And a few other places, the voice inside her smirked, and for a moment her fingers unconsciously fluttered toward her chest. She balled her hand into a fist, hard enough to feel the bite of her own nails against her palm. She’d almost forgotten that part, had tried to forget it, and was amazed to realize that she’d very nearly been successful. The wound had bled, but only a little. It didn’t even hurt anymore. Soon, it would heal. There would be a scab, and then a scar, and then, eventually, not even that. Like it had never happened at all.
If her body could forget, maybe she could, too.
A glance at the clock revealed that the pain wasn’t the only thing her body had forgotten to feel. It was nearly eight p.m., and all she’d had to eat since that morning was the overly sweet pumpkin spice latte; she should have been hungry by now. She tapped at the phone again, opening the Grubhub app and then her order history. The last delivery had been a week ago from a Japanese place called Yin’s; the app was already asking her if she wanted the same thing again, and she tapped the reorder button without bothering to investigate what it was. Some decisions, at least, were easy. And she should eat, if only for the sake of sticking to something approaching a routine. It would be one less thing she’d have to lie about. Today? she could picture herself saying, her eyes wide with confusion and her head cocked inquiringly to one side. As a child, Adrienne had spoken with a light Southern accent that she still trotted out from time to time when she really wanted to put on a show of Who, me? innocence. I got a blowout, had a meeting with our financial advisor, got a coffee, ordered some takeout, and watched TV. Just a normal day. Why, no, Ethan isn’t here. Yes, I’m alone—of course, all night. The deliveryman saw me—ask him. Will that be all, Officer?
She lifted her glass to her lips and drained the rest of the wine with one swallow. Outside, the street was quiet. In the building across the street, a shrouded window on the third floor brightened. Adrienne’s neighbors were settling in for the night. The police car remained where it was, its lights off, its occupant waiting. Perhaps it was just a coincidence and he wasn’t there for her at all. Or perhaps he was waiting for a warrant . . . or maybe a friend. It occurred to her for the first time that Copper Falls might send its own police officers to investigate the murder, a thought that filled her with sudden terror. Could she look into the faces of men who had known Lizzie Ouellette and Dwayne Cleaves, who had grown up alongside them, and lie so that they would believe her?
It was the voice of her inner survivor that answered back: Yes, you can. You can, because you have to. You’ll lie until you believe it yourself, if you have to, because you made this choice. Now you’ll live with it.
And there was no time to argue, either. She would need to work quickly, and not only that: there was still the other matter, the thing she’d been meaning to do, and who knew when she’d have another chance like this, without having to worry about her husband walking in. She wanted to be alone when she discovered what was inside Ethan’s safe, the one built into the wall behind the desk in his home office. The combination was their wedding date, of course. So they’d both remember, even though Adrienne wasn’t supposed to open it unless Ethan was around. But after everything else, snooping was the least of her sins. She’d earned the right to look, hadn’t she? To know everything? God, what she’d done to earn it.
There had been so much blood.
Her bare feet thumped lightly against the polished floor as she stood and left the room, setting her wineglass on the counter beside the bottle as she passed, tucking her phone into her pocket. There were no windows in Ethan’s office; to someone watching from outside, the woman in the window would have simply disappeared, leaving the lights on in an empty kitchen, clearly alone in an empty house.
In fact, the police officer in the cruiser was watching, but only barely. He flicked his eyes briefly toward the window, then returned his attention to the radio. It was game four of the ALDS, Sox already up two games to one on the Yankees, and Bucky Dent was about to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. The crowd in New York roared; the cop in Boston glanced at the clock. If the boys clinched tonight, the city would go apeshit, and he would probably end up standing out in the cold until three o’clock in the morning writing citations for disorderly conduct—but that would at least be less boring than sitting here on the swankiest street in the city, watching nothing happen, doing a courtesy stakeout for some out-of-state cop.
Inside the house, Adrienne’s phone buzzed: the restaurant was busy and needed more time, but would deliver her order within forty minutes. On any other night, Adrienne would have pitched a fit about the wait, but this one felt like a sign from the universe, a gentle reminder that she shouldn’t dally. She took a deep breath. It would be fine, she thought. She knew, better now than ever before, that a determined woman could get an awful lot done in forty minutes. She traversed the house with silent steps, a dark doorway opening up ahead of her. She crossed into the room, flicked the light, and knelt down in front of the safe. The keypad glowed green, inviting the code to unlock it. She didn’t hesitate.