The Other Mrs (ARC) Read online

at my thighs.

  I knew where I wanted this conversation to go. As I often

  did, I got my way. It wasn’t instantaneous, no. It took some

  power of persuasion, which comes naturally to me. Rule num-

  ber one: reciprocity. I do something for you, you do something

  for me in return.

  I wiped the mustard from his lip. I saw that his drink was

  empty. I reached for the cup, refilled it at the soda fountain.

  You didn’t have to do that, he said as I sat back down, slid his Pepsi across the table, made certain our hands touched as I did.

  I could have gotten it myself.

  I smiled and said, I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to, Wil .

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  And just like that, he owed me something.

  There’s also likability. I can be extremely likable when I want

  to be. I know just what to say, what to do, how to be charming.

  The trick is to ask open-ended questions, to get people to talk

  about themselves. It makes them feel like the most interesting

  person in the world.

  There’s also the importance of touch. Compliance is so much

  easier to achieve with a single touch to the arm, the shoulder,

  the thigh.

  Add that to the fact that his and Sadie’s marriage read more

  like a guidebook on abstinence, from what I’d seen. Will needed

  something only I could give to him.

  He didn’t say yes at first. He grinned sheepishly instead, turn-

  ing red. He said he had a meeting, somewhere else he needed

  to be.

  I can’t, he said. But I convinced him he could. Because not fifteen minutes later, we were slipping down an adjacent alleyway.

  There in that alley, he leaned me against a building. He eased

  his hand under the hem of the dress, pressed his mouth to mine.

  Not here, I said, thinking only of him. I’d be fine doing that there. But he had a marriage, a reputation. I had neither. Let’s go somewhere, I said into his ear.

  There was a hotel he knew, half a block away. Not the Ritz,

  but it would do. We raced up the stairs, into the room.

  There, he threw me on the bed, had his way with me. When

  we were done, we lay in bed, breathing heavy, trying to catch

  our breath.

  Will was the first to speak. That was just… He was tongue-

  tied when we were through, but radiant, beaming.

  He tried again. That was amazing. You, he said, kneeling over me, hands on either side of my head, eyes on mine, are amazing.

  I winked, said, You’re not so bad yourself.

  He stared at me awhile. I’d never been looked at like that

  by a man, like he couldn’t get enough of me. He said that he

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  MARY KUBICA

  needed this, more than I’d ever know. An escape from reality.

  My timing, he said, was impeccable. He’d been having a shitty

  day, a shitty week.

  This was perfect.

  You, he said, drinking me in with his eyes, are perfect.

  He listed for me the reasons why. My heart swelled as he did,

  though it was all skin-deep: my hair, my smile, my eyes.

  And then, like that, I was kissing him again.

  He pushed himself from bed when he was through. I lay there,

  watched as he slipped back into a dress shirt and jeans. You’re leaving so soon? I asked.

  He stood there at the end of the bed, watching me.

  He was apologetic. I have a meeting. I’m going to be late as it is.

  You stay as long as you’d like, he said. Take a nap, get some rest, as if that was some consolation prize. Sleeping alone in a cheap hotel.

  He leaned over me before he left. He kissed my forehead,

  stroked my hair. He gazed into my eyes, said, I’ll see you soon. It wasn’t a question. It was a promise.

  I smiled, said, Of course you will. You’re stuck with me, Will. I won’t ever let you go, and he smiled and said that was exactly what he wanted to hear.

  I tried not to be jealous as he left. I wasn’t the jealous type.

  Not until I met Will, and then I was, though I never felt guilty

  for what happened between Will and me. He was mine. Sadie

  took him from me. I didn’t owe her a thing.

  If anything, she owed me.

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  Sadie

  Two times I circle the house. I make sure all the doors and win-

  dows are locked. I do it once, and then, because I can’t be sure I

  got them all, I do it again. I pull the blinds, the curtains closed, wondering if it would be prudent to have a security system installed in the home.

  This evening, as promised, Will drove Imogen to the public

  safety building to speak with Officer Berg. I hoped Will would

  come home with news about the murder—something to set-

  tle me—but there was nothing to report. The police weren’t

  any closer to solving the crime. I’ve seen statistics on murders.

  Something like one third or more of murders become cold case

  files, leaving police departments mired in unsolved crimes. It’s

  an epidemic.

  The number of murderers walking among us every day is

  frightening.

  They can be anywhere and we’d never know.

  According to Will, Imogen had nothing to offer Officer Berg

  about last night. She was asleep, as I knew she’d been. When

  asked if she’d seen anything out of the ordinary over the last

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  few weeks, she turned stiff and gray and said, “My mom hang-

  ing from the end of a fucking noose.” Officer Berg had no more

  questions for her after that.

