No One Will Miss Her(34)

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.”

“You got a name?”

“You won’t believe it. You know Ethan Richards? That finance guy who—”

“I know who he is,” Brady interrupted.

“Well, it’s his wife,” Bird said, and was rewarded with the sound of Brady whistling under his breath.

“That’s interesting,” he said.

“It is,” Bird said. “And apparently, she was in Copper Falls last night.”

“She was?”

“Well, her vehicle. Their vehicle, I should say. It’s registered to the husband. Mercedes GLE. Not something you see a lot around here, so people remember it.”

Brady exhaled. “Well, that’s something. And where’s the vehicle now?”

“I don’t know about the Mercedes, but the mistress is at home in Boston.” Bird glanced at the dashboard. “I’ve gotta stop to fuel up, but I should be there in under four hours.”

“Hmm,” Brady said, and fell silent. Bird waited. He was used to these pauses; they meant Brady was thinking. On the other end of the line, Brady cleared his throat and asked, “You think she was an accomplice?”

“Maybe,” Bird said, then quickly added, “I don’t know. Really. I’m back and forth on it. If she wasn’t in on it, it’s a weird damn coincidence. Maybe she just drove the car?”

“What about a hostage situation? He tells her to pick him up, maybe he doesn’t mention he killed his wife—”