The Atonement (The Arrangement, #3)(35)

“What’s this all about?” Peter asked. I heard the car door shut and the crunch of the gravel underneath his shoes before he appeared next to me.

“Oh, just doing a bit of light gardening,” she said. “You a big gardener, Mr. Greenburg?”

“Can’t say that I am.” The skin of his neck flushed pink.

“Really? Well, your wife says differently.” She eyed me, and soon enough, they were both looking at me.

“What’s she talking about, Ainsley?”

“I told her about the bodies, Peter. About the email you were planning to send, the one I found—your confession. I told her about the women. I gave them permission to excavate the woods. To give their families peace. I’m so sorry.”

He stared at me with a blank look in his eyes, as if I were speaking a language he couldn’t understand. “I’m sorry, what are you talking about? Is this a joke?” He pointed a finger gun at the detective. “Is this a prank? Did Beckman put you up to this?” He looked around as if waiting for someone to jump out of the woods and shout, ‘Surprise!’

“I’m afraid this is no joke, Mr. Greenburg.” The detective studied him silently for a few moments.

Peter looked at me, his expression turning stony. “Is this because of the divorce? Is this your way of getting back at me?”

“Divorce?” the detective asked, folding her arms across her chest as she stared at me.

“My wife and I are in the process of getting a divorce,” Peter told her. “It’s been very messy and painful for the two of us. I’m really sorry if she brought you here and wasted your time, but surely you have to realize she’s joking. I mean, do I look like a killer to you?”

“You do know most serial killers are middle-aged white men, don’t you?” she snapped.

“Right.” Peter looked down. “Well…I mean, there are no bodies here, so whatever she’s told you, she’s wrong. And this is my property, too. Don’t you need my permission as well as hers?”

“As luck would have it, no. I don’t.”

I suppressed a smile.

“Your wife forwarded me an email with a confession, allegedly from you, claiming you’ve killed multiple people and buried their bodies in your woods. The email contained the exact location of the bodies, including longitude and latitude, and a marked-up Google map. Care to explain?”

“I don’t know anything about any email,” he said firmly, waving his hands to the side as if he were an umpire calling someone safe. “This has gone far enough. Ainsley, seriously, you’ve done a lot of terrible shit, but is this really how you want this to be? I thought we could be civil. But filing a fake police report?”

“It’s not fake, and you know it!” I argued. Why weren’t they arresting him already? Why wasn’t the detective backing me up?

“There are no bodies in the woods,” he said, his fingers near his temples.

I shot a glance at Detective Burks as she held up a hand to stop the argument.

“As it turns out, Mrs. Greenburg, he’s right.”

“What?” The swooping sensation in my core was back. The ground all but torn out from underneath me. “What do you mean?”

She gestured toward the crowd of detectives and officers milling about around the perimeter of the house. Looking closer, I realized they were all making their way back toward their cruisers. “We excavated the marked area, and the entire surrounding area on your word that there was something to find and there wasn’t. No bodies. Just what looked like the skeleton of an old dog.”

“Scout…” I whispered. “That’s not possible. Are you sure you checked the right spot?”

“As I said, we checked the exact area that was marked on the map—it didn’t leave a whole lot of guesswork—and all of the surrounding area.”

“What did you do?” I demanded, turning to Peter as my throat constricted with rage.

He ignored me completely. “I’m so sorry, Detective. Honestly. I’m embarrassed.”

The detective stared at him. “We also checked the room where your wife claims you’ve held women hostage.”

His brows knitted together with an almost amused scoff. “The what?”

“In the garage.” She was no longer talking to me. Only to Peter. I was the irrational woman trying to get revenge on her husband for leaving her.

“The safe room?” he asked, looking unimpressed. “Seriously, Ainsley?” He crossed his arms. “I’m going to guess you didn’t find anything in there except dust and old tools, right?”

The detective didn’t immediately confirm it.

“I’m a bit of an over preparer. Without a basement, I just felt safer having a room we could go to in case of a tornado. It comes in handy. But…” He laughed, as if it was ridiculous he even had to say it. “I can assure you the only people being tortured in there are my kids when they have to listen to my jokes during a tornado warning. Have you heard the one about a tornado’s favorite game?” His eyes twinkled, as if he had no cares in the world. “Twister. Get it?” He broke out in laughter over the terrible joke. I felt like I was watching the entire thing playing out in slow motion. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.