Ethan had to take the man seriously. He knew this as surely as he knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west. With luck, Wilde was just trying to get inside the story, to gain his precious scoop. Then again, he’d screwed them before. What would stop him from doing it again?
The stories he’d written about their family when the baby died had been, in a word, alluring. Surprising, really, because Wilde wasn’t even a real reporter, not a journalist in the sense Ethan had grown up with. No, Wilde was worse than the worst hacks at the Fleet Street rags, a news blogger, as he called himself, as if he could lend importance to his own opinion by adding the word news in front of the ubiquitously common term blogger. He curried favor with his subjects by playing into the base hatred of the online mob, and set his flying monkeys on people who disagreed with him. That’s how the fracas started with Sutton in the first place. Ethan had a sneaking suspicion the whole reviewer incident had been instigated by Wilde, though he couldn’t prove a damn thing.
Ethan doubted Wilde made money in the endeavor. His site was littered with sponsor rolls and crowded with logos from strange companies Ethan had never heard of. Wilde was a fraud.
But.
But.
There were things about Colin Wilde he couldn’t, wouldn’t, ever admit. Because the things Wilde knew about them, about him, were...worrisome. He didn’t want to talk to the reporter, but he was afraid not to. At least he should try to rein him in. Wilde had done so much damage already; with this chewy steak of a story, he could reignite all the fallow flames.
The ringing stopped. Ethan was filled with dread and relief.
So he hadn’t told Officer Graham everything. So what? What was he supposed to say, that he wanted to blame Wilde for Sutton’s disappearance? That all the things that went wrong in their lives he wanted to park at Wilde’s door and light on fire?
His Scotch was gone. He went to the kitchen for a drink of water. Maybe a cup of tea. They had one old-fashioned rotary-dial wall phone in the kitchen. It was a relic of Sutton’s first home, something she’d clung to. Ethan found it reminded him of his childhood, as well. He stared at it, holding his tiny mobile, thinking about how truly fucked-up his life had gotten in the intervening years. The mobile began to trill again. Wilde.
Ethan swallowed, pressed the Talk button, launched the tirade.
“I told you never to call me again. Fuck you, fuck off, leave us alone, and don’t you dare write anything about my wife, or I’ll sue you for defamation.”
There was no slamming down a phone anymore, but he’d dropped it to his waist where he could see without his reading glasses and was hitting the End button when he heard Wilde shout, “Wait. Don’t hang up. I know where your wife is.”
Ethan hesitated. And damn it, he knew better. Hang up. Hang up and be done with him.
But Colin Wilde had created this rift in Ethan’s world by becoming so overly involved in his life, in his wife, and as much as it infuriated him to admit, if anyone knew what had happened to Sutton, it could be Wilde. He had that uncanny ability to know what they were doing, at all times. He was as much a stalker of Sutton as Sutton had been to the reviewer.
He put the phone to his ear.
“Where is she?”
A laugh, brash and mean. “Now, now, that tone won’t do. Come on, Ethan. You need to ask me nicely. You know you want to.”
Ethan felt the familiar rush of hate and fear. Bile rose in his stomach. Wilde’s goal may have been to terrorize Sutton, but Ethan had not been left out of the charade. It had started with him. The mistakes he’d made were going to haunt him forever, and he’d come to terms with this. He’d been silent for so long, though, that Ethan actually thought they were free of Wilde, of his knowledge and accusations.
He did know that bowing down wasn’t the way to make things come to a head.
“You have one minute to share everything you know, and if you don’t, I’m going to call up the very nice police officer who’s been hanging around and tell her to come arrest you for obstruction.”
“Oh, pu-lease. You won’t. You’ve never had the balls to do anything. That’s why Sutton hated you so much.”
“You don’t know where she is. You’re just playing with me.”
“Fine. Believe that if you want. But I saw her leave your house in the middle of the night, and I saw her get into a car. I have a license plate. Call the cops, and I will deny it all. Give me $50,000 and I’ll tell you the rest. There’s a place, Gentry’s Farm. It’s...”
“I know where it is, you sick fuck.”
“I figured you’d remember. You have half an hour. And leave your phone at home.”
The line went dead. Empty air. Nothing.
Ethan laid his head in his hands, allowed the feeling of complete and utter hopelessness take him over, stealing through his flesh like opium. What had he done? What had he done to their lives?
This was all on him, and he knew it.
When he finished the self-flagellation, he stood, went to the safe in Sutton’s office, pulled out the stack of cash they kept on hand in case of emergencies and, from under the couch cushions, an old World War I–era trench knife, the only weapon he allowed in the house, and an antique to boot. He wished he was a hunter, wished he had a gun. He wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the bastard who was making his life a living hell.
He put on a pair of hiking boots, grabbed a Maglite from the shelf in the pantry. Flicked it on to make sure the batteries were strong. The beam of light shone bright as day. Of course it did. Sutton would never let the batteries die.
He glanced out the front window. The media scrum was gone for the moment, all finished with their nonexistent story and off to dreamland. The cops weren’t taking him that seriously.
He put his mobile on the counter. Why have him leave the phone? That was a bizarre request.
All the while, his brain screamed, Don’t do this, call the bloody police, let them know. And his ego said, You can handle this. Be a man, for once. Stand up for her. Stand up for your wife. Get him in your sights and you can force him to tell you what he knows.
He enjoyed the sense of blood rising, the anger—scratch that—the rage building inside him. He felt alive. He felt strong. He felt dangerous.
He was going to teach Colin Wilde a lesson. It was time.
A CORROSIVE BEAST
Blackmail.
It is such a simple, easy act. Find someone’s weak spot, put them in a compromising position, get proof that can be used against them, and launch the attack.
I am an expert at this. I don’t employ the tactic often, but when I do, there are serious consequences. Real people get hurt. Which is what I like the best.
People panic when you threaten all they hold dear. I have absolutely no doubt Ethan will follow suit. He will listen to my instructions to the letter. When things don’t go the way he expects, he’ll scurry to call the pretty little towheaded cop, and then I won’t have any excuse to hold back.