No One Will Miss Her(42)
“Fuck,” she whispered aloud. She’d already done one quick and cursory sweep through the place, making the bed, scanning surfaces, satisfied that there were no obvious traces of her husband’s recent presence, but if the house were swarmed over with cops, who knew what they might find? She would have to assume the worst, and make use of whatever time she had left.
She forced herself to take another few sips of wine—slowly, with long pauses between to scroll through strangers’ photos on Insta. If the man in the cop car was watching, he’d see a bored housewife, glued to her phone; he might even see the quick movement of her thumb as she scrolled, tap-tapped, scrolled. Little hearts bloomed under the press of her thumb, but the images were a blur. The wine was tasteless on her tongue. Her focus was turned inward, sharpened by urgency and the knowledge that it was all up to her now. It was becoming a familiar feeling, the potent emotional cocktail of fear, exhilaration, determination. She already knew that she would do whatever had to be done. She would take steps to protect what was hers. Her husband. Her future. Her life. She had always been resourceful, but the past twenty-four hours had tapped into something deeper, darker, fiercer. There was another woman inside of her, one with steel nerves and sharp teeth, who had revealed herself at the crucial moment, and taken control. Cunning and vicious, careful and methodical, and ready to do anything—whatever it took—to survive. It was that woman who had been her guide last night, whispering in her ear as she pulled the trigger.
As she wielded the knife.
As she threw the mangled chunk of meat and cartilage into the garbage disposal and carefully flipped the switch with her elbow, on and off.
Afterward, it was the cold, cunning voice of her second self that advised her to step carefully, avoiding the blood, when she ran to the toilet to vomit.
Her thumb stopped moving over the phone’s screen. The memory of last night, her bare feet racing back past the fat drops of blood that traced her path from the bedroom to the kitchen, had faded away; in its place was a more recent one, and the sense that an important detail was buried within. The late-morning light blazing through the windows, her husband stepping into the hallway with his hair freshly buzzed, bits of toilet paper stuck to his clean-shaven face. She understood in an instant, his words coming back to her at once.
“I cut myself.” That’s what he’d said. “It’s going to bleed all day long.”
Bits of bloody toilet paper in the bathroom trash, the stubble from a freshly shorn beard in the sink: this was what she’d overlooked, what would need her immediate attention. She would start in the bathroom, then. Flush what she could, and bury what she couldn’t in the kitchen trash, under this morning’s coffee grounds—and another image flashed through her mind, of two recently used coffee mugs sitting side by side in the sink. Hers could stay, but his would need to be washed, dried, put away. She would change the sheets they’d slept on last night, just to be safe. Polish the surfaces he might have touched. She would wipe away every visible trace of him, of the day’s work, of last night’s horrors. The only marks left would be the ones on her memory.
And a few other places, the voice inside her smirked, and for a moment her fingers unconsciously fluttered toward her chest. She balled her hand into a fist, hard enough to feel the bite of her own nails against her palm. She’d almost forgotten that part, had tried to forget it, and was amazed to realize that she’d very nearly been successful. The wound had bled, but only a little. It didn’t even hurt anymore. Soon, it would heal. There would be a scab, and then a scar, and then, eventually, not even that. Like it had never happened at all.
If her body could forget, maybe she could, too.
A glance at the clock revealed that the pain wasn’t the only thing her body had forgotten to feel. It was nearly eight p.m., and all she’d had to eat since that morning was the overly sweet pumpkin spice latte; she should have been hungry by now. She tapped at the phone again, opening the Grubhub app and then her order history. The last delivery had been a week ago from a Japanese place called Yin’s; the app was already asking her if she wanted the same thing again, and she tapped the reorder button without bothering to investigate what it was. Some decisions, at least, were easy. And she should eat, if only for the sake of sticking to something approaching a routine. It would be one less thing she’d have to lie about. Today? she could picture herself saying, her eyes wide with confusion and her head cocked inquiringly to one side. As a child, Adrienne had spoken with a light Southern accent that she still trotted out from time to time when she really wanted to put on a show of Who, me? innocence. I got a blowout, had a meeting with our financial advisor, got a coffee, ordered some takeout, and watched TV. Just a normal day. Why, no, Ethan isn’t here. Yes, I’m alone—of course, all night. The deliveryman saw me—ask him. Will that be all, Officer?
She lifted her glass to her lips and drained the rest of the wine with one swallow. Outside, the street was quiet. In the building across the street, a shrouded window on the third floor brightened. Adrienne’s neighbors were settling in for the night. The police car remained where it was, its lights off, its occupant waiting. Perhaps it was just a coincidence and he wasn’t there for her at all. Or perhaps he was waiting for a warrant . . . or maybe a friend. It occurred to her for the first time that Copper Falls might send its own police officers to investigate the murder, a thought that filled her with sudden terror. Could she look into the faces of men who had known Lizzie Ouellette and Dwayne Cleaves, who had grown up alongside them, and lie so that they would believe her?