“South, of course,” she said, without missing a beat—and prayed he wouldn’t hear the lie in her voice.
Because the truth was, she didn’t know. Not just which direction to run, but whether she even believed anymore that there was a future for them outside that door. She’d told him she would take care of everything, and she’d meant it when she said it. In that moment, after the gun went off, she was sure there was a way out. But coming home to him, to this, to the same bullshit that had grown so very tiresome after ten long years, to a man whose greatest skill was creating burdens that she would have to shoulder . . . any woman would ask herself if more of the same was truly what she wanted. And there was still the question, too, of what he deserved. The marriage had never been a fairy tale. She had carried so much weight for so long. What was she doing here? What had she done?
But there was no going back. Her choices were finite: to give it all up, turn herself in, and him, too, and then it all really would be for nothing.
Or she could keep going.
It’s not over for you, Adrienne, she thought—and unlike the vow to head south with her husband, this statement had the ring of truth. It was the beginning of a different story, one she had been telling herself all day without even realizing it. A story about a woman who woke up wondering about her future. Who took stock. Who started making plans.
Lizzie and Dwayne are dead, but we are alive.
I don’t want to be the kind of woman who gets blindsided by life.
I’d like to liquidate my accounts.
She watched as he performed his pre-departure ritual: patting his pockets to feel the bulge of his wallet, turning back for a last look at the house to see if anything was being forgotten. His eyes were bright and glassy. Every motion was familiar, but in this moment, she suddenly felt as if she were seeing it all for the first time. Observing him the way she might watch a stray dog trotting toward her on the street, trying to discern its motives, to decide if it meant to bite.
For the first time, it occurred to her that she might not know him as well as she imagined.
“Hey.”
He turned to look at her.
“Is there anything you haven’t told me? About what happened. Between you and him.” She paused. “Or you and . . . her.”
Ethan’s keys jangled as he moved them from one hand to the other.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
A moment later, he was gone.
Chapter 14
The Lake
The woman who answered the phone at Ethan Richards’s home sounded out of breath, as though she’d had to run to pick up the receiver.
Or been caught right in the middle of a little down-and-dirty with her married, murdering, wanted boyfriend, Bird thought, an idea that seemed ludicrous even as he entertained it. But if Richards’s car had been in Copper Falls last night, and Richards’s wife was at home in Boston right now, then . . .
Then I have no idea. Even with an affair in the mix, there was no obvious explanation. A Bonnie-and-Clyde situation, with an “Uptown Girl” twist? Or was Ethan Richards involved, too, somehow, making this the world’s most unlikely throuple?
Bird listened as the woman cleared her throat. “Hello?” she said again. “Is anyone there?”
Then he hung up. The only way to find out the truth was to follow the lead. He threw the car into gear and pulled out of the Strangler’s parking lot, driving back the way he’d come. He passed the auto-body shop, the gas station, the grocery, the main street, where houses with warmly lit windows sat like beacons between the gray, overgrown properties where nobody lived. He continued through town until he reached its central intersection, where a single stoplight was strung above the darkened street. The county road veered left here, heading north into the wilderness. Bird turned right and drove south out of town. The state medical examiner and Lizzie Ouellette’s to-be-autopsied body lay in this direction, seventy-five miles downstate in Augusta, but Bird wouldn’t be stopping there. He punched in Brady’s number at troop headquarters as the lights of Copper Falls disappeared behind him.
The supervisor answered on the first ring, grunting, “Brady.”
“It’s Bird, checking in.”
“Hiya there, Bird,” Brady said. It was a nice thing about the boss: no matter how shitty the case or how little you had to report, he always sounded happy to hear from you. “You wrap up with the locals? They’ll be waiting on you to start the postmortem.”
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” Bird said. “I’ve got a lead. Our guy, Cleaves, might’ve had a mistress. One of the renters at the lake house.”