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

NICK DUNNE
THIRTY-THREE DAYS GONE
T
he days were loose and long, and then they smashed into
a wall. I went out to get groceries one August morning, and I
came home to find Tanner in my living room with Boney and
Gilpin. On the table, inside a plastic evidence bag, was a
long thick club with delicate grooves for fingers.
‘We found this just down the river from your home on
that first search,’ Boney said. ‘Didn’t look like anything at
the time, really. Just some of the weird flotsam on a river
bank, but we keep everything in a search like that. After you
showed us your Punch and Judy dolls, it clicked. So we got
the lab to check it out.’
‘And?’ I said. Toneless.
Boney stood up, looked me right in the eye. She
sounded sad. ‘We were able to detect Amy’s blood on it.
This case is now classified as a homicide. And we believe
this to be the murder weapon.’
‘Rhonda, come on!’
‘It’s time, Nick,’ she said. ‘It’s time.’
The next part was starting.

---

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
FORTY DAYS GONE
I
have found a piece of old twine and an empty wine bottle,
and I’ve been using them for my project. Also some
vermouth, of course. I am ready.
Discipline. This will take discipline and focus. I am up
to the task.
I array myself in Desi’s favorite look: delicate flower.
My hair in loose waves, perfumed. My skin has paled after
a month inside. I am almost without makeup: a flip of
mascara, pink-pink cheeks, and clear lip gloss. I wear a
clingy pink dress he bought me. No bra. No panties. No
shoes, despite the air-conditioned chill. I have a fire
crackling and perfume in the air, and when he arrives after
lunch without invitation, I greet him with pleasure. I wrap my
arms around him and bury my face in his neck. I rub my
cheek against his. I have been increasingly sweeter to him
the past few weeks, but this is new, this clinging.
‘What’s this, sweetheart?’ he says, surprised and so
pleased that I almost feel ashamed.
‘I had the worst nightmare last night,’ I whisper. ‘About
Nick. I woke up, and all I wanted was to have you here. And
in the morning … I’ve spent all day wishing you were here.’
‘I can always be here, if you like.’
‘I would,’ I say, and I turn my face up to him and let him

---

kiss me. His kiss disgusts me; it’s nibbly and hesitant, like
a fish. It’s Desi being respectful of his raped, abused
woman. He nibbles again, wet cold lips, his hands barely
on me, and I just want this all over, I want it done, so I pull
him to me and push his lips open with my tongue. I want to
bite him.
He pulls back. ‘Amy,’ he says. ‘You’ve been through a
lot. This is fast. I don’t want you to do this fast if you don’t
want to. If you’re not sure.’
I know he’s going to have to touch my breasts, I know
he’s going to have to push himself inside me, and I want it
over, I can barely restrain myself from scratching him: the
idea of doing this slowly.
‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I guess I’ve been sure since we were
sixteen. I was just afraid.’
This means nothing, but I know it will get him hard.
I kiss him again, and then I ask him if he will take me
into 
our
bedroom.
In the bedroom, he begins undressing me slowly,
kissing parts of my body that have nothing to do with sex –
my shoulder, my ear – while I delicately guide him away
from my wrists and ankles. Just fuck me, for Christ’s sake.
Ten minutes in and I grab his hand and thrust it between my
legs.
‘Are you sure?’ he says, pulling back from me, flushed,
a loop of his hair falling over his forehead, just like in high
school. We could be back in my dorm room, for all the
progress Desi has made.
‘Yes, darling,’ I say, and I reach modestly for his cock.
Another ten minutes and he’s finally between my legs,
pumping gently, slowly, slowly, 
making love
. Pausing for

---

kisses and caresses until I grab him by the buttocks and
begin pushing him. ‘Fuck me,’ I whisper, ‘fuck me hard.’
He stops. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Amy. I’m not
Nick.’
Very true. ‘I know, darling, I just want you to … to fill me.
I feel so empty.’
That gets him. I grimace over his shoulder as he
thrusts a few more times and comes, me realizing it almost
too late – 
Oh, this is his pathetic cum-sound
– and faking
quick oohs and ahhs, gentle kittenish noises. I try to work
up some tears because I know he imagines me crying with
him the first time.
‘Darling, you’re crying,’ he says as he slips out of me.
He kisses a tear.
‘I’m just happy,’ I say. Because that’s what those kinds
of women say.
I have mixed up some martinis, I announce – Desi
loves a decadent afternoon drink – and when he makes a
move to put on his shirt and fetch them, I insist he stay in
bed.
‘I want to do something for you for a change,’ I say.
So I scamper into the kitchen and get two big martini
glasses, and into mine I put gin and a single olive. Into his I
put three olives, gin, olive juice, vermouth, and the last of my
sleeping pills, three of them, crushed.
I bring the martinis, and there is snuggling and
nuzzling, and I slurp my gin while this happens. I have an
edge that must be dulled.
‘Don’t you like my martini?’ I ask when he has only a
sip. ‘I always pictured being your wife and making you
martinis. I know that’s silly.’

---

I begin a pout.
‘Oh, darling, not silly at all. I was just taking my time,
enjoying. But—’ He guzzles the whole thing down. ‘If it
makes you feel better!’
He is giddy, triumphant. His cock is slick with
conquest. He is, basically, like all men. Soon he is sleepy,
and after that he is snoring.
And I can begin.

---