No One Will Miss Her(72)

I had no fucking idea how it was with Ethan.

“I’ve tried to forget,” I said cautiously, and Geller chuckled a little.

“Well, we’ll handle it the same way. I’ll send someone for you; he’ll escort you from your door. Can you come to the office this afternoon, three o’clock? I spent some time this morning on the phone with a friend in the district attorney’s office. We have things to discuss, but I’m optimistic.”

“Okay,” I said. “The press—”

“Don’t talk to them,” Geller said. “Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll draft any statements on your behalf after we meet.”

After I hung up, I stayed where I was, watching helplessly as notifications kept lighting up the phone’s screen. The phone on the table rang once and I scrambled to my knees to pick it up, listened as a woman’s voice said, “Mrs. Richards? This is Rachel Lawrence. I’m a reporter with—”

I hung up. Then I unplugged the phone.

As I scrolled back through Adrienne’s messages, it suddenly occurred to me how strange it was that her cell phone wasn’t ringing off the hook. She had hundreds of contacts saved, but apart from three missed calls and two voice mails from Kurt Geller, not a single person with a direct line to Adrienne had tried to call or text her. Instead, she was inundated with messages from strangers. The picture I’d posted to Adrienne’s account yesterday was racking up dozens of comments. She had more than a hundred unread emails, the most recent crop mainly from reporters or television producers hoping to get an interview. The police didn’t seem to be saying anything for the moment—every story I read said only that an unidentified male had been pronounced dead at the scene—but that would only last so long. As bad as things were now, I realized, they were only going to get worse. After all those years in Copper Falls, I thought I knew how it felt to be hated. But this . . .

Surprise, said Adrienne’s voice in my head. You should see your face right now.



Kurt Geller’s car arrived promptly at quarter to three, nosing up to the curb as the gaggle of reporters jostled for position. I was ready, showered and dressed, wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses that I’d found in Adrienne’s closet. They were the same ones she’d been wearing several years previous, when she and Ethan were photographed leaving their home at the height of Ethan’s financial scandal, which I knew because I’d looked up the picture online just an hour before. It was like a costume on top of a costume: me, dressed up as Adrienne Richards, dressed up as nobody at all. I looked ridiculous, but then again, so had she. Neither one of us looked good in hats, and I would probably have to wear this one for weeks. This particular hat, every time I left the house, for as long as the press wanted to camp out on my doorstep.

In that years-old picture, Adrienne and Ethan were being partially shielded from the cameras by a huge, broad-shouldered man with dark brown skin and close-cropped hair. As I peered out the window, I saw the same man, now a little grayer around the temples and thicker through the waist, climb out from behind the wheel of the town car that was idling at the curb. He shouldered his way easily through the crowd and up to the front door. My phone began to ring again. I answered it, looking down from the window. He was on the stoop, holding his own phone to his ear, looking up at me. His mouth formed the words as I heard them in the receiver.

“Mrs. Richards? It’s Benny. Your driver.”

“I’m ready.”

“Come on down, and I’ll escort you to the car.”

I took the stairs carefully, holding tight to the railing, my gait unnatural in Adrienne’s heels. I had been feeling proud of myself for thinking ahead, trying every pair of her shoes to find one that fit well enough, but I’d forgotten the part where I would have to walk in them. It was a struggle not to stagger. Outside, I leaned on Benny as heavily as I dared, shaking my head as reporters thronged around us, shouting questions, thrusting voice recorders in front of my face. All around me, the rapid-fire shutter sound of cameras going off. I kept my head down, eyes on my feet and my heart in my throat as we reached the bottom of the stone steps and crossed the sidewalk. I saw the car door in front of me and unthinkingly reached for the handle.

“Ma’am?”

I looked up: Benny was standing to my left, holding the door that he’d opened for me. There was a strange look on his face.

“Oh. Right. Thank you,” I said, and he blinked, his eyebrows knitting together like I’d said the wrong thing, because of course I had. Of course Adrienne wouldn’t say thank you. I could hear her voice in my head right now, incredulous: Since when do you tell people “thank you” for doing their job? That’s what the money is for. But the awkward moment was only a moment, and Benny stepped aside. I practically dove past him into the back seat, yanking my throbbing feet in behind me. The door closed. I was safe once again, invisible behind dark-tinted windows. In front, the driver’s-side door opened and then closed again.

“Hey,” Benny said. I looked up, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror. He was still frowning. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I wondered what Adrienne had said to this man the last time she met him; I couldn’t begin to guess, except that it was probably awful. But Adrienne wouldn’t have wondered. Adrienne wouldn’t have cared at all. I shrugged and looked away.