Lie to Me Page 6

  “Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe she’s paying me back for everything by making me sick with worry. I expect her to come waltzing in the door any minute and yell, ‘Surprise!’”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

  “I’m only half kidding. What I don’t get is the missing money.”

  Ivy didn’t bat a perfectly groomed eyelash. “I agree, that is odd. How much, and from where?”

  “Our investment account. Fifty thousand. Withdrawn over six months.” He handed over the spreadsheet, felt a small spark of pride. Ivy understood money. It was in her blood. She’d appreciate his effort, at least.

  She perused the paper, biting on her lower left lip. A bad habit she had; it made her seem young, breakable. It was the only dent he’d ever seen in her armor. Not that he’d been paying attention.

  “This could be for anything.”

  “It could. But it’s not. I think she’s fled.”

  Ivy set the paper down on the marble. Took a sip of her water. “Why would she run away from you, Ethan? Sutton has been through hell, yes, but so have you. I can’t imagine her just up and leaving without a word. She’s stronger than that.”

  “She left word. She left a note.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  She read it with the same concentration she’d given the spreadsheet, carefully, fully, allowing the words to sink in.

  Another little lip gnaw.

  “Well, Ethan, what do you want to do?”

  “I want to find her and strangle her for making me worry like this, that’s what.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the most productive angle. The police might take offense were they to hear you talking in those terms, too.”

  He ran both hands through his hair, shook his head. “It’s just...what the hell is she thinking? If she wanted out, why not be up front about it? Why steal fifty grand and sneak away in the night? It doesn’t seem like her. Something’s not right about all of this. I’m no longer feeling comfortable with she decided to leave as an answer.”

  “Then it is time to call the police. Let them make the decision for you. Don’t you think?”

  “I went to see Joel Robinson. He wants to be here when I talk to them.”

  “That’s good. At least you’ll be protected. Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I promise.”

  He looked at his Breitling, a relic passed down from his grandfather. Took a deep breath. “Joel said he’d be here at five. It’s 4:40 p.m. now. Here goes nothing.”

  He reached for the phone and dialed 9-1-1, trying like hell to keep his mind focused on his missing wife, not thinking about the last time he was forced to do this.

  SIDS, OR NOT TO SIDS

  Then

  The baby wasn’t breathing. He was cold and blue, and Sutton was standing over the crib with a look of shock on her face. Her voice was high and reedy, bordering on complete hysteria. She was slapping at her head.

  “Do something! For God’s sake, Ethan, do something!”

  What was he supposed to do? The baby was clearly dead. He’d seen enough dead things to know. The numbness spread through him, burning and cauterizing as it went. This is your son, not some...thing in a backyard, on the side of the road, or in a coffin. This is your son. Feel something.

  Shock, you’re in shock.

  Sutton had gone over the edge, was keening. She started to reach into the crib to pick up the baby—Dashiell, his name is Dashiell—but Ethan grabbed her arm. “Stop. Call 9-1-1. Don’t touch him.”

  She lost all affect, the hysteria fleeing. Her calm was eerie, unsettling. It was as if his touch had switched off a light inside her; one flick of the switch and the wife he knew was gone. Her voice was hollow, girlish. “He’s my baby. I want to pick him up. I want to hold him.”

  “Sutton, we need the police to see that you didn’t do anything to him.”

  She turned, eyes wide, and slapped him, hard across the cheek. The fire returned to her eyes. “How dare you? How dare you? I didn’t hurt him, you know I didn’t. I’d never hurt him. How could you possibly insinuate that I killed our baby? You bastard!”

  He grabbed her by the arms, squeezed hard, as if he could keep the demons from spilling out. “Sutton, listen to me. They’ll look at you. They always look at the mother. And now that you know... Calm down. Please, darling, just calm down.”

  She ripped herself from his grip and rushed out of the room. He heard her crying, cursing, begging, the words running together, a wailing crescendo: No, no, no, no, no.

  He stared once more at the still body of their tiny son. Oh, Sutton. What have you done?

  He had to call the police.

  Time passed in a blur. Strangers came. Neighbors lined the streets. Rain started, chasing all but the nosiest inside to watch through their windows.

  Ten hours—a lifetime—later, they carried Dashiell’s body from the house. When the door closed behind them, it felt so empty. He didn’t know how to feel. Sutton had been given a sedative and was passed out cold in their bed. He wanted a sedative. Why did he have to be the brave one, the together one, the strong one? Because he was a man? He’d lost his son, too. And probably more. His marriage, his wife. His life, so strategically built.

  He opened a bottle of Scotch, poured half a glass, drank it down without breathing. The liquor burned, and he swallowed hard to keep it down.

  Two drinks later, he’d finally admitted to himself this could have been his fault. He shouldn’t have told her. It was a stupid thing to do. But the guilt of it was weighing on him. Holding the secret inside, letting it eat at him, tear away at him, had become a permanent Charybdis churning in his soul.

