The front doorbell rang around five o’clock, as Aubrey was putting away the groceries from Whole Foods. She had a load of laundry in the dryer. The kids were just home from sports, settling into homework. Ethan was back early from the hospital, as he’d been every night since Kate died. He was upstairs now, crying in the shower.
Lilly, sitting at the kitchen island with her algebra book, looked up in surprise at the sound of the bell. “Who’s that?”
In Belle River, only strangers used the front door. Family, friends, and neighbors came in through the mudroom or the garage, shouting hello without bothering to knock. This must be something official. Aubrey hoped it was the event she’d been waiting for. She felt excited and sick at the same time, like at the cabin, when Logan learned the truth about his dad. Nothing wrong with seeing a person for who they really are. But it was still hard, watching your kids grow up and face the harsh reality.
“I don’t know, honey,” Aubrey said. “Why don’t you go see?”
Lilly came back a moment later, her face white with worry. “It’s a lady from the police. What should we do?”
“Well, if she’s from the police, we’d better let her in,” Aubrey said.
And so the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. Aubrey had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Ethan’s comeuppance. She never thought she could pull it off, but she did. She shouldn’t have doubted herself. She wasn’t the naïve fool they took her for. She was a magna cum laude graduate of Carlisle (would’ve been a summa if not for freshman spring) whose perseverance had paid off.
After she found out about Ethan and Kate, Aubrey spent months paralyzed with grief and rage. She’d lie awake at night, sometimes with Ethan beside her, sometimes alone, thinking about the two of them together, and wishing them dead. No matter where she was or what she was doing during the day—teaching a yoga class, chatting with the other moms as she waited for Logan to finish soccer practice, making lentil soup, braiding Viv’s hair—in the back of her mind, Aubrey was fantasizing about killing her husband and his mistress (she no longer thought of Kate by her name). Their deaths were always grisly and painful, whether she did it with a gun or a knife, or poison, or ran them down with a car. She visualized the looks on their faces in the moment they realized they were going to die. She played over and over in her head the words she would say to make them understand that she had won and they had lost. It was all she thought about.
Aubrey thought constantly about killing them, but she didn’t act, because she was afraid of getting caught. Not on her own account, but for her kids. She couldn’t leave her children alone in the world, with the double stigma of a dead cheater father and a mother who was a murderer. People would talk behind their backs. There would be no more playdates, no more birthday-party invitations, no mom who earned brownie points by serving as room parent or chairing the middle school dance committee. Aubrey had grown up without any of those things, and she knew how much it hurt. She wouldn’t do that to her kids. Leave them to be raised by Ethan’s snooty parents, who would badmouth Aubrey and turn them against her? Never. The punishment for Kate and Ethan had to look like an accident, so Aubrey could escape unscathed and live happily ever after with her children (and, if things went how she hoped, with Griff, who would make a caring stepdad).
But an accident seemed so complicated to arrange. Aubrey thought about it for hours on end and got nowhere. She was not technically inclined. The CSI stuff was sure to trip her up. Any plan she devised would end up overlooking some key detail—fibers or hairs or a computer search on how to dismember a body that she forgot to erase. Eventually she decided that her best option was to get somebody else to do the dirty work. If Aubrey didn’t actually commit the murder herself, they couldn’t trace it back to her. But she was a housewife, a mother and a yoga instructor, not a hardened criminal. She didn’t know how to hire a hit man. You couldn’t just go advertising on Craigslist, could you? It seemed like too big a risk, so she did nothing, except to obsess and get increasingly mad at herself.
One night, after the kids were in bed, when Ethan was out, and Aubrey was drinking tea and feeling alone, she took a frayed copy of the Tao Te Ching that she’d owned since grad school down from the shelf in the living room. The book fell open to a chapter she’d read many times, though not in years. It was a chapter on self-control and self-mastery, and challenged the reader to think about the following question: Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises on its own? That was it, Aubrey realized: the question was the answer. Aubrey needed to wait, to stay positive, and trust herself, and the solution would eventually become clear.
