“Oh, please, no. If you’ll just dig it up, I promise you, you’ll see that—”
“If you can find me proof—” She held up her hand to cut me off. “I will listen. But otherwise, I advise the two of you to separate—at least for the night, but preferably for a long, long time—and cool off.”
“Thank you, Detective. We will,” Peter said, bowing to her as if he were practicing martial arts. I felt as if I were living in some alternate universe. How was any of this happening?
“Detective, please, if you’ll just listen—”
“I have listened, Mrs. Greenburg. I’m done listening now. I’m sorry.” She took another step back, but hesitated. “One last question.” She was looking at Peter. “If you’re not a gardener…” I felt bitter hope fill my chest. “Why has so much of your property been disturbed in the last few months?”
“Ex-excuse me?”
She turned back to face us. “Well, it’s obvious quite a bit of the area Mrs. Greenburg directed us to had recently been disturbed. Now, if you were a gardener, I guess that might make sense. But since you’ve already said you’re not…” She paused. “Would you care to explain?”
He shot a glance at me, then straightened his shoulders. “I…I’m not exactly sure where you were looking, but I’m in the early stages of clearing out some of the woods to build an extra workspace for my architecture firm. I’m hoping it’ll mean I can be home with the kids more—work from home and all that. Especially once we divide up custody. I’ve been digging around, preparing to lay the foundation and, like you saw, we have buried quite a few family pets out there and there are coyotes in the woods. I couldn’t say for sure which one caused what you saw. I’m happy to answer more questions if you want to show me the exact area.”
She was silent for a moment, then her lips pressed into a thin smile with a puff of breath from her nose. Her chest fell with the heavy release of air. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve taken up enough of your time.” Somehow, I thought she wanted to say we’d taken up enough of hers. She opened her mouth, obviously weighing what she was about to say. “Mr. Greenburg, I should ask if you want to press charges against your wife for the false allegations.”
He beamed at her, mocking sincerity. “Oh, no, it’s okay. Thank you, Detective. We don’t want to waste any more of your time. Tensions are just high right now. I’m really sorry you had to come all the way out here for this.”
She looked at me one last time, then turned on her heel and made her way to her car. The officers pulled down the driveway slowly, one by one, none of them bothering to look at us. Peter waved at them like a politician, a giant grin on his face.
“What did you do?” I asked him through gritted teeth. I didn’t care who saw how angry I was. It was impossible. It was also my last idea. I had no idea what I was going to do now.
Once the cars were gone, all except the two unmarked cars driven by Detective Burks and another detective, an excavator was driven down the side of our yard and around the curve of our driveway. Finally, the detectives pulled away, leaving us standing in silence, the weight of what just happened hanging in the air between us.
I’d failed.
I’d failed miserably.
“What did you do, Peter?” I demanded again.
“Looks like I just saved my own ass, doesn’t it?” He chuckled. “Did you honestly think I’d leave them where they were, knowing you tried to kill me? I love you, Ains. But I’m not stupid enough to trust you. Not anymore. You ruined that.”
“Where are the bodies?”
“Looks like I’m the only one who knows.” He shrugged, walking toward the end of the driveway. I followed him. “And if you’d like to keep it that way, I suggest you do as I say.”
“Where are you going?”
He rounded the corner, peering down the portion of the driveway that was concealed from the house. “Checking to make sure they left. Wouldn’t want to walk into another trap.” When he turned back to me, he cracked his knuckles. “Now then, where were we?”
Thinking quickly, I spun around on my heels, tearing down the driveway at breakneck speed. He rushed to keep up, lunging at me with his hands outstretched. He grabbed my arm, and I jerked forward. I tried to swipe the keys from his hand, but he held on to them tightly, tugging me into his chest and wrapping me up with both arms.