The Couple Next Door(85)

Anne finally has the upper hand, and she likes it. She smiles at Cynthia.

“So what?” Cynthia says finally. But Anne can tell she’s unnerved.

“What you might not know,” Anne says, “is that Marco’s cut a deal.”

Anne sees something like alarm flit across Cynthia’s face, and Anne comes to the reason she’s here. She says, ominously, “You were in on this all along. You knew all about it.”

“I knew nothing about it,” Cynthia says scornfully, “except that your husband stole his own child.”

“Oh, I think you knew. I think you were in on this with my father—we all know how much you love money.” Anne says, with a trace of venom, “Maybe you’re the one who’s going to go to jail.”

Cynthia’s face changes. “No! I didn’t know what Richard had done, not until I saw it on the news tonight. I wasn’t involved. I thought Marco had done it. You can’t prove anything against me. I haven’t been anywhere near your baby!”

“I don’t believe you,” Anne says.

“I don’t care what you believe—it’s the truth,” Cynthia says. She looks at Anne with narrowed eyes. “What happened to you, Anne? You used to be such fun, so interesting—and then you had a baby. Everything about you changed. Do you even realize how dull and dumpy and boring you’ve become? Poor Marco, I wonder how he stands it.”

“Don’t try to change the subject. Don’t make this about me. You had to know what my father was up to. So don’t lie to me.” Anne’s voice shakes with anger.

“You’ll never be able to prove that, because it simply isn’t true,” Cynthia says. Then she adds, cruelly, “If I’d been involved, do you think I would have let the baby survive? It would probably have been better for Richard just to kill it at the beginning—and a lot less trouble. It would have been a pleasure to stop that brat’s endless crying.”

Then Cynthia looks scared—she realizes she’s gone too far.

Anne’s chair falls suddenly backward. Cynthia’s habitual smugness is replaced by a look of blind terror; her china teacup shatters on the floor as she lets out a hideous, earsplitting scream.

? ? ?

Marco has been deeply asleep. But in the middle of the night, he wakes suddenly. He opens his eyes. It is very dark, but there are red lights flashing, circling around the bedroom walls. Emergency vehicle lights.

The bed is empty beside him. Anne must be up again, feeding the baby.

He is curious now. He gets up and walks over to the bedroom window, which looks out over the street. He pushes the curtain aside and peers out. It’s an ambulance. It is parked directly below him and to the left.

In front of Cynthia and Graham’s house.

His whole body tenses. Now he sees the black-and-white police cars on the other side of the street, more arriving as he watches. His fingers on the curtain twitch involuntarily. His body is shot through with adrenaline.

A stretcher appears from out of the house, carried by two ambulance attendants. There must be someone on the stretcher, but he can’t see for sure until the medic moves. There is no urgency about them. The medic shifts position. Marco sees that there is someone on the stretcher. But he can’t tell who it is, because the face is covered.

Whoever is on the stretcher is dead.

All the blood rushes from Marco’s head; he feels he might pass out. As he watches, a lock of long, jet-black hair escapes and falls down below the stretcher.

He looks back at the empty bed. “Oh, God,” he whispers. “Anne, what have you done?”

He runs out of the bedroom, glances quickly in the baby’s room. Cora is asleep in her crib. Panicking now, he races down the stairs, stops dead in the darkened living room. He can see the side of his wife’s head; she is sitting on the sofa in the dark, completely still. He approaches her, filled with dread. She is slumped on the sofa, staring straight ahead as if in a trance, but as she hears him approach, she turns her head.

She is holding a large carving knife in her lap.

The red, pulsing light from the emergency vehicles outside circles the living-room walls and bathes them in a lurid glow. Marco can see that the knife and her hands are dark—dark with blood. She is covered in it. There are dark splatters on her face and in her hair. He feels sick, like he might throw up.

“Anne,” he whispers, his voice a broken croak. “Anne, what have you done?”

She looks back at him in the dark and says, “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”