And so it did. On a chill, rainy Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days before Kate met her end in the Belle River, Aubrey happened to see Tim Healy duck into Shecky’s Burger Shack. Something furtive in Tim’s manner caught her eye. Shecky’s was such a Carlisle hangout that an image popped into her mind of Tim carrying on with some college babe. She dismissed it out of hand. The idea of Tim Healy with some nineteen-year-old was ludicrous. He’d always struck her as loyal as a dog. But then she thought, hmm, you never know. And if it was true, well, wouldn’t that serve Jenny right.
Ever since Aubrey learned that Jenny had kept silent about the affair, she’d been rethinking their friendship. Years earlier, when Jenny moved back to Belle River from New York, Aubrey welcomed her with open arms. Aubrey was a young mother, a doctor’s wife, making her life in Belle River. Jenny had grown up and gone to college in town, but she’d never been an adult there. From the beginning, Aubrey invited Jenny to everything—dinner parties, yoga class, the annual benefit at the hospital. Once Jenny and Tim got married and started a family, Aubrey invited Jenny to join her playgroup, her babysitting co-op, her girls’-night-out group, and recommended her to the director of the top preschool in town, which resulted in T.J. getting accepted in a very competitive admissions climate (and Reed, too, since siblings got in automatically).
Aubrey wouldn’t say Jenny was ungrateful for her help, exactly. But neither did Jenny acknowledge that Aubrey was now her equal. Jenny had looked down on Aubrey since the day they met, in Whipple twenty years earlier, when Aubrey walked in with her ratty clothes, her enthusiasm, and her naïveté, and smacked into the wall of Jenny’s condescension. Aubrey had come a million miles since freshman year. She’d done coursework toward her master’s (though admittedly never finished), married a doctor, bought a big house, started a successful yoga studio whose clients worshipped the ground she walked on, and had three amazing children. But as far as Jenny was concerned, nothing had changed. It took that awful Labor Day party to show Aubrey where she really stood with Jenny. The fact was, Jenny still looked down on her, still took their friendship for granted, and would trample on Aubrey’s happiness in order to preserve her own.
If Tim Healy was doing something nefarious, Aubrey wanted to know. Tim hadn’t spotted her. Aubrey waited for a couple of minutes before following him in, so it would look like a coincidence.
The inside of Shecky’s hadn’t changed in decades. It still had the long counter with the stools that turned, and the stainless-steel backsplash with the pies rotating in glass cases. The smell of the place—a combination of overly sweet pie, burnt grease, and undergraduate sweat—never failed to bring back memories of freshman year, when she’d spent so much time here. The all-nighters before exams, the plates of home fries after a frat party to ward off a hangover. And of course, the day that Lucas Arsenault died. None of them had come to Shecky’s much after that.
The place was packed at three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon with Carlisle kids laughing it up. Go ahead, be happy while it lasts, you’ll learn the hard way, she thought. Tim sat at the counter, next to a girl in skinny jeans with a long ponytail who was giggling and sipping a soda. As Aubrey watched, the waitress placed two vanilla milkshakes on the counter in front of them. Well, well. Tim Healy, buying a young girl a milkshake, who’d’ve thought. Men were beasts.
The stool on Tim’s other side was empty. Aubrey slipped into it.
“Hey, Tim. Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
“Aubrey. Hi.”
She wished she had her phone out to capture the look on his face. He literally blushed. Caught in the act for sure.
“Is this your friend?” she asked, nodding toward Miss Ponytail.
Tim looked confused. “What?”
Aubrey realized that the girl with the ponytail was actually talking to the guy on her other side, who looked about eighteen and wore a Carlisle Rugby T-shirt.
“Um, I was wondering why you have two milkshakes,” Aubrey said.