  Sutton loved Dashiell. Carried him with her everywhere. He’d outgrown the withy basket she kept by her desk and spent his out-of-arms time in a car seat stationed within five feet of her at all times. Ethan had finally won the battle to let the tyke sleep in his crib in his nursery instead of in their bed. It had been hard for Sutton, even harder for him. It was impossible to sleep well knowing Sutton was getting up to check on the baby every hour.

  He’d told her because he knew she’d gotten used to it. To being a mother. To having a child. To being a family.

  He knew she loved Dashiell.

  But when he admitted what he’d done, it was like something inside her snapped.

  THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING WIFE

  Now

  Dialing 9-1-1 felt holy, prophetic. He’d only done it once before, the night they’d found the baby dead, and the whole event replayed itself in minute splashes of memory. Pick up the phone the police arrived depress the buttons they looked right through you, as if they knew you were responsible it rang, once, twice, three times there will have to be an autopsy, I’m sorry.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  My baby is dead.

  Ivy was staring at him. He cleared his throat. “My wife is missing.”

  A slight exhalation from the operator, as if she were relieved it wasn’t a real emergency.

  “Is your address 460 Third Avenue South, Franklin?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Ethan. Ethan Montclair.”

  “What’s your wife’s name, sir?”

  “Sutton Montclair.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Thirty-eight. No, thirty-seven. Oh, her birthday...”

  “Height, weight, hair color?”

  “Five-eleven, strawberry blonde, maybe 140, 150? I don’t know exactly. She hasn’t been working out. She’s very pretty.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Monday night.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yes, that’s righ
t.”

  “Is there any reason to assume she’s in danger, sir? Has she been receiving strange phone calls or threats?”

  “Um, not that I know of. There was a reporter who was hassling her—she’s a writer, we’re both writers. But it wasn’t physical.”

  “And why do you think she’s missing?”

  “She left a note, told me not to look for her. Normally I’d respect her wishes. But I, we, lost our baby recently. It’s not probable, but she could have tried to hurt herself.”

  A pause, then a kinder, gentler operator emerged. “I see. I understand. The police will be there shortly, sir.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  He hung up. Ivy raised a brow. “They’re sending someone.”

  “Good. Now, let’s see if we can get into her computer while we’re waiting.”

  Ethan followed Ivy to Sutton’s office. “Do you know her password?”

  “I can guess.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  Ivy gave him another strange, appraising look.

  “Why does everyone suddenly seem to know my wife better than I do? First her mother, then the weird sisters, now you. What the bloody hell is going on around here?”

  “God, you talked to Siobhan? Sutton won’t like that one bit.”

  “She came for her allowance. It was poorly timed.”

  Ivy sat at Sutton’s desk, opened the laptop, touched the trackpad. The screen saver disappeared and the password page came up.

  Ivy stared at it for a moment, caught her lip in her teeth, then typed in a few letters and hit Return. The password dock shimmied but didn’t let them in. She tried again. Same result.

  “Do it too many times and you’ll just lock us out. Doesn’t she keep it written down somewhere?”

  Ivy tapped her finger on the return key. “Of course she does. It’s in her notebook, on the last page. I don’t see it here on her desk.”

  “I didn’t know that. She keeps the old ones in the closet, in chronological order. Maybe it’s in one of them.” He pulled open the doors and went rummaging. It only took a moment to find the most recent notebook—Sutton’s organizational system put the local library’s Dewey decimal system to shame.

  He flipped it open to the last page. Sure enough, there was the list, written in pencil.

  He swallowed hard when he saw Sutton’s master password. He leaned over Ivy’s shoulder and typed it in. When he hit Return, the black screen fragmented away, and they were faced with Sutton’s home page.

  “Open sesame. What was it?”

  “The password? ‘I love Ethan Montclair.’” His voice broke, and pain bloomed in his chest, bright and hard. Would these be the last words he heard from his wife?

  “How perfectly adorable.”

  “Email first,” Ethan said gruffly.

  Ivy hovered over the mail icon, clicked it. Ethan gestured, and Ivy stood, let him take over the chair.

  The first five messages were all from this morning, from the weird sisters, from Jess. All asking if Sutton was all right. All after Ethan being in touch to see what they knew.

  Then there was an array of the kinds of email Ethan himself received—used to receive—editors and publicists and marketing folk, all with terribly good news or don’t-worry-about-it news. Sutton had received a starred review from Publishers Weekly for her latest book that was due out in a month. Nice that she hadn’t mentioned that to him. A familiar seething anger started inside him, made up of equal parts jealousy, pride, and his own unique brand of self-loathing. His wife, the writer, was getting serious accolades for her bodice rippers, while Ethan, the author whose work actually mattered, whose literary contributions would be remembered, sat on his hands unable to write a fucking word.

  And then there were the nasty-grams. His animus melted in the face of them. He hadn’t realized; she hadn’t told him. They were still coming in, no longer hundreds a day as they were in the beginning, but still too many. He counted twenty over the past week alone. She had them all saved to a folder, a filter labeling them. Hate mail from her previously loyal readers. He opened her sent folder. Nothing since Thursday. A chill paraded down his spine.

  “You find anything?”

