neck. Once, twice… then his lips linger there.
“Ethan,” I murmur.
“Come on, Tricia. We both need something to take our minds off of everything that just happened.”
Well.
That’s true.
Chapter 53
I wake up at two in the morning and I’m alone in the bedroom.
For a second, I am completely disoriented. I had forgotten where I was. I forgot that I’m in Adrienne Hale’s house and not my own. That I came here to get rid of Edward Jamison’s body, and not only have I failed to do that, but we have also acquired a man tied up in her office.
What a mess. I seriously need help.
I squint around the bedroom, my eyes adjusting to the dark. Ethan isn’t in the bed and I don’t see him anywhere else in the room. He’s not in the bathroom either. Where did he go?
Maybe he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he got up during the night and decided to do some work on his laptop. It makes sense.
Except I don’t think that’s where he is.
I grab Dr. Hale’s red robe and wrap it around myself. Then I slide my feet into her fuzzy slippers. It’s amazing how easy it’s suddenly become to use her stuff. Good thing her clothes are the same size as mine, although she was thinner than me. The woman was practically a skeleton, although she had a certain austere beauty.
When I get out into the hallway, it’s dark, but my eyes have adjusted so I leave the lights off. I hear movement coming from downstairs, but it doesn’t sound like anything bad is going on. It doesn’t sound like Luke has gotten himself free and has attacked my husband.
I descend the stairwell as quietly as I can. When I get to the bottom, Ethan is crouched down in front of the fireplace. All alone. He’s fiddling with something, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s trying to light a match.
The portrait of Adrienne Hale is still propped up against the wall next to the fireplace, her green eyes facing the wall. The portrait was my mother’s idea. I thought it was completely ridiculous—who would want a gigantic portrait of themselves? But Dr. Hale loved it. She put it right over her mantle immediately. Of course she did. She was that full of herself.
I hope I never have to look at it again.
There’s a flash of fire, and then a moment later the entire fireplace lights up. Ethan stands up and brushes off his hands on his jeans. By his posture, I can tell he’s satisfied with the job he did. I wonder how long he’s been trying to get the fire going.
I stand there in the shadows, not letting on that I’m watching him. But I see everything. I see him pick up an object from the coffee table and toss it into the fire. Then another. And another.
When he’s done, he stands in front of the fireplace, watching. Making sure it burns.
“Ethan,” I say.
He steps away from the fireplace, blinking furiously. His mouth falls open at the sight of me. “Tricia,” he manages.
I round the side of the couch to come closer to him. “What are you doing?”
“I…”
He casts an anxious look at the fireplace. The objects he tossed into the fire haven’t yet finished burning, so I can see what they are. But I don’t need to look. I already know what he burned in the fire.
It’s cassette tapes. Several dozen of them. All emblazoned with the initials GW.
GW was a patient of Dr. Hale for several years. She nursed paranoid delusions that somebody was trying to kill her, including her own son.
GW. Gail Wiley.
Ethan’s mother.
“I just…” Beads of sweat break out on Ethan’s forehead as he tries to come up with a lie. “I just think some of those tapes…”
He doesn’t know that I know. That I’ve always known. I ran into Gail a few times at the house when I was leaving an appointment and she was arriving for hers. Not only is she paranoid, but she’s got a big mouth. She told me all about her concerns that several people in her life were out to end her life, including her son Ethan. Dr. Hale says I’m paranoid, but he’s got money problems—he could use the big insurance payout. And he hates me. I know he does.
I laughed it off, especially when I caught a glimpse of the handsome Ethan dropping Gail off for one of her appointments. Nobody who looked like that could be a bad person. And how nice of him to drop his mother off for her therapy sessions. Of course, he didn’t know what she was talking about to the therapist and he certainly didn’t know that the sessions were being recorded.