“Do you really think you’ve gotten away with anything?” Marie’s message had said. She was using that voice again, the one he hated so much, high-pitched and mocking. “Well, I left them a little surprise at the bottom of the cliff that’ll make them think twice about their decision to let you go. Just thought I’d give you a heads-up, in case you wanted to pack a bag and make a run for it. Do you think a pretty guy like you will be popular in prison, Matt?”
Marie had laughed then, a tinkling laugh that wasn’t like any sound he’d ever heard her make. It wasn’t the laugh that pissed him off so bad, but the confidence in her voice. The idea that this woman, his wife, had big enough balls to call and taunt him, to sound so goddamn sure of herself when she should be running, scared and frustrated, out of options. Instead, she was laughing. She was fucking laughing, and he didn’t like that one bit.
She didn’t have any surprise for the police, he knew. He’d covered all his bases. It was a trap, of course. She was trying to get him out there again, lure him out into the open. It was a bad idea to go, but what else was there? At least if he went, it would mean an end to things. If he didn’t, he knew Marie wouldn’t just shrug her shoulders, disappear, and move on. No, he’d spend the rest of his life wondering when Marie was going to appear again to make his life hell. Marie was the terrible heart beating under the floorboard; the bloodstains that would never wash off his hands; the bad smell that just wouldn’t go away.
The wife who wouldn’t die.
It had to end. His wife had left his life once and had come back, and he couldn’t stand to have it happen again. He had to finish it.
Or maybe he didn’t have a choice. When Marie played her pipe he came dancing, he’d follow her wherever.
He had a knife in his backpack. The longest, sharpest one they had in their kitchen. It wouldn’t be the easiest way to end things, but it would work.
I’ve been spending plenty of time out in the park, you know, she’d said.
He hiked down to the bottom of the cliff, enjoying the feel of the sun on the back of his neck and shoulders. It was good being out after being inside for so long, even if it was down to the same spot where he’d last been with cops and rangers. Almost two hours down, picking through the underbrush and along the trail that sometimes faded away to nothing. Past the withered, blackened tree he remembered from last time and along the edge of the frothing river. It’d been almost a month since he’d last been here and it was much warmer than he remembered, an Indian summer, the air warm and full of bugs, and he stopped several times and dipped his hands in the river, all the way past his wrists.
He almost missed the spot beneath the cliff, just like he had the last time, almost kept walking right on but caught himself at the last moment. He shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand and looked up, felt the gentle spray of moisture coming up off the river and misting against his arms and the backs of his calves. The cliff seemed so far from down here, and he wondered how it must’ve been for Marie, dangling from the edge of it. But how had she managed to make it safely down? He still didn’t know. He couldn’t tell anything from this point, because there was nothing to see from so far down, but it must have been terrifying. His wife was tough, he had to give her that much.
There was a crunch of gravel behind him and he whirled around. He’d been alone the whole way down, hadn’t seen another soul, and he’d let his guard down. At home everything was so quiet. The girls had gone back to school without saying good-bye, and the TV was his only company, although he didn’t turn it on much. It was as if everything was listening, waiting for Marie to come back, and his ears were always straining for the sound of her. Her light footsteps on the stairs, the sound of her hand trailing against the banister. But out here his ears had been filled with twittering birds and the rush of the river, and he’d stopped paying attention until now. It could’ve been an animal making that sound, it could’ve been the wind snapping a branch off a tree, but it was too deliberate, and he knew who was standing behind him before he’d fully turned.
“Marie,” he said. He’d known who it was, but he still couldn’t believe his eyes, couldn’t make his brain believe she was actually there, twenty feet behind him, watching, her back to the river. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”