No One Will Miss Her(41)
I had a life. I want you to understand that. It might not have been much to look at, but it was mine. If I’d had the choice, I would have kept living it.
Chapter 16
The City
Adrienne wasn’t much of a cook, and the pantry was largely empty except for spices, dried pasta, and a few cans of soup. But the wine rack: now, that was fully stocked. She pulled a bottle at random, barely glancing at the label, and rummaged through two drawers in search of an opener before she realized the bottle was the kind with a cap, not a cork. Somehow, it felt like just one more sign of how far they’d fallen. At the height of her fame and Ethan’s success, Adrienne had been photographed by paparazzi in Ibiza, wearing a red bikini and sipping ice-cold gin on the deck of a yacht that belonged to an Academy Award–winning actor. It was a far cry from this moment, the privileged bitch alone in her town house, drinking twist-off Shiraz and waiting for a visit from the police, while her man cowered in a cheap motel somewhere outside the city. Her haters would be beside themselves if they could see her now, and she almost wanted them to. How perversely fun would it be to blow up her carefully cultivated brand with a single video: no cute camera angle, no flattering filter, just ten ugly seconds slugging wine straight from the bottle and then belching into the camera at the end. Maybe, for good measure, she’d film it sitting on the toilet. How ya like me now, bitches?
But then everyone would know that something was wrong.
She reached for a glass instead.
The wine was more purple than red, and she breathed deeply as she brought the glass to her lips. She caught a brief, vivid scent of dark fruit, blackberries heavy on the bush, so ripe and warm in the late summer sun that they’d paint your fingers with juice at the first touch. Then the wine was on her tongue, in her belly. The flavor wasn’t familiar, not like blackberries at all, but the way the tension in her temples dissolved with the first swallow felt like home. She topped off the wine and walked to the big window, settling in next to it with her forehead resting against the glass. She would need to eat something, and to resist the urge to down that entire bottle while she was at it. It wouldn’t do to be drunk when the cops showed up. Somewhere on the way, though, not sloppy but definitely not sober either—that might not be bad, she thought, and took another sip. Rich bitch, alone on a Tuesday night in her bajillion-dollar designer home, getting a little loose, maybe watching some shitty reality show: the more she leaned into the annoying stereotype, the less likely anyone was to look past the surface and see the disturbing truth beneath. Yes, she would drink.
But first, she needed to think. She gazed out at the dusky facade of the house across the way. An ivy plant was growing abundantly up one corner of the building and across its face, the vines like shadowy fingers gripping the brick, the leaves black and shiny in the streetlamp light. The windows were dimly lit rectangles, curtained to keep someone like Adrienne from looking in—or maybe to allow the neighbors to look out without being seen. She realized with a shiver how visible she would be right now, lit behind the glass like an animal in a terrarium. Was someone in the house across the street watching her? Was that a twitch, a tiny seam of light opening between the curtains as some unseen person peered out? Her husband had sworn up and down that he’d stayed out of sight while she was gone today, and she believed him—he didn’t want to be caught any more than she did—but she’d have to remind him to be cautious, especially at night. If he passed too close to the window at the wrong moment, if he unthinkingly left a light on, there was no telling who might be lurking out there ready to notice. Even someone passing on the street below would be able to see in. Certainly they’d see her, here in her perch beside the window. She wondered what she looked like from outside. Was she only a shape, a woman’s silhouette with a glass in hand? Could someone walking below discern the movement of her eyes, the twist of her mouth?
She lifted the glass, took another sip, and nearly choked on it as a car turned the corner and started driving slowly up the street. A Boston police car, blue and white, unmissable even without its strobes on. She held still as it passed in front of the house, and sighed with relief when it continued on down the street—but it didn’t. She gripped the stem of the wineglass tightly, her breath shallow, her heart pounding, as the car turned and came halfway back, this time pulling to the side of the street in front of the next house down. She fought the urge to stand up, to move to another window for a better look. She’d thought there would be more time, but surely this was the moment: the car door would open, the officer would emerge, and shortly, there would be a knock at her door. No time to think, to plan; now it was time to lie.
The car was parked under a tree, shrouded in shadow. She could make out the dark shape of a man—or maybe a tall woman—behind the wheel, but nothing else. She waited for movement, the sound of the car door, a badge glinting as the officer emerged. Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Then, a flicker: from within the car came a soft glow as the man inside pulled a phone from his pocket.
She clenched her teeth. She wanted this to be over. Was he just going to sit there, watching? Waiting? For what?
A warrant, maybe, came the answer from inside her own head, and her skin rippled over with gooseflesh. It was a paranoid thought, the product of a guilty conscience—but what if it wasn’t? If they were already suspicious enough to be filing paperwork to search the house, and if they already had enough evidence, enough to show whatever it took to have it approved . . .