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

Scrapping? What is this
scrapping 
of which
you speak?
‘It was just – about dinner,’ I lied. ‘About what we’d do
for dinner for our anniversary. You know, Amy is a
traditionalist about these things—’
‘The lobster!’ Rand interrupted. He turned to the cops.
‘Amy cooks lobster every year for Nick.’
‘Right. But there’s nowhere to get lobster in this town,
not alive, from the tank, so she was frustrated. I had the
Houston’s reservation—’
‘I thought you said you 
didn’t
have a Houston’s
reservation.’ Rand frowned.
‘Well, yes, sorry, I’m getting confused. I just had the
idea of the Houston’s reservation. But I really should have
just arranged to have some lobster flown in.’
The cops, each of them, raised an accidental eyebrow.
How very fancy
.
‘It’s not that expensive to do. Anyway, we were at this
rotten loggerheads, and it was one of those arguments that

---

got bigger than it should have.’ I took a bite of my
pancakes. I could feel the heat rushing from under my
collar. ‘We were laughing about it within the hour.’
‘Hunh’ was all Boney said.
‘And where are you on the treasure hunt?’ Gilpin
asked.
I stood up, put down some money, ready to go. I wasn’t
the one who was supposed to be playing defense here.
‘Nowhere, not right yet – it’s hard to think clearly with so
much going on.’
‘Okay,’ Gilpin said. ‘It’s less likely the treasure hunt is
an angle, now that we know she was already feeling
threatened months ago. But keep me in the loop anyway,
okay?’
We all shuffled out into the heat. As Rand and I got into
our car, Boney called out, ‘Hey, is Amy still a two, Nick?’
I frowned at her.
‘A size two?’ she repeated.
‘Yes, she is, I think,’ I said. ‘Yes. She is.’
Boney made a face that said, 
Hmmmm
, and got in her
car.
‘What do you think that was about?’ Rand asked.
‘Those two, who knows?’
We remained silent for most of the way to the hotel,
Rand staring out the window at the rows of fast-food
restaurants blinking by, me thinking about my lie – my lies.
We had to circle to find a space at the Days Inn; the payroll
convention was apparently a hot ticket.
‘You know, it’s funny, how provincial I am, lifetime New
Yorker,’ Rand said, fingers on the door handle. ‘When Amy
talked about moving back here, back along the 
Ole

---

Mississippi River, with you, I pictured … green, farmland,
apple trees, and those great old red barns. I have to tell
you, it’s really quite ugly here.’ He laughed. ‘I can’t think of a
single thing of beauty in this whole town. Except for my
daughter.’
He got out and strode quickly toward the hotel, and I
didn’t try to catch up. I entered the headquarters a few
minutes behind him, took a seat at a secluded table toward
the back of the room. I needed to complete the treasure
hunt before the clues disappeared, figure out where Amy
had been taking me. After a few hours’ stint here, I’d deal
with the third clue. In the meantime, I dialed.
‘Yeah,’ came an impatient voice. A baby was crying in
the background. I could hear the woman blow the hair off
her face.
‘Hi, is this – is this Hilary Handy?’
She hung up. I phoned back.
‘Hell
o
?’
‘Hi there. I think we got cut off before.’
‘Would you put this number on your 
do not call
list—’
‘Hilary, I’m not selling anything, I’m calling about Amy
Dunne – Amy Elliott.’
Silence. The baby squawked again, a mewl that
wavered dangerously between laughter and tantrum.
‘What about her?’
‘I don’t know if you’ve seen this on TV, but she’s gone
missing. She went missing on July fifth under potentially
violent circumstances.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m Nick Dunne, her husband. I’ve just been calling old
friends of hers.’

---

‘Oh yeah?’
‘I wondered if you’d had any contact with her.
Recently.’
She breathed into the phone, three deep breaths. ‘Is
this because of that, that bullshit back in high school?’
Farther in the background, a child’s wheedling voice yelled
out, ‘Moo-oom, I nee-eed you.’
‘In a minute, Jack,’ she called into the void behind her.
Then returned to me with a bright red voice: ‘Is it? Is that
why you’re calling me? Because that was twenty goddamn
years ago. More.’
‘I know. I know. Look, I have to ask. I’d be an asshole
not to ask.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ. I’m a mother of