Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction
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NICK DUNNE
FIVE DAYS GONE I leaned against the door, staring at my sister. I could still smell Andie, and I wanted that moment to myself for one second, because now that she was gone, I could enjoy the idea of her. She always tasted like butterscotch and smelled like lavender. Lavender shampoo, lavender lotion. Lavender’s for luck , she explained to me once. I’d need luck. ‘How old is she?’ Go was demanding, hands on hips. ‘That’s where you want to start?’ ‘How old is she, Nick?’ ‘Twenty-three.’ ‘Twenty-three. Brilliant.’ ‘Go, don’t—’ ‘Nick. Do you not realize how fucked you are?’ Go said. ‘Fucked and dumb .’ She made dumb – a kid’s word – hit me as hard as if I were a ten-year-old again. ‘It’s not an ideal situation,’ I allowed, my voice quiet. ‘Ideal situation! You are … you’re a cheater , Nick. I mean, what happened to you? You were always one of the good guys. Or have I just been an idiot all along?’ ‘No.’ I stared at the floor, at the same spot I stared at as a kid when my mom sat me down on the sofa and told me I was better than whatever I’d just done. ‘Now? You’re a man who cheats on his wife , you can’t ever undo that,’ Go said. ‘God, even Dad didn’t cheat. You’re so – I mean, your wife is missing, Amy’s who knows where, and you’re here making time with a little—’ ‘Go, I enjoy this revisionist history in which you’re Amy’s champion. I mean, you never liked Amy, not even early on, and since all this happened, it’s like—’ ‘It’s like I have sympathy for your missing wife, yeah, Nick. I have concern. Yeah, I do. Remember how before, when I said you were being weird? You’re—It’s insane, the way you’re acting.’ She paced the room, chewing a thumbnail. ‘The police find out about this, and I just don’t even know,’ she said. ‘I’m fucking scared , Nick. This is the first time I’m really scared for you. I can’t believe they haven’t found out yet. They must have pulled your phone records.’ ‘I used a disposable.’ She paused at that. ‘That’s even worse. That’s … like premeditation.’ ‘Premeditated cheating, Go. Yes, I am guilty of that.’ She succumbed for a second, collapsed on the sofa, the new reality settling on her. In truth, I was relieved that Go knew. ‘How long?’ she asked. ‘A little over a year.’ I made myself pull my eyes from the floor and look at her directly. ‘Over a year ? And you never told me.’ ‘I was afraid you’d tell me to stop. That you’d think badly of me and then I’d have to stop. And I didn’t want to. Things with Amy—’ ‘Over a year,’ Go said. ‘And I never even guessed. Eight thousand drunk conversations, and you never trusted me enough to tell me. I didn’t know you could do that, keep something from me that totally.’ ‘That’s the only thing.’ Go shrugged: How can I believe you now? ‘You love her?’ She gave it a jokey spin to show how unlikely it was. ‘Yeah. I really think I do. I did. I do.’ ‘You do realize, that if you actually dated her, saw her on a regular basis, lived with her, that she would find some fault with you, right? That she would find some things about you that drove her crazy. That she’d make demands of you that you wouldn’t like. That she’d get angry at you?’ ‘I’m not ten, Go, I know how relationships work.’ She shrugged again: Do you? ‘We need a lawyer,’ she said. ‘A good lawyer with some PR skills, because the networks, some cable shows, they’re sniffing around. We need to make sure the media doesn’t turn you into the evil philandering husband, because if that happens, I just think it’s all over.’ ‘Go, you’re sounding a little drastic.’ I actually agreed with her, but I couldn’t bear to hear the words aloud, from Go. I had to discredit them. ‘Nick, this is a little drastic. I’m going to make some calls.’ ‘Whatever you want, if it makes you feel better.’ Go jabbed me in the sternum with two hard fingers. ‘Don’t you fucking pull that with me, Lance . “Oh, girls get so overexcited.” That’s bullshit. You are in a really bad place, my friend. Get your head out of your ass and start helping me fix this.’ Beneath my shirt, I could feel the spot embering on my skin as Go turned away from me and, thank God, went back to her room. I sat on her couch, numb. Then I lay down as I promised myself I’d get up. I dreamed of Amy: She was crawling across our kitchen floor, hands and knees, trying to make it to the back door, but she was blind from the blood, and she was moving so slowly, too slowly. Her pretty head was strangely misshapen, dented in on the right side. Blood was dripping from one long hank of hair, and she was moaning my name. I woke and knew it was time to go home. I needed to see the place – the scene of the crime – I needed to face it. No one was out in the heat. Our neighborhood was as vacant and lonely as the day Amy disappeared. I stepped inside my front door and made myself breathe. Weird that a house so new could feel haunted, and not in the romantic Victorian-novel way, just really gruesomely, shittily ruined. A house with a history, and it was only three years old. The lab technicians had been all over the place; surfaces were smeared and sticky and smudged. I sat down on the sofa, and it smelled like someone, like an actual person, with a stranger’s scent, a spicy aftershave. I opened the windows despite the heat, get in some air. Bleecker trotted down the stairs, and I picked him up and petted him while he purred. Someone, some cop, had overfilled his bowl for me. A nice gesture, after dismantling my home. I set him down carefully on the bottom step, then climbed up to the bedroom, unbuttoning my shirt. I lay down across the bed and put my face in the pillow, the same navy blue pillowcase I’d stared into the morning of our anniversary, the Morning Of. |