The Stranger(98)
“Right.”
“That’s not enough?”
“Maybe it is, but”—Johanna tilted her head—“we aren’t done yet, are we, Adam?”
“Oh, I think we are.”
“Still some big loose ends left dangling.”
“Like you said, it’s a big story now. They’ll catch the stranger.”
“I’m not talking about him.”
He had figured as much. “You’re worried about Corinne.”
“And you’re not?”
“Not as much,” he said.
“You want to tell me why?”
Adam took his time, considering his words carefully. “Like you said, there’ll be a ton of media now. Everyone will be looking for her, so she’ll probably just come home. But the more I think about it, the more I think the answer was pretty obvious right from the start.”
Johanna arched an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
“I kept wanting it not to be my fault, you know? Her running off had to be more than it appeared. It had to be some big conspiracy involving Chris Taylor’s group or something.”
“And you don’t think that anymore?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So what do you think?”
“Chris Taylor exposed my wife’s most closely held and painful secret. We all know what that does to a person.”
“It messes you up,” Johanna said.
“Right. But more than that, a revelation that big—it strips you bare. It tears you down and takes away how you look at your life.” Adam closed his eyes again. “You need time after something like that. To rebuild. To figure out what’s next.”
“So you think Corinne . . . ?”
“Occam’s razor,” Adam said. “The simplest answer is usually correct. Corinne texted that she needed time apart. It’s still only been a few days. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”
“You sound pretty sure.”
Adam didn’t respond.
Johanna hit her blinker and kept driving. “You want to stop and clean up before you get home? You still got blood on you.”
“That’s okay.”
“You’ll scare the boys.”
“Nah,” Adam said. “They’re more resilient than you know.”
A few minutes later, Johanna dropped him by his front door. Adam waved and waited until she drove off. He didn’t go into his house. The boys weren’t there anyway. When he was alone back at the lake, he had called Kristin Hoy. He asked if she could pick the boys up from school and keep them at her house for the night.
“Of course,” Kristin Hoy said. “Are you okay, Adam?”
“I’m great. I appreciate this favor.”
Corinne’s minivan, the one that had been left in the hotel parking lot, was sitting in the driveway. Adam slipped into it. The driver’s seat, too, smelled wonderfully of Corinne. The medication was wearing off, and the pain was flooding back in. He didn’t care. He could deal with the pain. But he had to be sharp. He had his iPhone in his hand. The police had let him take it from the crime scene. He told them that he thought Chris Taylor had thrown his phone underneath the old chest of drawers. They’d let him reach under for it, but of course it wasn’t there.
Merton’s gun was.
Another police officer called down that he’d found Adam’s phone upstairs. The battery had been removed. Adam put the battery back and thanked him. Merton’s gun was now hidden in his waistband. The police hadn’t searched him again. Why would they?
The gun had dug into his side the entire ride with Johanna, but he didn’t dare move it.
He needed that gun.
He sent the e-mail he’d composed during the car ride to Andy Gribbel. The subject read:
DO NOT READ UNTIL TOMORROW MORNING.
If something went wrong—and that was likely—Gribbel would read the e-mail in the morning and pass it on to both Johanna Griffin and Old Man Rinsky. He had debated telling them now, before this, but they would have stopped him. Law enforcement would have been contacted and then the suspects would circle the wagons and go silent. They’d hire attorneys like him and the truth would never come out.
He had to handle it this way.
He drove over to Beth Lutheran Church. He parked by the gymnasium exit and waited. He thought that he understood what had happened now, but something was still niggling at the base of his brain. Something still didn’t feel right—hadn’t felt right from the beginning.
He took out his phone, brought up Corinne’s text, and read it once again:
MAYBE WE NEED SOME TIME APART. YOU TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS. DON’T TRY TO CONTACT ME. IT WILL BE OKAY.
He was about to read it again when Bob “Gaston” Baime came sauntering out. He said good night to the other guys with high fives and knuckle pounds. He wore shorts that were too short. A towel was draped around his neck. Adam waited patiently until Bob was close to his car. Then Adam got out and said, “Hey, Bob.”