The Marriage Lie(71)

“I know,” Corban says softly. “I miss him, too.”

I nod, trying to drum up some of my earlier anger, but it seems to have abandoned me. The only thing I can manage to muster up is more sorrow. For Will, for me, for Corban grieving a lost friend.

“I owe you an apology, you know.”

Corban’s head swings my way, his forehead creasing. “What for?”

“I found a note. Two, actually. Both in Will’s handwriting, both showed up after the crash.”

I’ve stunned him silent. It takes him a second or two to get his bearings. “What...what did they say?”

“The first one said I’m so sorry. The second told me I was in danger, and to stop snooping into Will’s past. I went to Seattle after the crash. I talked to people who remembered him.” I shake my head. “There was lots of drama, none of it good.”

“What drama? What happened?”

“Drugs. Arson. Depending on who and what you believe, maybe murder. I met the father I thought died ages ago, not that he was in a state to tell me anything. He has Alzheimer’s, and it’s pretty advanced. But none of that is my point. My point is, when I met you the other morning for coffee, I suspected you. I thought you sent the notes to...I don’t know, to trick or torture me or something.”

Indignation straightens Corban’s spine. “I would never—”

“I know.” I pause to give him a smile. “That’s why I’m apologizing.”

He smiles back. “Forgiven.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

We sit for a bit, each of us lost in our thoughts. I lean back in the chair, and Corban does the same, stretching his long legs out before him, closing his eyes to the sun. A shrieking comes from a few houses down—children playing in a yard somewhere—and beyond that, the faint and familiar rumble of traffic.

“So, wait,” Corban says, his eyes snapping open with sudden realization, “since I didn’t send the notes, who did?”

I don’t answer, or maybe I do. Corban studies me with an intense gaze, and from the way his mouth is drawn tight, I can tell he reads my message in the silence.

His eyes go big and round. “No.”

I hesitate only a second. I’ve already started down this path, and after the way he’s responded today, my instinct says he can be trusted. “There have also been some texts.”

“Saying what?”

“Lots of things. But in the last ones, he admitted it was him.”

“No. No. That’s...” He passes a hand over his mouth and shakes his head, a hard back and forth like a dog trying to choke up a bone. “That’s not possible. That’s insane!”

“Of course it’s insane, but so is stealing four and a half million dollars from your employer. You said it yourself, Will was acting funny. What if he was faced with a choice, go to jail or disappear? What if he didn’t love me enough to do the right thing?”

As I say the words, my voice breaks and my eyes fill with tears, and I was right before, when I thought that once I started crying I wouldn’t be able to stop, because that’s exactly what happens. The wound feels ripped open all over again, fresh and jagged, and I wrap both arms around my waist, fold myself double and sob. And it’s not the pretty kind of cry, either. It’s the kind that sucks the breath from my lungs and screws up my face and turns it all red and snotty. Because this is what it’s all about, isn’t it? In the end, Will didn’t love me enough.

Poor Corban, he looks like he’s at a loss. He’s a man without a clue what to do with a sobbing pseudo widow, so he just sits there, stiff and uncomfortable, his gaze scanning my face like he’s searching for something. Any indication for how to make me stop crying, most likely.

It takes me forever to wind down, for my sinuses to stop streaming and the wails to taper into whimpers. When finally I’m able to suck a long, shaky breath, he passes me his shirt to mop up my face. The cloth smells like grass and cologne and man, and it makes me miss my husband even more.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

I bark a wet laugh at the irony. “Just one? Because there are a million things I don’t understand.”

He takes a long last slug of beer, draining his bottle. “If Will’s not dead, then where is he? Where’d he go?”

I hike my shoulders to my ears again. “Wherever the money is, of course.”





25

That night I don’t sleep. Fury pumps like a cactus through my veins, poking me with pointy fingers. Every time I threaten to drift off, it reminds me of my phone downstairs, tangled among the forks and knives, beeping and buzzing with Will’s incoming texts.

How many has he sent by now? Ten? Twenty? Forty? I glare at the ceiling, clench my teeth until my jaw aches and tell myself I don’t care.

If Dave were still here, I’d pad into his room and bum another one of his magic blue pills. After yesterday—no, after the past two weeks—I could use a night of deep and dreamless sleep, if for nothing else than to keep me away from my phone.

By morning, my brain, soaked with adrenaline and fury, feels numb, and I throw back my covers with relief. I shower and brush my teeth like any normal Monday morning. I dry my hair and put on my makeup. I shove my limbs into a skirt and blouse and my feet into my favorite pair of high heels and teeter downstairs to scrounge up coffee. Normalcy is what I need.