“How’d she use the knife if she was always tied up?” I asked.
The kid looked at me as if I’d just told a joke about his mother. “I don’t know, Mr. Dunne, I’m sure they’re getting the details right now. The point is, your wife is safe.”
Hurray. Kid stole my line.
I spotted Rand and Marybeth through the doorway of the room where we’d given our first press conference six weeks ago. They were leaning in to each other, as always, Rand kissing the top of Marybeth’s head, Marybeth nuzzling him back, and I felt such a keen sense of outrage that I almost threw a stapler at them. You two worshipful, adoring assholes created that thing down the hall and set her loose on the world. Lo, how jolly, what a perfect monster! And do they get punished? No, not a single person had come forth to question their characters; they’d experienced nothing but an outpouring of love and support, and Amy would be restored to them and everyone would love her more.
My wife was an insatiable sociopath before. What would she become now?
Step carefully, Nick, step very carefully.
Rand caught my eye and motioned me to join them. He shook my hand for a few exclusive reporters who’d been granted an audience. Marybeth held her ground: I was still the man who’d cheated on her daughter. She gave a curt nod and turned away.
Rand leaned in close to me so I could smell his spearmint gum. “I tell you, Nick, we are so relieved to have Amy back. We owe you an apology too. Big one. We’ll let Amy decide how she feels about your marriage, but I want to at least apologize for where things went. You’ve got to understand—”
“I do,” I said. “I understand everything.”
Before Rand could apologize or engage further, Tanner and Betsy arrived together, looking like a Vogue spread—crisp slacks and jewel-toned shirts and gleaming gold watches and rings—and Tanner leaned toward my ear and whispered, Let me see where we are, and then Go was rushing in, all alarmed eyes and questions: What does this mean? What happened to Desi? She just showed up on your doorstep? What does this mean? Are you okay? What happens next?
It was a bizarre gathering—the feel of it: not quite reunion , not quite hospital waiting room, celebratory yet anxious, like some parlor game where no one had all the rules. Meanwhile, the two reporters the Elliotts allowed into the inner sanctum kept snapping questions at me: How great does it feel to have Amy back? How wonderful do you feel right now? How relieved are you, Nick, that Amy has returned?
I’m extremely relieved and very happy, I was saying, crafting my own bland PR statement, when the doors parted and Jacqueline Collings entered, her lips a tight red scar, her face powder lined with tears.
“Where is she?” she said to me. “The lying little bitch, where is she? She killed my son. My son.” She began crying as the reporter snapped a few photos.
How do you feel that your son was accused of kidnap and rape? one reporter asked in a stiff voice.
“How do I feel?” she snapped. “Are you actually serious? Do people really answer questions like that? That nasty, soulless girl manipulated my son his entire life—write this down—she manipulated and lied and finally murdered him, and now, even after he’s dead, she’s still using him—”
“Ms. Collings, we’re Amy’s parents,” Marybeth was beginning. She tried to touch Jacqueline on the shoulder, and Jacqueline shook her off. “I am sorry for your pain.”
“But not my loss.” Jacqueline stood a good head taller than Marybeth; she glared down on her. “But not my loss,” she reasserted.
“I’m sorry about … everything,” Marybeth said, and then Rand was next to her, a head taller than Jacqueline.
“What are you going to do about your daughter?” Jacqueline asked. She turned toward our young liaison officer, who tried to hold his ground. “What is being done about Amy? Because she is lying when she says my son kidnapped her. She is lying. She killed him, she murdered him in his sleep, and no one seems to be taking this seriously.”
“It’s all being taken very, very seriously, ma’am,” the young kid said.
“Can I get a quote, Ms. Collings?” asked the reporter.
“I just gave you my quote. Amy Elliott Dunne murdered my son. It was not self-defense. She murdered him.”
“Do you have proof of that?”
Of course she didn’t.
The reporter’s story would chronicle my husbandly exhaustion (his drawn face telling of too many nights forfeited to fear) and the Elliotts’ relief (the two parents cling to each other as they wait for their only child to be officially returned to them). It would discuss the incompetence of the cops (it was a biased case, full of dead ends and wrong turns, with the police department focused doggedly on the wrong man). The article would dismiss Jacqueline Collings in a single line: After an awkward run-in with the Elliott parents, an embittered Jacqueline Collings was ushered out of the room, claiming her son was innocent.