  He hadn’t realized Ivy had disappeared, but she now held her sweating glass of water. He knew she’d left it in the kitchen.

  “Nothing of use. I haven’t gotten into her files yet, I’ve only looked at the email. Could she have a different account?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Better go get that,” Ivy said. “It will be the police. I’ll keep looking here for a minute, see if she left anything unfinished in her files. And I’ve only ever gotten mail from her from this account. But, Ethan, anything’s possible.”

  “Ivy, you don’t think...”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. You keep looking.”

  THE POLICE ARRIVE

  Two officers stood on the front porch, appraising the house. Ethan knew the effect it had on people—the wide, graceful wraparound screamed Southern luxury. The double doors with their lion’s head knockers, the dormer windows, the tower. The whole house was special, each piece lovingly crafted, and it showed.

  He’d always taken pride in it, though it was Sutton who’d made it a home.

  One cop was a young woman in uniform. The second was an older, grizzled man in his fifties wearing a rumpled blue suit. The woman spoke first. “Sir? I’m Officer Graham, and this is Sergeant Moreno. We understand you’ve reported your wife missing?”

  “Yes, I—”

  A voice from the street called, “Hold up!”

  Joel Robinson was motoring up the sidewalk as fast as his short legs could carry him. The white picket fence—for God’s sake, they even had a white picket fence—had a kissing gate, and Robinson fiddled with the latch for a moment, then barreled through, smiling, hand outstretched. “Roy, you old dog. How are things? How’s Beverly?”

  Moreno shook hands with Robinson.

  “Bev’s fine.”

  “Still making that tuna noodle casserole for the church ladies?”

  “She’ll never stop.”

  “Give her my best, will you? I’ve missed the last few weeks, getting ready for a trial, you know how it is.”

  “I do. Why are you here?”

  Robinson stepped past the cops and took up position at Ethan’s side. “Ethan’s a friend. I thought I’d stop by and see if there’s been any news on Sutton. Has there?”

  Ethan shook his head mutely.

  “Well, then, let’s go inside and have a chat. Terrible thing. Terrible thing.”

  And he hustled everyone inside. Ethan was starting to get an idea of why Joel Robinson was so respected as a criminal defense attorney.

  Inside, Moreno introduced Graham. Robinson was all smiles again. “I know your daddy, he’s a good man. Fair, and not unwilling to admit it when he’s wrong. You tell him his pal from the other side of the fence says hello, will you?”

  “I will. He’s spoken of you to me before. He says the same thing about you.”

  “Good to know, good to know. All righty, then, let’s get down to business, shall we? We’ve got ourselves a gorgeous redhead to find.”

  GLORY DAYS

  Then

  “Oh, Ethan. I love it! It’s absolutely perfect.”

  They were standing on a sidewalk in the quaint downtown community of Franklin, Tennessee. The house was Victorian, ruined, and needed a ton of work. All he could see were dollar signs, but Sutton was bouncing around like a puppy on crack, begging to call the Realtor and look inside, and he couldn’t say no to her. He never said no to her. It wouldn’t kill them to look. Looking wasn’t buying.

  Half an hour later, the Rea
ltor gave them the key. “Take a walk around the place, see what you think. It’s not the turnkey you were hoping for, but the bones are there. She could be a real stunner with a little work and TLC.”

  And the commission would be twice what the Realtor would get from the other houses she’d shown them, but Ethan bit back those words and followed his lovely wife into the run-down beast.

  The Realtor was right, it did have good bones. The house had been abandoned; the previous owner ran into bad times and couldn’t make the payments, and the bank had foreclosed on this monstrosity. The floors were blond teak but scraped and scratched; the owners must have had a large dog. The front porch needed a complete overhaul; he could see a large crack in one of the plaster Doric columns.

  Sutton came tearing around the corner from what he assumed was the kitchen. She had a smudge of filth on her cheek and was smiling wider than he’d seen since the first time he’d taken her to bed. Her eyes danced with happiness.

  “Oh, Ethan,” she breathed, and he knew, without a doubt, the cause was already lost. They’d be putting in an offer this afternoon. This was their new home.

  Would he have allowed her to fall in love with the old wreck had he known where the house would lead them? The agony they’d experience behind these very walls?

  Bloody well not. The house would bring them nothing but pain and sorrow. He didn’t care if they were supposed to learn and grow from their experiences, this place was damned, and he’d known it that day when he’d allowed her to fall in love, allowed her to deviate so wholly from their plan. They’d had a plan, and if they’d just stuck to it, none of this would have happened, none of it.

  They didn’t need five bedrooms and three fireplaces and an albatross of a house that would require an entire renovation inside and out to make it livable. They didn’t need anything but each other, a bed, a bottle of champagne, and their laptops.

  He started to tell her so. He did. Something told him, as lovely as the house could be, they were making a mistake. But the words wouldn’t pass his tongue, and then Sutton was there, pressed against him, lush lips against his, her excitement coming through in passion and fire and promises of things to come, a future of love and happiness, and the next thing he knew, he was dizzily writing a check for fifty thousand more than asking, cash, to assure they wouldn’t get into a bidding war.