No One Will Miss Her(54)

I looked out at the lake. The sun was dipping lower, casting long, deep shadows across the water. Somewhere on the opposite bank, a loon began its loopy call, laughing hysterically all alone. We sat, listening, and then both jumped when another, closer bird suddenly screamed in response. Calling across the water to its mate. They shrieked together as the breeze grew stronger, as the trees creaked and groaned above. From the bedroom behind us came the light rattle of Adrienne, snoring. I wondered briefly if I could somehow pin the entire thing on her. That we’d shown up to welcome them to the house and found them just like this: one stoned and sleeping, one stone dead. The police might believe that, I thought . . . for five seconds, until Adrienne woke up and spilled her guts.

I sighed.

“Shut up and let me think,” I said.

He did.



It was two hours later, close to sunset, when Adrienne woke up. I stood in the doorway, watching her. She struggled to a seated position, but there was no grogginess or confusion in her expression as she gazed back at me. I shifted uneasily. Her eyes narrowed, and she cleared her throat.

“I thought the police would be here by now,” she said. “My husband is dead, isn’t he? I know he is. Dwayne killed him. I saw it. Why aren’t they here?”

I stepped into the room. “We were waiting for you to wake up. We need to talk.”

“Talk about what?” she spat back, rubbing her eyes. “Jesus, what time is it? And where’s Ethan? Has he been just . . . just lying out there? You just left him there?!”

“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” I said, and looked over my shoulder at the hallway behind me. This was Dwayne’s cue: I beckoned and he stepped into the room, taking a few steps toward Adrienne before he seemed to think better of it and came to an awkward, hovering stop, halfway between us. He looked from me to her and back again.

“Listen,” he said. “We’re all in this together now.”

Adrienne blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

I took a step toward her, too, and said, “What Dwayne means is, we need to figure out what to tell the police. Given the situation. I know you asked him to hook you up with heroin—”

“Oh, is that what you told her?” she said, looking at Dwayne with a smirk. Her tone had changed, that Southern drawl creeping in around the edges of her words.

I held up my hands. “I’m saying, it makes this complicated. For all of us. If you hadn’t been shooting up, none of this would have happened.”

Adrienne cocked her head, folded her arms, and pressed her lips together. Long seconds ticked by while I waited for her to reply. Dwayne was pushing his hands into his hair again.

“So,” she said finally. “Blackmail. Is that what you think we’re doing? I pretend Ethan pushed himself down the stairs, and you won’t tell them that I was experimenting with illicit substances. Do I have that right?”

“Nobody said anything about blackmail,” I said hurriedly, even as a sardonic inner voice added the subtext: Not out loud, anyway. “I’m just saying, there were . . . extenuating circumstances. A lot happened here.”

The smirk played on her lips again. “Extenuating. You don’t know the half of it.”

“So help me understand, then,” I said. “When I got here, you were—”

“I was high on the dope your husband pushed on me,” she said, glaring at Dwayne, whose mouth dropped open.

“Because you asked for it!” he said. “As soon as Ethan walked away, you asked if I had any!”

“Did I?” Adrienne said. “I’m not sure I remember it that way.”

“Adrienne, please,” I said, desperation creeping into my voice. “We need to think clearly about this. It’s not just about Dwayne. If the police think you were involved, you’ll be in just as much trouble as any of us.”

In fact, I had no idea if this was true. But Ethan’s body had been there for hours now, the telltale bruise from Dwayne’s fist discoloring its jaw, and Adrienne had been here when it happened. This was the best I could come up with, the plan that hours of sitting and thinking had yielded: to talk to Adrienne and try to convince her that it was in all of our best interests to say that Ethan’s death had been an accident. I thought she might take some convincing, some coaxing, but this—the strange little smile, the narrowed eyes, the teasing tone, and the way she kept looking at Dwayne—was unsettling and not at all what I’d expected. I wondered, briefly, fleetingly, if there was something she wasn’t telling me. Something everyone else in the room knew that I didn’t.

I should have wondered harder. I should have asked.

But I didn’t.

Because that was when Adrienne stood up, jabbing a finger at me, and said, “Let me explain this to you, Lizzie. Both of you. I’m the victim. I’m the survivor. You think the police are going to believe you over me? Your redneck junkie husband shot me up with dope and murdered Ethan, and you—for all I know, you were in on it. You probably planned it! Was I even supposed to wake up?”

It was my turn to stare. “Excuse me?” I said. Even then, I was already unwittingly starting to mimic her, using the same words Adrienne herself had used only moments ago.

Adrienne whirled, facing Dwayne. “That needle. It felt different this time. Didn’t I say that? What did you give me?”