The Shadow Box(8)

There is power in dangerous love. You can be so focused on the forbidden nature of it, justifying your choices to the world—me falling in love with Griffin while still legally married to Nate, Griffin giving me all his attention instead of trying to find a workable custody agreement with Margot, instead of doting on his devastated sons—that you miss the fact you’re completely wrong for each other.

Ellen’s death never left me. It informed my work, led me deeply into nature’s darkness, the terrible beauty of it echoed in every shadow box I created. Griffin said it inspired him to go to law school, to become a prosecutor, plumb the pain and dark side of life—and in doing so, honor Ellen.

That was a lie.

Ellen was buried in Heronwood Cemetery. The rumors that she had been the victim of a violent crime faded away. Perhaps she had slipped and fallen on the rocks, died of a terrible accident. Or, as was more commonly thought, she had killed herself.

I, too, believed it was suicide at first but not any longer. I am positive it was homicide, just as I am sure that Griffin took me to the cove that night so I would find her body.

And I know because he all but confessed that he killed her.

I can picture us, Griffin and me, in our kitchen at Catamount Bluff. Late at night, him coming home after a meeting of the Last Monday Club, black tie loosened, dinner jacket slung over his shoulder. I’d said something “wrong”—it doesn’t matter what; asking about the weather could be “wrong” if he wasn’t in the mood for the question. His face looming into mine, his green eyes turning black—literally black—and him saying, “Do you want what happened to Ellen to happen to you?”

He said things like that to me all the time. He’d say it about other murder victims, whose killers he prosecuted. “The defendant was pushed too far, Claire, just like you push me too far. I have to do my job and send him to prison, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand why he did it. He takes it and takes it until he can’t anymore. And then she dies.”

“Like Ellen?” I asked. “Did she push you too far?”

That was my fatal question.

Now that I am about to go missing, Griffin will appear on every local TV station, frantic with love and worry for me. The state police will drag rivers and salt ponds and the inshore waters of Long Island Sound, send divers into lakes and reservoirs, scour rock quarries and ledges and hills of glacial moraine. They will question my friends and ex-husband, neighbors, fellow artists and naturalists. Griffin will let them read my notebooks—the ones I left unhidden—look through my computer files, examine the cell phone I left in my SUV when I was struck.

There will be blood evidence, and the forensic team will analyze it. Buckets from my head wound, drops from the halfhearted slashes. Oh, that knife—I keep seeing my attacker wave it. I thought it was going to pierce my heart, so I tried to dodge it. The tip pricked my forearms and the palms of my hand—but he kept pulling it away, never let the full blade slash me.

Griffin would never have killed me with a knife.

Too messy, too much evidence left behind.

The night the jury convicted John Marcus, Griffin and I were in our kitchen, just the two of us, about to have dinner. It was a chilly October evening, cold enough to leave frost on our Halloween pumpkin. The kitchen was cozy. I had made roast chicken. He had brought home a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, so we could toast his victory. People were already talking about a run for higher office.

I lifted my glass. He was carving the chicken.

Right there next to our white marble island, he raised the knife above his head, lunged toward me, and I flinched so hard I dropped my champagne glass and it shattered on the floor.

“Jesus, it was a joke!” he said. “You make me feel like a criminal when you get scared like that.”

“Then don’t come at me with a knife.”

“When I come after you with a knife, Claire, you’ll know it.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Don’t worry, I would never stab you,” he said, his voice perfectly calm. “Why do you think the jury came back in two hours? Because he was an idiot, he made so many mistakes. He was practically begging to be caught. You have to be smart. You can’t leave DNA. But Claire? I feel like it right now. That glass was Baccarat crystal. It belonged to my grandmother.”

You know? I can’t say he didn’t warn me.

Then I think of the letter and tear up because I didn’t listen.

How far will I be able to walk?

He won’t stop until he finds me. And when he does, he will make sure I never return home.

The entire state of Connecticut will ache for his loss.

Griffin got away with Ellen, but he won’t get away with me.

It’s time for me to leave. I force myself off the floor a second time. My legs barely work; I stumble through the side door. I know to walk on the ledge to avoid leaving footprints, to brush the ground behind me with a pine bough, to head for the deepest part of the woods.

I will hide in the wild, where I feel safest. My feet know their way along this path. I am making my way northeast, but I curve around, and before I circle back to resume my intended route, I cover rocks and tree trunks with the animal mixture. The scent will throw the dogs off my trail.

I will make sure Griffin is caught. I will let everyone know the light is a lie, that darkness is his only truth.