“It’s something I like to do on Lucas’s birthday,” he said sheepishly. “Years ago, when I used to work here, before I had a car of my own, Lucas would pick me up at the end of my shift and give me a ride home. I’d always spot him a vanilla milkshake for the trouble. It was kind of a ritual for us. So every year on his birthday, I order two and I drink one. The other is for his memory.”
“Today is your cousin Lucas’s birthday?” she asked.
“He would’ve been forty,” Tim said. “I can’t wrap my head around that. To me, he’s forever young, like the day he died. It was right here, you know, right at this counter that I talked to him last. From what I remember, anyway. I miss him every day.”
Tim stared across at his reflection in the backsplash, and Aubrey had the distinct impression that he was visualizing Lucas sitting beside him. And there it was, the moment of insight she’d been waiting for: Tim Healy was hung up on his dead cousin. He’d never recovered from Lucas’s death. The night at the bridge was real to him still, always playing in the background the way Ethan and Kate’s affair did for her. Aubrey realized in that moment that Tim wanted Kate dead as much as she did. Or, if he didn’t, it was only because he didn’t know the truth about Lucas’s death, and she could fix that. Tim was the sort of person who might actually do something about it, too. He had anger-management issues. Jenny blamed it on the severe concussion he’d suffered years ago trying to save Lucas’s life, and swore he was gentle as a lamb with her and the boys. That was probably a lie. There had been rumors of incidents over the years—a fistfight on a jobsite, a confrontation over a parking space at the Walmart outside town where a security guard had to intervene. Tim had actually been ordered to court-mandated counseling over that one. The anger was there. All Aubrey had to do was figure out how to channel it, and maybe she could finally get her revenge without taking the risk.
She glanced around the crowded room. The place was jammed to the gills, the volume deafening. Nobody would overhear what she was about to say. She leaned toward Tim.
“I remember Lucas, too. How could I forget? I was there that night. I witnessed his death. I’ve always felt that justice was never done.”
Tim’s eyes flew to her face. “What do you mean?” he asked, and she saw him hold his breath as he waited for her to answer. She had him now.
“Hasn’t Jenny told you the truth?” Aubrey asked innocently, remembering very well Jenny’s confession that she hadn’t.
“The truth?”
She lowered her voice an octave. “Didn’t she tell you that Kate pushed Lucas off the bridge? That we both saw it, and lied about it to the police because Mr. Eastman pressured us to?”
“No.” He went limp, leaning heavily against the counter. “That’s what I always suspected, but Jenny swore he jumped. So did you, Aubrey. You’re telling me you’ve both been lying all these years?”
She touched his arm. “Oh, Tim, I’m sorry. I never would’ve said anything, except I thought you knew. You were standing right next to me that night. You saw everything.”
“The concussion wiped out my memory. You knew that.”
“Somehow I thought you got it back.”
“No. I can’t remember a thing after Jenny and I left the parking lot. It’s like the rest of that night never happened.”
“And your wife didn’t set you straight? But what am I saying, Jenny’s not the bad guy here. Kate is. Don’t get me started on Kate Eastman.”
“What did she do, Aubrey? Please, I’m begging you. Tell me,” he said.
“Well, to put it plainly, when Lucas tried to break up with her, she pushed him off the bridge,” Aubrey said.
“I knew it. I always knew in my heart that it was her. That bitch,” Tim said, then caught himself. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You have a right to be angry. If Lucas was my cousin, I swear, I’d kill Kate for what she did.”
“Tell me exactly how it happened,” Tim said, clenching and unclenching his fists. The rage gathering on his face was just what she hoped for.