  As I contemplate a third go-round of the windows and doors,

  Will calls to me from the top of the stairs, asks if I’m coming

  to bed anytime soon. I tell him yes, I’m coming, as I give the

  front door a final tug. I leave on a living room lamp to give the

  pretense we’re awake.

  I climb the stairs and settle into bed beside Will. But I can’t

  sleep. All night, I find myself lying in bed, thinking about what

  Officer Berg said, how the little Baines girl was the one to find

  Morgan dead. I wonder how well Tate knows this little girl.

  Tate and she are in class together, but that doesn’t mean they’re

  friends.

  I find that I’m unable to shake from my mind the image of

  the six-year-old girl standing over her mother’s lifeless body. I

  wonder if she was scared. If she screamed. If the killer lurked

  nearby, getting off on the sound of her scream. I wonder how

  long she waited for the ambulance to arrive, and if, in that time,

  she feared for her own life. I think of her, alone, finding her

  mother dead in the same way that Imogen found her own mother

  dead. Not the same, no. Suicide and murder are two very dif-

  ferent things. But still, it’s unfathomable for me to think what

  these girls have seen in their short lives.

  Beside me, Will sleeps like a rock. But not me. Because as I

  lie there unsleeping I start to wonder if the killer is still on the island with us, or if he’s gone b
y now.

  I slip from bed at the thought of it, my heart gaining speed. I

  have to be sure the kids are okay. The dogs, on their own beds

  in the corner of the room, take note and follow along. I tell them

  to hush as Will rolls over in bed, pulling the sheet with him.

  On the wooden floors, my bare feet are cold. But it’s too dark

  to feel around for slippers. I leave them behind. I step out of the bedroom, moving down the narrow hall.

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  I go to Tate’s room first. There, in the doorway, I pause. Tate

  sleeps with the bedroom door open, a night-light plugged in to

  keep monsters at bay. His small body is set in the middle of the

  bed, a stuffed Chihuahua held tightly between his arms. Peace-

  fully he sleeps, his own dreams uninterrupted by thoughts of

  murder and death, unlike mine. I wonder what he dreams of.

  Maybe puppy dogs and ice cream.

  I wonder what Tate knows of death. I wonder what I knew of

  death when I was seven years old, if I knew much of anything.

  I move on to Otto’s room. There’s a roof outside Otto’s win-

  dow, a single-story slate roof that hangs over the front porch. A

  series of climbable columns hold it upright. Getting in or out

  wouldn’t be such a difficult task in the middle of the night.

  My feet instinctively pick up pace as I cross the hall, telling

  myself Otto is safe, that certainly an intruder wouldn’t climb

  to the second floor to get in. But in that moment, I can’t be so

  sure. I turn the handle and press the door silently open, terrified of what I’ll find on the other side. The window open, the bed

  empty. But it’s not the case. Otto is here. Otto is fine.

  I stand in the doorway, watching for awhile. I take a step

  closer for a better look, holding my breath so I don’t wake him.

  He looks peaceful, though his blanket has been kicked to the

  end of the bed and his pillow tossed to the floor. His head lies

  flat on the mattress. I reach for the blanket and draw it over

  him, remembering when he was young and would ask me to

  sleep with him. When I did, he’d toss a heavy arm across my

  neck and hold me that way, not letting go the entire night. He’s

  grown up too fast. I wish for it back.

  I go to Imogen’s room next. I set my hand on the handle and

  sluggishly turn, careful not to make any noise. But the handle

  doesn’t turn. The door is locked from the inside. I can’t check

  on her.

  I turn away from the door and inch down the stairs. The dogs

  follow on my heels, but I move far too slowly for their liking.

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  At some point, they bypass me and dash down the rest of the

  steps, cutting through the foyer for the back door. Their nails

  click-clack on the wooden floors like typewriter keys.

  I pause before the front door and glance out the sidelight win-

  dow. From this angle, I catch a glimpse of the Baines’s house.

  There’s activity going on even at this late hour. Light floods the

  inside of it, a handful of people milling about inside. Police on

  a quest. I wonder what they’ll find.

  The dogs whine at me from the kitchen, stealing my atten-

  tion away from the window. They want to go outside. I follow

  them, opening the sliding glass door, and they go rushing out.

  They make a beeline for the corner of the yard, where they’ve

  recently begun digging divots in the grass. The incessant dig-

  ging has become their latest compulsion and also my pet peeve.

  I clap my hands together to get them to stop.

  I brew myself a cup of tea and sit down at the kitchen table. I

  look around for things to do. There’s no point in going back to

  bed because I know I won’t sleep. There’s nothing worse than

  lying in bed, restless, worrying about things I can’t do any-

  thing about.

