The Wife: A Novel of Psychological Suspense
Alafair Burke
Dedication
For the Puzzle Guild
Friendship and Whimsy Forever
Prologue
In an instant, I became the woman they assumed I’d been all along: the wife who lied to protect her husband.
I almost didn’t hear the knock on the front door. I had removed the brass knocker twelve days earlier, as if that would stop another reporter from showing up unannounced. Once I realized the source of the sound, I sat up straight in bed, hitting mute on the TV remote. Fighting the instinct to freeze, I forced myself to take a look. I parted the drawn bedroom curtains, squinting against the afternoon sun.
I saw the top of a head of short black hair on my stoop. The Impala in front of the fire hydrant across the street practically screamed “unmarked police car.” It was that same detective, back again. I still had her business card tucked away in my purse, where Jason wouldn’t see it. She kept knocking, and I kept watching her knock, until she sat on the front steps and started reading my paper.
I threw on a sweatshirt over my tank top and pajama pants and made my way to the front door.
“Did I wake you?” Her voice was filled with judgment. “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
I wanted to say I didn’t owe anyone an explanation for lying around my own house, but instead, I muttered that I had a migraine. Lie number one—small, but a lie nonetheless.
“You should take vinegar and honey. Works every time.”
“I think I’d rather have a headache. If you need to talk to Jason, you can call our lawyer.”
“I told you before, Olivia Randall’s not your lawyer. She’s Jason’s.”
I started to close the door, but she pushed it back open. “And you may think your husband’s case is on hold, but I can still investigate, especially when it’s about an entirely new charge.”
I should have slammed the door, but she was baiting me with the threat of incoming shrapnel. I’d rather take it in the face than wait for it to strike me in the back.
“What is it now?”
“I need to know where your husband was last night.”
Of all nights, why did she have to ask about that one? For any other date of our six-year marriage, I could have offered a truthful account.
I already knew from Jason’s lawyer that this wasn’t the stuff covered by spousal privilege. They could haul me in to a grand jury. They could use my failure to answer as proof that I was hiding something. And a detective was at my door with what seemed like a simple question: Where had my husband been the previous night?
“He was here with me.” It had been twelve years since a police officer last asked me a direct question, but my first instinct was still to lie.
“All night?”
“Yes, our friend brought over enough food to last the whole day. It’s not exactly fun to be seen in public these days.”
“What friend?”
“Colin Harris. He brought takeout from Gotham. You can call the restaurant if you need to.”
“Can anyone else vouch that your husband was here with you?”
“My son, Spencer. He called from camp around seven thirty and spoke to both of us.” Words kept escaping my mouth, each phrase seemingly necessitated by the previous one. “Pull up our phone records if you don’t believe me. Now, please, what’s this all about?”
“Kerry Lynch is missing.”
The words sounded funny together. Kerry Lynch is missing. This woman who had been batting us around was suddenly gone, like a sock that never makes it out of the dryer.
Of course it was about that woman. Our entire life had been about her for the last two weeks. My lips kept moving. I told the detective that we streamed La La Land before falling asleep, even though I had watched it alone. So many details, tumbling out.
I decided to go on the offense, making it clear I was outraged the police had come straight to our door when Kerry could be anywhere. I even suggested indignantly that the detective come inside and take a look around, but in reality, my thoughts were racing. I assured myself that Jason could answer questions about the film if asked. He had seen it on the plane the last time he flew home from London. But what if they asked Spencer about the phone call?
The detective was obviously unmoved by my exasperation. “How well do you really know your husband, Angela?”
“I know he’s innocent.”
“You’re more than a bystander. You’re enabling him, which means I can’t help you. Don’t let Jason take you and your boy down with him.”
I waited until the Impala had left to reach for my phone. Jason was in a client meeting, but took my call. I had told him the night before that I didn’t want to speak to him again until I had made some decisions.
“I’m so glad you called.”
With one stupid conversation, I had conformed to the stereotype. I was complicit now. I was all in.
“Jason, Kerry Lynch is missing. Please tell me you didn’t do this because of me.”
I
Rachel
1
The first piece of trouble was a girl named Rachel. Sorry, not a girl. A woman named Rachel.
Even teenagers are called young women now, as if there is something horribly trivial about being a girl. I still have to correct myself. At whatever moment I transformed from a girl to a woman, when I might have cared about the difference, I had other things to worry about.
Jason told me about the Rachel incident the same day it happened. We were at Lupa, seated at our favorite table, a found pocket of quiet in the back corner of the crowded restaurant.
I only had two things to report from my day. The handyman fixed the hinge on the cabinet in the guest bathroom, but said the wood was warping and would eventually need to be replaced. And the head of the auction committee at Spencer’s school called to see if Jason would donate a dinner.
“Didn’t we just do that?” he asked, taking a large bite of the burrata we were sharing. “You were going to cook for someone.”
Spencer is in the seventh grade at Friends Seminary. Every year the school asks us to donate not only money on top of the extraordinary tuition we pay but also an “item” to be sold at the annual auction. Six weeks earlier, I opted for our usual contribution at this year’s event: I’d cater a dinner for eight in the highest bidder’s home. Only a few people in the city connected me now to the summer parties I once planned in the Hamptons, so Jason helped boost my ego by driving the price up. I convinced him to stop once my item had “gone” for a thousand dollars.
“There’s a new chair of the committee for next year,” I explained. “She wants to get a head start. The woman has too much time on her hands.”
“Dealing with someone who fastidiously plans every last detail months in advance? I can’t imagine how awful that must be for you.”
He looked at me with a satisfied smile. I was the planner in the family, the one with daily routines and a long list of what Jason and Spencer called Mom Rules, all designed to keep our lives routine and utterly predictable—good and boring, as I like to say.
“Trust me. She makes me look chill.”
He feigned a shudder and took a sip of wine. “Want to know what that crowd really needs for an auction? A week in the desert without water. A cot in a local homeless shelter. Or how about a decent lay? We’d raise millions.”
I told him the committee had other plans. “Apparently you’re a big enough deal now that people will open up their wallets for a chance to breathe the same air. They suggested dinner with three guests at a—quote—‘socially responsible’ restaurant of your choosing.”
His mouth was full, but I could read the thoughts behind his eye roll. When I first met Jason, no one had heard of him other than his students, coworkers, and a couple of dozen academics who shared his intellectual passions. I never would have predicted that my cute little egghead would become a political and cultural icon.