Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

NICK DUNNE
TEN DAYS GONE
T
he show was over, Andie and the Elliotts gone from view.
Sharon’s producer kicked the TV off with the point of her
heel. Everyone in the room was watching me, waiting for an
explanation, the party guest who just shat on the floor.
Sharon gave me a too-bright smile, an angry smile that
strained her Botox. Her face folded in the wrong spots.
‘Well?’ she said in her calm, plummy voice. ‘What the
fuck was that?’
Tanner stepped in. ‘That was the bombshell. Nick was
and is fully prepared to disclose and discuss his actions.
I’m sorry about the timing, but in a way, it’s better for you,
Sharon. You’ll get the first react from Nick.’
‘You’d better have some goddamn interesting things to
say, Nick.’ She breezed away, calling, ‘Mike him, we do
this now’ to no one in particular.
Sharon Schieber, it turned out, fucking adored me. In New
York I’d always heard rumors that she’d been a cheat
herself and returned to her husband, a very hush-hush
inside-journalism story. That was almost ten years ago, but I
figured the urge to absolve might still be there. It was. She
beamed, she coddled, she cajoled and teased. She pursed
those full, glossy lips at me in deep sincerity – a knuckled

---

hand under her chin – and asked me her hard questions,
and for once I answered them well. I am not a liar of Amy’s
dazzling caliber, but I’m not bad when I have to be. I looked
like a man who loved his wife, who was shamed by his
infidelities and ready to do right. The night before,
sleepless and nervy, I’d gone online and watched Hugh
Grant on Leno, 1995, apologizing to the nation for getting
lewd with a hooker. Stuttering, stammering, squirming as if
his skin were two sizes too small. But no excuses: ‘I think
you know in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad
thing, and I did a bad thing … and there you have it.’ Damn,
the guy was good – he looked sheepish, nervous, so shaky
you wanted to take his hand and say, 
Buddy, it’s not that
big a deal, don’t beat yourself up
. Which was the effect I
was going for. I watched that clip so many times, I was in
danger of borrowing a British accent.
I was the ultimate hollow man: the husband that Amy
always claimed couldn’t apologize finally did, using words
and emotions borrowed from an actor.
But it worked. 
Sharon, I did a bad thing, an
unforgivable thing. I can’t make any excuses for it. I let
myself down – I’ve never thought of myself as a cheater.
It’s inexcusable, it’s unforgivable, and I just want Amy to
come home so I can spend the rest of my life making it up
to her, treating her how she deserves
.
Oh, I’d definitely like to treat her how she deserves.
But here’s the thing, Sharon: I did not kill Amy. I would
never hurt her. I think what’s happening here is what I’ve
been calling
[a chuckle] 
in my mind the
Ellen Abbott 
effect.
This embarrassing, irresponsible brand of journalism. We

---

are so used to seeing these murders of women packaged
as entertainment, which is disgusting, and in these shows,
who is guilty? It’s always the husband. So I think the public
and, to an extent, even the police have been hammered
into believing that’s always the case. From the beginning,
it was practically assumed I had killed my wife – because
that’s the story we are told time after time – and that’s
wrong, that’s morally wrong. I did not kill my wife. I want her