Текст книги "The Stranger"

Автор книги: Harlan Coben

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Chapter 16

Adam expected Mayor Gusherowski to look like a fat-cat politico fresh off the graft train—soft build, ruddy complexion, practiced smile, maybe a pinkie ring—and in this particular case, Adam was not disappointed. Adam wondered whether Gusherowski had always looked like a poster boy for corrupt politicians or if, over his years of “service,” it had just become part of his DNA.

Three of the past four mayors of Kasselton had been indicted by the US Attorney’s office. Rick Gusherowski had served in two of those administrations and been on the town council for the third. Adam wouldn’t judge the man strictly on his looks or even legacy, but when it came to New Jersey small-town corruption, where there was smoke, there was usually a blazing, supernova-like bonfire.

The sparsely attended town hall meeting was breaking up when Adam arrived. The median age of the audience appeared to be in the mideighties, but that could be because this particular town hall meeting was being held at the brand-spanking-new PineCliff Luxury Village, which was unquestionably a euphemism for nursing and/or retirement home.

Mayor Gusherowski approached Adam with a Guy Smiley smile—the perfect blend of game show host and Muppet. “Wonderful to meet you, Adam!” He gave Adam the perfunctory too-enthusiastic handshake, adding that little pull toward him that politicians believed made the recipient feel somehow inferior or obligated. “Can I call you Adam?”

“Sure, Mr. Mayor.”

“Oh, we’ll have none of that. Call me Gush.”

Gush? Oh, Adam didn’t think so.

The mayor spread his arms. “What do you think of the place? Beautiful, am I right?”

It looked to Adam like a conference room at a Courtyard Marriott, which was to say neat, generic, and impersonal. Adam gave a noncommittal head nod.

“Walk with me, Adam. I want to give you a little tour.” He started down a corridor with forest-green walls. “Great, isn’t it? Everything here is state-of-the-art.”

“What does that mean?” Adam asked.

“Huh?”

“State-of-the-art. How is it state-of-the-art?”

The mayor rubbed his chin, signaling deep thought. “Well, for one thing, they have flat-screen televisions.”

“So does almost every house in America.”

“There’s Internet service.”

“Again, like almost every house, not to mention café, library, and McDonald’s, in America.”

Gush—Adam was warming to the name—volleyed the question away by reigniting the smile. “Let me show you our deluxe unit.”

He used a key to unlock the door and opened it with the flourish of—maybe Adam’s mind was on game shows now—a model on The Price Is Right. “Well?”

Adam stepped inside.

“What do you think?” Gush asked.

“It looks like a Courtyard Marriott.”

Gush’s smile flickered. “These are brand-new and state—” He stopped himself. “Modern.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Adam said. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter if it looks like a Ritz-Carlton. My client doesn’t want to move.”

Gush nodded with great sympathy. “I get that. I really do. We all want to hold on to our memories, am I right? But sometimes memories hold us back. They force us to live in the past instead of the present.”

Adam just stared at him.

“And sometimes, as a member of a community, we have to think about more than just ourselves. Have you been to the Rinsky house?”

“I have.”

“It’s a dump,” Gush said. “Oh, I don’t mean it like that. I grew up in that neighborhood. I say this as a man who worked his way up from those very streets.”

Adam waited for the bootstraps analogy. He was somewhat disappointed when it didn’t come.

“We have a chance of making real progress, Adam. We have a chance to chase away the urban blight of crime and bring sunshine to a part of our city that could use it. I’m talking new housing. A real community center. Restaurants. Quality shopping. Real jobs.”

“I’ve seen the plans,” Adam said.

“Progressive, am I right?”

“I don’t care about that.”

“Oh?”

“I represent the Rinskys. I care about them. I don’t care about the profit margins of Old Navy or the Home Depot.”

“That’s not fair, Adam. We both know the community would be better served with this project coming to fruition.”

“We both don’t know that,” Adam said. “But either way, I don’t represent the community. I represent the Rinskys.”

“And let’s be honest. Look around you. They’d be happier living here.”

“Doubtful, but maybe,” Adam said. “But see, in the United States, the government doesn’t decide what makes a man happy. The government doesn’t decide that a couple who worked hard and bought their own home and raised their family would now be happier living somewhere else.”

The smile slowly returned to Gush’s face. “May I be blunt for a moment, Adam?”

“What, you haven’t been so far?”

“How much?”

Adam steepled his fingers and did his best movie villain voice. “One billion dollars.”

“I’m serious. Now, I could play games and do it the way the developer asked me to—bargain with you, go up in ten-thousand-dollar increments. But let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I’ve been authorized to increase the offer by another fifty thousand dollars.”

“And I’ve been authorized to tell you no.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

Adam didn’t bother responding.

“You know that a judge already gave us the okay on our eminent domain case, right?”

“I do.”

“And that Mr. Rinsky’s previous attorney already lost the appeal. That’s why he’s gone now.”

“I know that too.”

Gush smiled. “Well, you leave me no choice.”

“Sure I do,” Adam said. “You don’t just work for the developer, do you, Gush? You’re a man of the people. So build your strip mall around his house. Change the plans. It can be done.”

“No,” Gush said, the smile gone now. “It can’t.”

“So you’ll throw them out?”

“The law is on my side. And after the way you guys have behaved?” Gush leaned in close enough for Adam to smell the Tic Tac and whispered, “With pleasure.”

Adam stepped back, nodding. “Yeah, I figured that.”

“So you’ll listen to reason?”

“If I ever hear it.” Adam gave a little wave and turned to go. “Have a good night, Gush. We’ll talk again soon.”