“Lucas told Kate it was over, and she started screaming like a banshee, and pounding him with her fists. He was walking backwards to get away from her, and she pushed him right through that gap in the bridge. Trust me, it was no accident. She knew the hole was there. Jenny and I were in complete shock. I think that must be why, when Mr. Eastman showed up, he could manipulate us so easily. We were both traumatized. I still am, to this day. I bet Jenny is, too, and that’s why she could never bring herself to talk to you about it. But Kate? Didn’t bat an eyelash. I’ve never once heard her say she’s sorry. You’d think she’d feel at least a little guilty. But no. She kills a man, and flies off to Europe like she doesn’t have a care in the world. Life is sweet when Daddy’s there to clean up the mess.”
“It’s so unfair,” Tim said. “He’s dead and she got away with it. Not only got away with it, but lived like a queen off Griff Rothenberg’s money.”
“Oh, Kate’s living it up to this day on other people’s money. Think about it. Living in Daddy’s house. Never worked a day in her life. You should really confront her. Tell her you know what she did. How you feel about it. What you think of her. It won’t bring Lucas back, but at least you’ll be calling her on her bullshit. Somebody ought to.”
“She’d never agree to it,” Tim said. “Kate knows I hate her guts. She’d never sit down with me to discuss this.”
Aubrey nodded. “I hear you. Kate is very good at avoiding unpleasantness. If you want, I could act as a go-between and see if I can arrange a meeting.”
“You’d do that?” Tim asked.
“Yes, but on one condition. That you don’t tell Jenny. I had no idea she never told you, or I wouldn’t’ve opened my mouth. If you confront her now, she’ll figure out it came from me, and that could ruin our friendship.”
“All right, if you insist. I won’t say anything to Jenny.”
Lying awake that night thinking about logistics, Aubrey had a brainstorm. Her biggest worry was that Tim Healy didn’t have the balls to commit actual murder. Aubrey could imagine a scenario where she got the two of them together, and they traded a few choice words and agreed never to cross each other’s paths again. She wasn’t going to all this trouble to arrange a polite spat. The idea was, get Tim worked up into such a rage that he actually killed Kate. That might require an extra push, a bit of stage management to trigger his temper. If Aubrey could arrange the meeting to happen at the old railroad bridge, the very place where his beloved cousin died, Tim would be primed for violence. Getting them to the bridge was key. If anybody found out she arranged the meeting, Aubrey would say she was trying to help two old friends work out their differences. Nobody would fault her for that.
On Thursday, Aubrey dialed Kate’s cell repeatedly to try to set up the meeting, but got no answer. When Aubrey couldn’t get Ethan on the phone either, and when he didn’t come home for dinner Thursday night, she knew that the two of them were together doing their filthy business.
Aubrey fed the kids and cleaned up dinner. She kicked Ethan’s nasty cat out of the house for the night. She watched Friends on Netflix with Lilly, and pretended to laugh whenever the laugh track came on. But by the time all three kids were in bed, Aubrey still hadn’t heard back. Was Kate going to avoid her forever, escape punishment by the simple expedient of not answering the phone? It was intolerable. Aubrey sat at the kitchen island and, instead of drinking her usual herbal tea before bed, polished off an entire bottle of sauvignon blanc. See what you’re doing to me, she thought, drinking alone, which I never do! They were ruining her life. Around two o’clock, the bottle empty, Aubrey dialed Kate’s phone one last time, and got voicemail. But this time, she left a message.
“I can’t believe you won’t pick up my calls,” she said, through wine-sodden tears. “I always loved you, Kate. You were my idol. I know you’re sleeping with my husband. You’re probably with him right now. You never cared about me, or my kids. We’re nothing to you. You don’t have the guts to face me, do you? You’re a coward. I want to die,” Aubrey said, and hung up.
She threw the phone down on the counter, certain she’d just torpedoed her own brilliant plan. Kate would never call back now. She poured the dregs of the bottle into her glass and let the tears flow. It was three before she dragged herself to bed.
At 7 A.M., the jangle of a ring tone pulled her to consciousness. She grabbed her phone from the bedside table and was shocked to see Kate’s number. Wouldn’t you know it, that self-pitying message did the trick. Kate loved Aubrey when she was down.
