CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
September 7, 2018
“Matt?” she’d said, using that breathy, high-pitched voice she knew he hated so much. He’d once said he’d like to choke her when she used that voice, so she used it now, meaning to get him riled up. After twenty-four years of marriage you learned what buttons to push. “Didn’t I say you needed some excitement in your life?”
It’d taken her two days to hike out of the park and get to the car in Estes, and instead of driving off into the sunset like she planned she rented a cheap motel room outside of town. Once she got a full night’s sleep and a meal in her stomach and bought a sling for her arm from the drugstore and started to feel somewhat normal, she drove back out to the national park and watched some of the search. It was an all-around bad idea—someone could’ve recognized her—but she went anyway. She couldn’t stay away. So it was true what was said about criminals, she thought grimly. They always returned to the scene of the crime.
So she put on a baggy old sweatshirt and pulled a weathered ball cap low over her eyes and watched as a team floated slowly along in a boat, peering over the side, and others stood at the shore, poking and prodding the river bottom. There were plenty of others there, a crowd drawn out by the gruesome proceedings, and no one gave her a second look. They were searching for a dead woman, after all. Not a living, breathing one. Marie overheard snippets of conversation from those who’d watched the news and seen her photo and commented about how terrible it was, what a silly waste, a woman in her prime falling to her death while trying to take a selfie, but that was life these days, wasn’t it?
It was a little like attending her own funeral.
She even saw Matt, standing beside the river with his hands in his pockets, not bothering to pretend to be helping. She overheard whispers that he hadn’t spent much time helping with the search, but only came out to make an appearance. But that was Matt for you—he’d always been good about putting on a show.
He looked glum, as a man who has lost his wife should. He was playing his part, at least. The girls hadn’t come with him—that much she regretted, although it would’ve put her at risk. She would’ve liked to see her daughters one more time, but they were grown and had their own lives, and seemed more like strangers than the babies she’d had so long ago. Matt looked away from the river and she considered pitching a rock at his face, but turned around and left instead.
She went back to the motel and got comfortable and kept an eye on the local news. For a few days everything was quiet, and then she saw the report of the woman’s body pulled out of the river about ten miles downstream as soon as it broke. The cops thought it was her, and that’d made her laugh hard.
“Where the fuck are you?” Matt hissed over the phone.
“Oh, I’m sure you’d like to know,” she said airily. Making that phone call she felt more like her old self than she had in days, and her confidence had returned. She knew exactly where she stood now, and the view was a good one. “But don’t worry, dear husband. You’ll be happy to know I’m perfectly safe.”
“Where are you?” he asked again.
“That’s for me to know and for you to never know,” she said. “Listen, I’ve been keeping an eye on the news, and I saw a woman has been pulled out of the river. They’re saying it’s me, but since I’m talking to you right now, I’m guessing they’re wrong.”
“Shut up.”
“I also have a guess about who that woman is,” she said. “Is it your girlfriend, Matt? Is it Riley?”
Silence from the other end, but she could hear his breathing, light and quick.
“So I was right!” Marie crowed laughter. “Tell me, did you enjoy killing her? Riley didn’t even see it coming, did she? She went out thinking you were actually in love with her, isn’t that right? How humane of you. And now that I think about it, didn’t you use my car right before we went to Estes? Said you’d get it detailed and have the oil changed—but you really needed it to haul her body in, didn’t you? And if the cops found her blood in my trunk—well, I’d automatically look guilty.”
“I wish I’d had the chance to bash your skull in,” Matt said. His voice was thick with rage. “I wish I could’ve killed you instead of her. But I had to do it. Prove to everyone what a jealous, crazy wife you are. Wait till I see you again. I’m going to choke the life right out you.”
“Oh, my thighs are aquiver with anticipation,” she said. She shifted the sling that was holding her arm in place—it cut into her shoulder in the worst way, but it was the best available until she could see a doctor.
“You bitch.”
“Is that really the worst thing you can call me?” she asked. “I hope you think of something better before we see each other again. I’ve been spending plenty of time out in the park, you know. Did you know I saw you there last week, with that search team?”
“You were there?”
“Of course I was. Close enough I could’ve spit on you. Haven’t I told you not to wear those cargo pants? They make you look like a fat old grandpa, but if that’s the look you’re going for these days—well, you’re on the right track.”
And then she hung up. Because she knew there was nothing that bothered Matt more than not getting the last word. They were similar in that respect, at least.