Now
Wednesday, August 18
Woodstock, New York
Willa was leaning against the car in the parking lot of the police station when I got outside, practically sitting on the hood, the iced coffee in her hand, oversized sunglasses covering her eyes, staring at the phone in her other hand.
She was so beautiful, dressed in one of those breezy sleeveless turtleneck summer sweaters I could never figure out how to pull off. So fresh and so young, so much newer, so much more interesting, more captivating than me. I imagined George’s hands on her body, his mouth on her neck, drinking her in. I imagined her stretching out in the bed I had called my own, her body lithe and tight in the ways mine no longer was, her belly smooth, no C-section scar. Her legs strong as she straddled him. Knowing, learning everything that I did. The feel of his strong hands against my hips. The way his mouth tasted of Altoids and eucalyptus from the ChapStick he always used. The quiet groan when he came. The tiny little intimacies, the way a towel looked wrapped around his waist, the cowlick just above the left side of his forehead he worked to tame every morning.
My heart ached, sharp and hot, daggers in my chest. How could she sleep with my husband?
How could she kill him?
Maybe she only did because she knew you wanted it, deep down.
Was I responsible—somehow—for George’s death? Because I had welcomed her into our lives, our world?
Willa looked up when I approached. “How was it?” she asked.
I felt moisture in my eyes.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
I wiped the tears away. “Nothing,” I lied, needing to think quick on my feet now. “The detective didn’t take me seriously. And I want this whole thing over, because if it goes on much longer, I know George’s parents are really going to suspect me. And if they try to keep Alex from me . . .”
“Oh, Mary,” Willa said, rushing up to me and wrapping me in a hug. She pulled back. “Of course you’re worried. But they can’t keep a mother from her son. Anyone can see how much you love Alex. How good you are to him.”
I pictured something else then, something newly horrifying. Had Willa been around my son, when I wasn’t there? Alex’s vocabulary wasn’t enough—he wouldn’t have been able to betray her. More tears blossomed in my eyes. Had she fed him, wiped his mouth, hugged him when he banged his knee? Sung him “Twinkle, Twinkle,” not even knowing to substitute the words?
Had she thought about Alex at all when she killed his father?
“Let’s get back,” I said. “I need to get out of here.”
“Of course,” Willa said. “Of course you do. Do you want me to drive?”
“No,” I said. “No, I’m good.”
I was silent as I pulled out of the lot and onto the road that led back toward town. Willa, too. At the turn to her street, I hesitated. Was I really about to go back with her? Straight into the lion’s den? I stole a glance her way. It was so hard to imagine. This woman, who’d comforted me so many times, brutally attacking someone, leaving them for dead.
Was I being paranoid? Was I jumping to conclusions?
“Mary,” Willa said. I jolted. I was sitting at the stop sign, and behind me, people were starting to honk.
Wordlessly, I turned onto her street, my pulse picking up. I didn’t think she would actually hurt me—maybe that was naïve, but I didn’t—and if I let her out of my sight, I had no idea what she’d do. I had to find out the truth. If she had killed George, I needed evidence, something to take to Morales besides my suspicions. I needed to be able to make my own case against her, and quickly.
At the house, Willa said she was going to tidy up the kitchen, and I claimed to want to try Alex again, but upstairs, as soon as I heard the water running down below, I walked down the hall until I found the main bedroom. I hesitated at the threshold, taking it in. The bed was unmade, the sheets a mess, and his-and-hers nightstands flanked it all, the one on the right holding a pair of silver earrings and hair ties.
I went straight to her nightstand, then pulled open the drawer, but it was empty, apart from a pack of travel tissues and an Agatha Christie novel. I tugged the drawer all the way out, in case anything was tucked behind it, peered into the back of the stand, saw nothing but cobwebs and dust.
I replaced the drawer, then turned to the bed, running my hands between the mattress and the box spring. It was a cliché, sure, but clichés were clichés because they were true. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Some proof that she’d been at Henry’s place that morning? Tickets to some far-flung island where she couldn’t be extradited?
I made my way around the perimeter of the bed, then bumped into a hamper. I dug through it, looking for something covered in blood, knowing, even as I pawed around, that the exercise was futile. Willa wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have gotten this far, with all these men, if she wasn’t good at covering her tracks. Murder would be no different, would it? With murder, she’d be even more careful.