“Hello?”
“It’s Kate.”
Aubrey looked at the clock. She was half an hour late getting up, her head was throbbing, and her eyes burned. “It’s seven in the morning,” she muttered.
“I know, I just—I’m calling to say you don’t need to worry. Ethan and I ended it. Just a little while ago. It’s over, for real.”
Aubrey remained silent, trying to breathe, the angry pounding of her own heart reverberating in her ears. If Kate thought she could fix things by admitting she’d spent the entire night with Aubrey’s husband and then claiming they’d ended the months-long affair in the light of the morning, she was stupider than she looked. There was no fixing this. The betrayal was too big.
“Aubrey, are you there?” Kate asked.
“Yes.”
“I know what I did was wrong, but you have to understand, I’ve been in a really weird place. Griff’s dad going to jail turned my life upside down. I see now that my own unhappiness made me act selfishly. I need to take care of me—get out of Belle River, move on from Griff, find work I care about. If I can do that, I’ll stop messing up, and stop hurting my friends. I’m sorry for what I did, Aubrey, I really am.”
Aubrey remained silent. Kate paused. “Aubrey?”
“Now is not a good time to talk. We need to meet in person.”
“What? Why?”
“So you can apologize to my face. You owe me that much,” Aubrey said.
“I already said I’m sorry. Is that really necessary?”
“Yes, Kate, it is necessary. Let’s meet tonight, before the dinner,” Aubrey said.
“The dinner, right. Ugh, I may not go to that. Things with Griff have gotten really bad. He showed up—oh, you don’t want to know. Anyway, I’m meeting my lawyer and filing for divorce this morning. There’s some money that—well, that’s beside the point. Anyway, I was thinking of leaving town for a couple of days, to give Griff a chance to clear out of the house. I’m not in the mood for celebrating.”
“We plan a party for you, and arrange our schedules to be there, and you decide to ditch us at the last minute. Really, Kate?”
If Aubrey’s plan worked, Kate would be dead by dinnertime, but Aubrey couldn’t resist needling her.
“Won’t it be awkward?” Kate said. “Given the circumstances, I mean.”
“That’s why I want to meet first, to clear the air. Just you and me, without Jenny,” Aubrey said.
Kate sighed. “If that’s what you want, fine. Tell me where.”
“I’ll text you the address for your GPS,” Aubrey said. Kate was an idiot with directions, and followed her nav blindly. She would drive right to the boat-launch lot and still not have a clue where she was.
Aubrey got the kids off to school and went to the yoga studio to take care of some paperwork. She called Tim from the phone on the receptionist’s desk to let him know the meeting was on, and where. Anybody coming into the studio had access to that phone. Using it would give Aubrey plausible deniability about her role in the meeting if the cops ever started asking questions. (It turned out she’d actually learned something from her months of researching how to commit murder.)
Driving down River Road that evening, as the light faded from the November sky, Aubrey felt calm and clearheaded. Her hangover was gone, her pulse was normal, and her palms were dry. The rain had just started, and the headlights illuminated the raindrops so they looked like diamonds falling. The National Weather Service said it would rain all night, which would help with washing away tire tracks and footprints and such. Her assistant Mikayla was picking up the girls from sports and babysitting till Aubrey got home. Logan was going to Jaden’s house for dinner, and getting a ride home from Jaden’s dad. She’d figured out which item would be most useful to frame her husband for his mistress’s death, and she had a plan for getting it. She wore gloves, which did not look out of place on this chilly night, so no fingerprints. Aubrey had thought of everything.
Ten minutes later, Aubrey and Tim were sitting together in Aubrey’s car when Kate pulled into the deserted lot. Aubrey flashed her lights, and Kate parked nearby and got out of the car. Now came the tricky part.