  On the edge of the table sits a book Will has been reading,

  a true crime novel with a bookmark thrust in the center of it.

  I take the book into the living room, turn on a lamp and settle

  myself on Alice’s marigold sofa to read. I spread an afghan over

  my lap. I open the book. By accident Will’s bookmark comes

  tumbling out, falling to the floor beside my feet.

  “Shit,” I say, reaching down for the bookmark, feeling guilty

  that I’ve lost Will’s page.

  But the guilt only lasts so long before it’s replaced with some-

  thing else. Jealousy? Anger? Empathy? Or maybe surprise. Be-

  cause the bookmark isn’t the only thing that’s fallen out of the

  pages of the book. Because there’s also a photo of Erin, Will’s

  first fiancée, the woman he was supposed to marry instead of me.

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  My gasp is audible. My hand comes to a stop inches above

  her face, my heart hastening.

  Why is Will hiding a photograph of Erin inside this book?

  Why does Will still have this photograph at all?

  The photo is old, twenty years maybe. Erin looks to be about

  eighteen or nineteen in it. Her hair is wild, her smile carefree.

  I stare at the picture, into Erin’s eyes. There’s a pang of jealousy because of how beautiful she is. How magnetic.

  But how can I be jealous of a woman who is dead?

  Will and I had been dating for over a month before he men-

  tioned her name. We were still in that completely smitten stage,

  when everything felt noteworthy and important. We’d talk on

  the phone for hours. I didn’t have much to say about my past

  and so, instead, I told him about my future, about all the things

  I planned to one day do. Will’s future was undecided when

  we met, and so he told me about his past. About his childhood

  dog. About his stepfather’s diagnosis with cancer, the fact that

  his mother has been married three times. And he told me about

  Erin, the woman he was supposed to marry, a woman he was

  engaged to for months before she died. Will cried openly when

  he told me about her. He held nothing back, and I loved him

  for it because of his great capacity to love.

  In all my life, I didn’t think I’d ever seen a grown man cry.

  At the time, the sadness of Will losing a fiancée only attracted

  me to him more. Will was broken, like a butterfly without

  wings. I wanted to be the one to heal him.

  It’s been years since her name has come up. It’s not as if we

  talk about her. But every now and then another Erin is men-

  tioned and it gives us pause. The name alone carries so much

  weight. But why Will would dig this photograph out of God

  knows where and carry it around with him is beyond me. Why

  now, after all this time?

  My hand grazes the photograph but I don’t have it in me to

  pick it up. Not yet. I’ve only seen one other photograph of Erin

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<
br />   MARY KUBICA

  before, one that Will showed to me years ago at my request. He

  didn’t want to, but I insisted. I wanted to know what she looked

  like. When I asked to see a picture, he showed me with circum-

  spection. He wasn’t sure how I’d react. I tried to be poker-faced

  about it, but there was no denying the sharp pains I felt inside.

  She was breathtaking.

  I knew in that instant: Will only loved me because she was

  gone. I was his second pick.

  I brush my finger against Erin’s fair skin now. I can’t be jeal-

  ous. I simply can’t. And I can’t be mad. It would be insensitive

  of me to ask him to throw it away. But here I am, after all these

  years, feeling like I’m playing second fiddle to the memory of

  a woman who’s dead.

  I reach for the photo and hold it in my hand this time. I won’t

  let myself be a coward. I stare at her. There’s something so child-

  ish about her face, so audacious and raw, that I feel the greatest

  need to scold her for whatever it is she’s thinking as she makes a

  pouty face at the camera, one which is as provocative as it is bold.

  I jam the picture and the bookmark somewhere back inside

  the book, rise from the sofa and bring the book to the kitchen

  table. I leave it there, having suddenly lost the desire to read.

  The dogs have begun to bark. I can’t leave them outside bark-

  ing in the middle of the night. I open the slider and call to them, but they don’t come.

  I’m forced outside into the backyard to get their attention.

  The patio is freezing cold on my bare feet. But that discomfort

  is secondary to what I feel inside as I get taken in, swallowed

  by the darkness. The kitchen light fades quickly behind me as

  the December night closes in.

  I can see nothing. If someone was there, standing in the dark-

  ness of our yard, I wouldn’t know. An unwanted thought comes

  pummeling into me then. My saliva catches in my throat and

  I choke.

  Dogs have adaptations that people don’t have. They can see

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  much better than humans in the dark. It makes me wonder what

  the dogs see that I can’t see, what they’re barking at.

  I hiss out into the night, calling quietly for the girls. It’s the

  middle of the night; I don’t want to shout. But I’m too scared

  to go any further outside than I already am.