Letting go was the only choice.
I stood where I was for a full minute after he fell, the gun hanging limply from my hand, watching as Dwayne didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Even as the seconds ticked by, I knew I didn’t need them. After ten years of sharing a home, a bed, a life, you can tell the difference between your husband and the empty shell where he used to live. He was gone.
It was time to start telling a new story.
The buck knife was still in his pocket. I set the gun aside while I tugged it loose, clutching it to my chest.
He was there when I woke up. He had a knife.
He said he’d killed my husband.
He said he wanted money.
He didn’t know we kept a gun in the safe.
My back bumped against the wall, and I leaned into it. Let myself slide down. Watching for another minute to see if he moved—not because I thought he would, but because that’s what she would do. Inside my head, the calculating survivor’s voice continued describing an alternate, plausible version of events:
I shot him. I took the knife. I thought he might still come after me.
I took a deep breath. Then another. Gulping air, my heart starting to race, silver stars dancing and wriggling at the fringes of my vision.
I waited. When I was sure he was dead, I ran.
I ran.
I used Adrienne’s phone to call 911. I told them the address and that I needed an ambulance.
Then I hung up, cutting off the operator as she told me to stay on the line, and called a lawyer.
Not just because that’s what Adrienne would do, but because I’m not a fucking idiot.
The attorney’s name was Kurt Geller. I could have remembered it from the news stories about Ethan Richards’s almost-trial, but I didn’t have to. Adrienne kept notes for all her contacts—housekeeper, makeup, trainer. Earlier that day, I’d looked up Anna, the SoulCycle blonde; her note said, dumb bitch from SC but is Lulu ambassador. Typical of Adrienne; she didn’t have friends, just people she loathed but kept around because they might be useful to her. My own entry said, simply, lake house, and Dwayne’s number wasn’t saved at all, which confused me until I realized that she’d never needed it: she had me. All those stupid jobs she kept finding for him to do, all the times she’d asked me to send him over, and I’d nodded along like the world’s biggest asshole. She should have added a second note to my name: pimp.
Geller was listed as Ethan’s lawyer, with multiple phone numbers: office, assistant, emergencies. I called the last one and listened as it rang. He answered on the second ring, his voice gravelly.
“This is Kurt Geller.”
I took a deep, shaky breath, and let my voice pitch higher.
“Mr. Geller, this is Adrienne Richards. I’m sorry if I woke you. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Adrienne,” he said. In the background, a muffled female voice said, Who? Geller cleared his throat. “Of course, Ethan’s wife. But why—”
“Ethan’s dead,” I said. “And I just shot the man who killed him.”
I don’t know what I expected. A gasp of shock, maybe, or stunned silence. Instead, I found out why Kurt Geller was the kind of attorney who gave his clients a special phone number for midnight legal emergencies.
“All right,” he said smoothly. “Did you call 911?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Anyone else?”
“Just you.”
“Good,” he said again. “We’re going to keep this brief. The first thing they’ll look at is your phone records. Here’s what you need to do.”
I sat heavily on the living room sofa and listened to Geller’s instructions. I tried not to think about Dwayne, facedown and dead in the room down the hall. The hand not holding the phone was starting to shake. Not at the violence, or the loss, but at the realization that I was alone. Truly. For the first time since everything had been set in motion, maybe even for the first time in my life. Strangest of all, the self I was left to rely on was someone I barely even knew. I had stepped into Adrienne’s life, a performance that was only meant to last a few days but was now extended indefinitely, and for a much bigger audience. For a moment, I imagined hanging up, grabbing whatever I could carry, and running. I had killed Lizzie; I could let Adrienne go, too. And maybe I should. I could be reborn somewhere out there in the world, choose a new name, create a new self. I could be nobody at all. The gym bag with the cash, the diamonds, was sitting in a closet just a few feet away. Less than three minutes had passed since I’d dialed 911. I could still be gone before they got here.