I jolted at the sound of a car outside. I ran to the window, peered out to see a shiny black truck pulling into the driveway, right next to mine.
The engine shut off and a man got out. It was the man I’d seen in Woodstock with Willa. Rich.
I didn’t have much time.
I rushed to the dresser, rifling through the drawers, looking for something—anything. I found lacy underwear, silky bras, T-shirts and jumpsuits, jeans and yoga pants. Nothing untoward. Nothing secretive at all.
I pushed the last drawer shut and moved to the closet instead.
It had double folding doors, and I opened them slowly, hoping they wouldn’t creak. The right side was full of sundresses that must be Willa’s, and a stack of shoe and storage boxes sat neatly beneath, one of them an oversized box of Honest Company training diapers, the fancy brand that we’d used until they started to give Alex a rash. Of course, I thought. Poppy wasn’t too old for training diapers. In fact, I’d seen an errant one when I’d gone through Willa’s purse. I pulled out my phone, took a photo of the box—something I could show to Morales.
Was it proof? Not on its own. I needed more.
I opened the top of the box, found stacks of old baby clothes. I dug through to the bottom, in case something was tucked away, but found nothing.
I was lifting the lid of the next box, careful to be quiet, when I heard the approach of footsteps on the stairs—and raised voices, a kid’s among them.
I repositioned the boxes, quickly closed the closet, and shot back into the hallway, peered around the corner, just in time to see Rich on the top of the stairs, the little girl in his arms, staring at Willa. “There is no way I’m listening to your stories right now,” he said. “I’ve heard enough. I’ve seen proof. I don’t have time for this, not with my mom in the hospital.”
“Daddy, why are you talking to Annie that way?” the little girl begged.
“Wait, Rich,” Willa said. “Please just calm down. Please don’t be rash.”
The little girl squirmed, and he set her down. Then his eyes caught mine, and I expected him to demand answers, ask me to explain what I was doing in his house, but he only turned back to Willa.
“Daddy, Daddy,” the girl said, tugging at Rich’s pants. “Don’t be mean to Annie.”
He knelt down to his daughter. “Annie has to go, sweetie. Annie was lying to us, telling us stories. Remember how your teacher told you it wasn’t nice to make things up?”
The girl nodded, her chin quivering, then turned to Willa. “It’s not nice to make things up!”
Willa’s face went beet red. “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Then she looked up to Rich. “I’m sorry.”
“Please,” he said. “Just gather your things and go.”
“But I don’t want her to go!” the little girl cried. “She said sorry! When we make up stories, we say sorry and then it’s okay!”
Willa bit her lip, then knelt down to the girl. “You’re right, sweetie. But I have to go, okay? Can you give me a big hug before I go?”
“But I don’t want you to go.”
“I know,” Willa said. “But I have to, and it’s not because of you or because of your daddy, I just have to go, okay?”
The girl’s lip quivered again, but after a moment, she opened her arms wide, circling them around Willa’s neck. When Willa pulled away, her eyes were wet, and she turned on her heel, rushing to her room and shutting the door behind her.
This is the cost of your games, I thought. Hurting children. Breaking their hearts.
Rich looked up then, and his eyes caught mine.
“You weren’t lying,” he said. “You weren’t crazy.”
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t.”
He knelt down to this daughter. “Go downstairs, sweetie. I’ll come down and put Sesame Street on in a minute. And we can have ice cream, okay?”
“Right now?” the girl asked, eyes lighting up. “In the middle of the day?”
“Uh-huh,” Rich said. “Just be a good girl and go down, wait for me.”
“Why are you here with her?” he asked, as soon as Poppy had gone down the stairs. “After the way she lied to you? What made you forgive her?”
I haven’t forgiven her. I think that maybe she killed my husband. But she could ruin me, if she wants to, and I need to find out what happened first before she gets a chance.
Willa popped out of the bedroom then. “Just give me a minute, Mary. Then we’ll go.”
I was rooted, frozen to the spot. I hadn’t agreed that she could come with me, but at the same time, I didn’t want to let her out of my sight. I had to find a way to fix this.
A way out.
“She’s not a good person,” Rich said, catching my eyes again. “She fools you. She makes you think she cares about you. But she doesn’t in the end. I thought she cared about me. About Poppy.” He took a deep breath, and his eyes moistened. “But she only ever cares about herself.”