Pretty Little Wife(89)

A scream of frustration rumbled up her throat, but she bit it back. Swearing, she opened the zipper of the backpack and grabbed a screwdriver and hammer. One look at the job, and she pocketed the screwdriver. This required hitting.

She smacked the vulnerable wood, putting her weight behind it, and watched it splinter. Clawing at it, kicking it some more, let her break off a long piece and make an opening.

One more board and she’d be through.

She repeated the process, this time holding on to the fence to keep from falling. She could not get injured. Not out here, where no one would hear her or find her.

With both boards gone and sweat rolling down her back, she slipped through the open slot and stepped into the small cleared area behind the cabin. Her gaze shot to the back of the building then over to the shed. A gnawing sensation started in her stomach. The smells and sounds of the woods on the other side of the fence reminded her of hikes around Cayuga Lake, of walking around the preserve with Ryan.

This side felt still. She glanced up, letting the rain hit her face, and tried to find the sky. She saw nothing but darkness. A twisting of branches and swaying of trees.

She listened for the sound of creatures scurrying under shrubs but heard nothing. It was as if death blanketed the property. Even though she stood outside, tension pressed in on her from every angle. Her throat felt tight, and her breathing grew labored.

Yellow tape surrounded the cabin and the shed. Another bit outlined a hole in the ground and the mound of mud beside it. It had once held a body. One of the women’s graves.

Her stomach heaved. She covered her mouth with her gloved hand and tried to inhale through her nose. She could not get sick here. Not because of evidence. Because of respect. She owed Julie, Yara, and Karen better. She had to see this through. Walk where they’d walked. Feel Aaron’s malice, let it fuel her.

He was dead, and he deserved to be. She didn’t need the reminder, but this suffocating burial ground gave her one. She doubted she’d ever forget this place.

She dropped the hammer and her backpack on the porch. She used her pocketknife to slice through the tape at the door, then, with one last look at the rocky driveway leading to the house and trees that muffled the screams, she stepped into the cabin.

Silence inundated her. The thick air clogged her throat.

The curtains had been pulled back on the windows, and light entered the space. The kitchen lined the far wall. To the left, the door to the bedroom. She could see the end of the mattress but, knowing that’s where they’d found Karen, couldn’t force her body to step inside.

To her right, a sitting area with a plaid sofa and an ottoman. The kind of furniture she’d seen in countless hunting cabins. Old, durable. Frayed. Nothing on the walls. Nothing personal.

Except for the rocking chair.

It sat in the middle of the room, as if it had been dragged inside. She studied it as she’d done with the one in her attic this morning. There it was. A carving on the one armrest—a circle with a bear on its hind legs, paws in the air. Not a coincidence. This was the same design. Same workmanship. A match to the one she’d stored since she’d met Aaron in North Carolina years ago, but in better condition. This one hadn’t been hidden away and allowed to rot.

Her senses leapt to life. A thundering started in her ears. She inhaled deep, openmouthed breaths to keep from dropping to the ground in an anxiety-induced haze. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find or feel, but all she could call up was emptiness. An overriding, pummeling guilt that pushed against her shoulders, trying to slam her to the dusty floor.

“I wondered if you’d come.”

She closed her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. The one she’d hoped not to hear. She’d never wanted so badly to be wrong.

She turned around and saw him. Tall and sure, dressed in his hiking gear and wearing that expensive watch.

Holding her hammer.

“Jared.”





Chapter Fifty-Eight


“I TRACKED YOU. HELL, I’VE BEEN TRACKING YOU SINCE YOUR big fight with Aaron two months ago. Figured you’d get curious and drive out here one day.” Jared whistled. “But today you seemed distracted. When you ran out of the sheriff’s office, head down and all determined, I knew you’d found something because I know you.”

They always said that. Today she hated to hear it. “You don’t.”

“I could see it in your expression.”

That persistent, nagging memory. “They weren’t coins.”

The words seemed to dampen his enthusiasm. “What?”

“In your office drawer at home.” Her mind went back to her break-in. Coins in the desk drawer and coins in a jar a few feet away. That didn’t seem like the meticulous Jared she knew, but she didn’t pick up on the strangeness then. She’d been too busy feeling crappy for snooping around his office.

“Right. Spare charms. You found them before I could toss them out of a car window somewhere far from here.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a bracelet just like the one in the photo on Ginny’s board. “Number eighteen. I’m hoping we don’t need it today, but that really depends on you.”

The words shot right through her. The number. What it meant. What he had planned for her. What he really was.

Jared shook his head as his smile returned. “Those fucking videos started all of this.”