The Stranger(105)

She had been following him. She slowly pried the gun from Adam’s hand and placed it in Tripp Evans’s. She looped her finger over his and fired off three shots, so that there would be gun residue on Tripp’s hand. She picked up Tripp’s other hand and used it to scratch Adam, making sure that DNA got beneath his fingernails. Adam just followed her orders in a daze. They came up with a story of self-defense. It wasn’t perfect. There were holes and plenty of skepticism, but in the end, the physical evidence, along with Johanna’s own testimony of overhearing Tripp Evans’s confession, made it impossible to get an indictment.

Adam was free.

Still, you live with what you’ve done. He had killed a man. You don’t get a free pass on something like that. It haunted him at night, robbed him of sleep. He understood that he had had no choice. As long as Tripp Evans was alive, he was a threat to Adam’s family. And something primitive in him even took satisfaction in what he’d done, in avenging his wife, in protecting his boys.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Do you sleep okay?”

Johanna Griffin smiled. “No, not really.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “I may not sleep well, but I would sleep a lot worse if you spent the rest of your life in prison. I made a choice when I saw you in the woods. I think I made the choice that lets me sleep best.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

There was something else that had always bothered Adam, but he never spoke about it. Tripp Evans in the end—did he really think his plan would work? Did he really think Adam would simply let him get away with killing his wife? Did he really think it was wise to threaten his family like that when Adam was kneeling beside his dead wife with a gun in his hand?

After his death, Tripp’s family had been on the receiving end of a huge death-benefit payout. The Evans family stayed in town. They got support. Everyone in Cedarfield, even those who believed Tripp was a murderer, rallied around Becky and the kids.

Had Tripp known that would happen?

Had Tripp, in the end, wanted Adam to kill him?

The game was tied with a minute left.

Johanna Griffin said, “Funny, though.”

“What?”

“It was all about secrets. That was the whole thing with Chris Taylor and his group. They wanted to rid the world of secrets. And now you and I have been forced to keep the biggest secret of all.”

They both stood and watched the time ticking down. With thirty seconds to go, Thomas scored a goal to break the tie. The crowd erupted. Adam didn’t leap for joy. But he did smile. He turned toward Ryan. Ryan was smiling too. So, he bet, under the helmet, was Thomas.

“Maybe that’s what I really came for,” Johanna said.

“What’s that?”

“To see you all smile.”

Adam nodded. “Maybe.”

“Are you a religious man, Adam?”

“Not really.”

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to believe that she actually sees her boys smile.” Johanna kissed his cheek and started to walk away. “You just have to believe that she’d want to.”