“Wait here,” Aubrey said to Tim. “There’s something I need to tell Kate first. Then I’ll wave to you, and you get out and escort her to the bridge. She’s going to confess everything, and say she’s sorry. She wants to do it there.”
“All right. Thank you for arranging this, Aubrey. It’s very important to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Aubrey got out, noting with disapproval that Kate wore a dress and cute flats, with some sort of silky evening coat on top. How inappropriate to the occasion. Then she remembered that Kate still thought they were going to dinner afterward. Hahaha, nope. Aubrey had already canceled the reservation, and told Jenny that Kate was sick. No birthday dinner for you.
“Why are we meeting here?” Kate said. “It’s starting to rain, and it’s dark.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be quick.”
“Who’s that in the car? Is it Ethan?” Kate said, and the eagerness in her voice was telling. Ethan was the one who’d ended it, then. Served Kate right. But Aubrey sensed an opportunity, a way to make sure that Kate would follow Tim to the bridge without balking.
“Ethan needs to talk to you, Kate,” Aubrey said. “He’s right down that path.” She pointed to the trailhead.
“Down the path? Why?”
“He wants to speak to you privately about some arrangements. He wouldn’t explain it to me.”
Kate nodded. “I understand. There’s … a complication. We left things up in the air.” She paused. “You’re okay with this, with me and Ethan talking?”
“Not really, but I don’t have much choice, do I? He insists. Do me a favor, though. My phone is dying, and I need to call the kids. Can I borrow your phone?” Aubrey asked.
“Sure.” Kate rummaged in her handbag.
“Give me the bag, I’ll find the phone. It’ll be waiting right here when you get back. You’d better hurry. Tim will show you where Ethan is.”
Aubrey signaled to Tim, who got out of her car.
“Tim? What’s he doing here?”
“Oh, he happened to be here, something to do with the crew team, I think. The path is confusing, so he’ll help you find Ethan. I probably shouldn’t go with you.”
“No.”
“Just follow Tim.”
“All right,” Kate said, frowning, as she turned toward Tim.
It’s amazing what people will fall for when they underestimate you. Kate thought Aubrey was too stupid and spineless to stick up for herself. Aubrey was a pathetic fly buzzing around Kate’s brilliance. It would never in a million years occur to Kate that Aubrey could outsmart her.
Aubrey got back into her nice, warm car, and watched Kate march off to her death. It wasn’t until the day the police came to the yoga studio to interview her that Aubrey discovered Kate had been pregnant that night, with Ethan’s baby. That must have been the “complication” she so delicately referred to. Aubrey had to admit, the thought of the innocent baby made her sad. But with Kate for a mother and Ethan for a father, the poor thing was better off dead.
That part of the plan—the killing-Kate part—went off without a hitch. It was a shame that Aubrey hadn’t been able to figure out a way to get Tim to kill Ethan, too, but of course, he had no motive to do that. She had to settle for framing Ethan for his girlfriend’s murder. That’s where the anonymous call to the tip line came in, and why a detective now stood at the front door, presumably with a search warrant in hand for Ethan’s car. Aubrey would get almost everything she wanted—Kate dead, full custody of the kids, the house, and all the money. Ethan wasn’t dead, but he was about to go to jail for the rest of his life, and that would be satisfying. She’d be sure to send him a Christmas card every year—Aubrey and the kids in matching outfits, with Griff smiling in Ethan’s place. That would feel very good.
Aubrey kissed the top of Lilly’s head. “Finish your homework, honey. I’ll go talk to the lady.”
She opened the front door to find the young detective who’d interviewed her at the yoga studio, along with an older officer she didn’t recognize.
“Detective Charles,” Aubrey said. “What a surprise. Can I help you?”
“Ma’am, apologies if I’m interrupting dinner. My colleague and I have a warrant to search your husband’s car in relation to the death of Katherine Eastman.”
“Oh, my,” Aubrey said, her hand shooting to her throat in feigned shock. “Well, I guess you’d better come in.”