The Wife Upstairs(44)

“Cash is preferable,” John continues, “and you remember the address.”

I nod even though he can’t see me.

“I’ll put it in the mail this week,” I say, and I can hear the grin in his voice.

“You’re a saint, Jane. The church will really appreciate it.”

“Don’t call me again. We’re done now.”

“I can’t even call to check in with you? As a friend?”

“We’re not friends,” I reply, then end the call, my fingers trembling.

The police asking questions. John asking for money.

And in the middle of it, me. And my secrets.





20




JUNE

“We should go to the lake this weekend.”

I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, paging through another bridal magazine when Eddie speaks, his tone casual as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

It’s been a week since Detective Laurent showed up and while neither of us have mentioned her visit, it’s still been there between us, a third presence in the room all the time.

And now Eddie wants to go to the lake? The same place where Blanche and his wife died? Oh wait, were murdered?

“Like, the house there?” I ask inanely, and he smirks slightly.

“That was the idea, yeah. Might be nice to get out of town for a little bit, you know? And you’ve never seen the house.”

I’m temporarily stunned into silence. Finally, I say, “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”

Eddie fixes me with his eyes. He’s still smiling, his posture loose and relaxed, and it’s somehow worse than if he were angry. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

It feels like a dare. It is a dare. He wants me to say it out loud, to ask about the police investigation. Does he wonder if I read into Detective Laurent’s visit, if I suspect him at all? Because, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know what to think anymore. But I also think that in a twisted way, going to the lake could give me some clarity.

“Okay,” I say. “We’ll go to the lake.”



* * *



We leave on Friday afternoon, Eddie wrapping up work early. The drive to Smith Lake is about an hour from the house in Mountain Brook, and it’s pretty, taking us away from the suburbs and into the more rural parts of Alabama, hills rolling gently, the sky a blazing blue.

We stop in a town called Jasper to eat lunch, Eddie as at ease in a little barbecue joint with plastic tables and a roll of paper towels for napkins as he is at the fancy French place back in the village.

Watching him with his sloppy sandwich, managing to get not one drop of sauce on his pristine white shirt, I laugh, shaking my head.

“You fit in anywhere,” I tell him, and he looks up, eyebrows raised.

“Is that a compliment?” he asks, and I’d meant it as one, definitely. But not for the first time, I wonder about Eddie’s past. He rarely talks about it, like he just sprang into the world, fully formed when he met Bea.

“No, if I wanted to compliment you, I’d tell you how hot you look with barbecue sauce on the corner of your mouth.”

He smiles and winks. “You think I’m hot, huh?”

Shrugging, I poke at the lemon in my sweet tea with my straw. “Most days you’re just passable, but right now, yes.”

That makes him laugh, and he tosses a balled-up napkin at me. “This is why I love you, Jane,” he says. “You won’t let my head get too big.” Even though it’s dumb as hell, I almost want to tell him my real name then. Just to hear him say it.

Instead, I finish up my lunch, and we head back to the car, the drive short now.

We make our way down winding roads, dim under the canopy of leaves, the lake sparkling in the distance. There are lots of houses, but the farther we drive, the more spread out they become until finally, there’s just the woods, the lake, and as Eddie rounds a corner, the house.

It’s not as grand as the one in Thornfield Estates, and it was clearly built to look like a rustic lake house, the kind of place where you bring kids fishing, but it’s still sprawling, and I feel the coziness of lunch start to ebb away.

It’s so quiet here. So isolated.

And it’s the last place Bea was ever alive.

As Eddie gets our bags from the trunk, I think he might be feeling something similar because he’s quiet except to call out, “The code for the door is the same one at the house.”

6-12-85. Bea’s birthday.

I enter it into the keypad on the front door, and step inside.

More similarities to Eddie’s house—our house. It’s clearly been expensively decorated, but it’s designed to look lived-in, too. There’s darker wood here, darker furniture, the whole place a lot more masculine, a lot less … Bea.

As I stand beside the heavy front door, my surprise must register on my face because as Eddie steps past me with our stuff, he asks, “What?”

“It’s just…”

This house looks so much more like him. Even though Bea died here, her ghost doesn’t feel nearly as present.

“This is a very man-cavey place,” I finally say, and one corner of his mouth kicks up as he tosses his leather bag onto a couch done in green-and-blue tartan.