A muscle in the side of her neck jumped, then stilled. It was the only part of her that moved, except her eyes, which were wide and glittering like gems in the bright midday sun. He’d always thought her eyes were a honey brown, but now, from where he was standing, they seemed to be devoid of any color at all. They were all pupil. Nothing but black.
“Hi,” she said. That was all. She’d lost weight, enough that he could see it by the way her cheeks were hollowed out and the tendons in her neck stood out like ropes. There was a bruise under her eye, faded and yellowing, and a scratch running down the side of her face. The sweatshirt she was wearing hung down to her knees, and one of her arms had been wrapped in a sling and was held awkwardly against her chest. The blue jeans she was wearing were far too big, making her look like a little girl playing dress-up.
“You said you left the police a surprise,” he said. He had the knife in his hand, had come all the way down carrying it. Just in case. “Are you the surprise?”
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging. “I knew you’d come out here if I called.”
“What do you want, Marie?” he demanded. Without thinking, he lifted the knife and shook it at her. She didn’t look impressed. “Why can’t you just go away?”
He took a step toward her. The river was still running high and fast, and he had the knife. If he could get close enough, if he ran at her hard with the blade out and then pushed her in—
“Don’t do that,” Marie said sharply.
“Do what?”
“Come any closer,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You always do,” he said.
The birds had fallen silent, he noticed.
“Did anyone follow you out here?” she asked, peering up the path he’d come down and up at the cliff. He took another step closer while she was distracted. Fifteen more steps, maybe twelve—that would get him there.
“No,” he said. “The cops are busy. I told them everything. What’re you going to say when they find you?”
Marie smiled and tilted her head to one side. It was her same smile, the one he could remember from last month, last year. Twenty-four years ago.
“They’re not going to find me,” she said. “Besides, they’ve already figured out everything on their own. I only helped a little.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. Another shuffling step.
“Stop right there,” Marie said mildly. “I’ve been getting strange phone calls. From one of the cops. A woman. She knew it was my number, she must’ve gotten it from when I called you. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“What did the cop say to you?”
“Oh, I never answered. But she left a voice mail. Several voice mails, actually, telling me what you’d said. How you’d blamed me for everything. She even played a recording of you, so I’d know she was telling the truth. Of course, I’d already figured all that out, so her calls just confirmed it.”
“Why would she call you at all?”
“To taunt me. Try to piss me off and get me to come after you, I think,” Marie said. “So I thought I’d do the same thing to get you out here. And it worked.”
Marie reached behind her back then, and when her hand reappeared it was holding a gun. The movement was so smooth and casual that it was like a magic trick. It was a small gun, snub nosed and dull silver, very much like the gun she’d shot him with so long ago.
“I just wanted to see my husband one last time,” she said. “I wanted to see what I felt when I saw the face of the man who wishes I was dead again. And I love you. Even after everything, I still do. I’ve tried to make myself stop. I’ve never understood how I could love you so much, and hate you at the same time, too.”
She straightened her arm, aiming the gun at his face.
“I should’ve done this twenty-three years ago,” she said. “Think how much trouble I could’ve saved the two of us.”
“Put the gun down!” Spengler shouted. She stepped out of the trees and onto the gravel of the river’s shore, Loren close behind her. They both had their guns drawn and pointed at Marie.
“Man, the two of you just can’t stay away from each other, can you?” Loren yelled.
Marie was distracted, watching the cops come out of the trees, so Matt took the opportunity and lunged. Ran the dozen or so steps at her, the knife out. It was sharp enough that it would slide right through her skin and past flesh and bone to the innards beneath, and there wouldn’t be time to call for medical assistance, and his wife would die here, on the shore of the Three Forks River. He saw all of this happening in his mind, and then Marie whipped around to face him, the gun still out, pointed at his head, right between the eyes. No way she could miss, not from this distance.
She was always one step ahead of him, it seemed.
Marie pulled the trigger.
There was the blast from the gun, and he felt the heat of the bullet entering his flesh, strangely familiar, not into his head but into his chest, and he thought that she might’ve shot him in the same exact spot she’d shot him before, even though she hadn’t been trying to kill him that time. But history repeats itself, doesn’t it?
The bullet had hit him, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from barreling forward and shoving the knife into Marie’s gut, and the force sent her flying back, end over end, somersaulting through the air until she came down into the river, the arms of water reaching up and seeming to embrace her, to suck her down into their depths. Matt managed to stand long enough to watch his wife get swept away in the fast current and then he collapsed, a pool of blood spreading around him.