Chapter 17

The stranger hated to do this one.

But Michaela Siegel, who was now weaving her way into view, deserved to know the truth before she made a terrible mistake. The stranger thought about Adam Price. He thought about Heidi Dann. They may have been devastated by his visit, but this time, in the case of Michaela Siegel, it would be much, much worse.

Or maybe not.

Maybe Michaela would feel relief. Maybe, after the initial devastation, the truth would set her free. Maybe the truth would bring back balance to her life and put her back on the road she should and would have taken.

You never knew how someone would react until the pin in the grenade was pulled out, right?

It was late, nearly two in the morning. Michaela Siegel hugged her noisy friends good-bye. They were all somewhat inebriated from that night’s festivities. The stranger had already tried twice earlier to get Michaela alone. It hadn’t worked. He hoped that now she might head for the elevator by herself, and he could start the process.

Michaela Siegel. Age twenty-six. She was in her third year of residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital after graduating from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She had started as an intern at Johns Hopkins Hospital, but after what happened, she and the hospital administrator felt that it would be best for all if she switched locations.

As she semistumbled toward the elevator, the stranger stepped into view. “Congratulations, Michaela.”

She turned with a crooked smile. She was, he already knew, a rather sexy woman, which in a sense made this violation all the worse. The stranger felt a flush in his cheeks, remembering what he had seen, but he pushed on.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“Are you serving me with a subpoena or something?”

“No.”

“And you’re not hitting on me, are you? I’m engaged.”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so,” Michaela Siegel said. There was the slight slur of drink in her voice. “I don’t really talk to strangers.”

“I get that,” he said, and because he feared losing her, he dropped the bombshell. “Do you know a man named David Thornton?”

Her face slammed shut like a car door. The stranger had anticipated that. “Did he send you?” she asked.

The slur was gone from her voice.

“No.”

“Are you some kind of weird perv or something?”

“No.”

“But you’ve seen—”

“Yes,” he said. “Just for two seconds. I didn’t watch it all or stare or anything. It was just . . . I had to make sure.”

He could see now that she was facing the same dilemma so many he approached faced—flee this lunatic or hear him out? Most of the time, curiosity won them over, but he never knew how it would go.

Michaela Siegel shook her head and voiced that dilemma. “Why am I still talking to you?”

“They say I have an honest face.”

It was true. That was why it was almost always he who took on this task. Eduardo and Merton had strengths, but if they approached you like this, your first instinct would be to run fast.

“That’s what I used to think about David. That he had an honest face.” She tilted her head. “Who are you?”

“That’s not important.”

“Why are you here? This is all in my past.”

“No,” he said.

“No?”

“It’s not in your past. I wish it was.”

Her voice was a scared whisper. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You and David broke up.”

“Well, duh,” she snapped. “I’m getting married to Marcus this weekend.”

She showed him the engagement ring on her finger.

“No,” the stranger said. “I mean . . . I’m not saying this right. Do you mind if I go through it step-by-step?”

“I don’t care how honest your face is,” Michaela said. “I don’t want to rehash this.”

“I know.”

“It’s behind me.”

“It’s not. Not yet, anyway. That’s why I’m here.”

Michaela just stared at him.

“Were you and David broken up when . . . ?” He didn’t know how to put it, so he just sort of moved his hands back and forth.

“You can say it.” Michaela straightened her back. “It’s called revenge porn. I’m told it’s quite the craze.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” the stranger said. “I’m asking about the state of your relationship before he put that video online.”

“Everyone saw it, you know.”

“I know.”

“My friends. My patients. My teachers. Everyone at the hospital. My parents . . .”

“I know,” the stranger said softly. “Were you and David Thornton broken up?”

“We’d had a big fight.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t get—”

“Were you two broken up before that video went public?”

“What difference does it make now?”

“Please,” the stranger said.

Michaela shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You still loved him. That’s why it hurt so much.”

“No,” she said. “It hurt so much because it was a terrible betrayal. It hurt so much because the man I was dating went on a revenge porn site and put up a sex tape of us doing . . .” She stopped. “Can you imagine? We had a fight, and that was how he reacted.”

“He denied putting it up, right?”

“Of course he did. He didn’t have the courage—”

“He was telling you the truth.”

There were people around them. One guy stepped in an elevator. Two women hurried outside. A concierge was behind the desk. They were all there, and right now, none of them were there.

Her voice was distant, hollow. “What are you talking about?”

“David Thornton didn’t put that tape online.”

“Are you a friend of his or something?”

“I’ve never seen or spoken to him.”

Michaela swallowed. “Are you the one who posted the video?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then how can you—?”

“The IP address.”

“What?”

The stranger took a step closer to her. “The site claims to keep the user’s IP address anonymous. That way, no one can know or prosecute the person who put it up.”

“But you know?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“People think a site is anonymous because the site says so. That’s a lie by definition. Behind every secret site on the Internet, there is a human being monitoring every keystroke. Nothing is really secret or anonymous.”

Silence.

They were there now. The stranger waited. It wouldn’t be long. He could see the quake by her mouth.

“So whose IP address was it?”

“I think you know already.”

Her face twisted up in pain. She closed her eyes. “Was it Marcus?”

The stranger didn’t answer yes or no. There was no need.

“They were close friends, weren’t they?” the stranger said.

“Bastard.”

“Roommates, even. I don’t know the exact details. But you and David fought. Marcus saw an opportunity and seized it.” The stranger reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I have the proof right here.”

Michaela held up her palm. “I don’t need to see it.”

The stranger nodded, put the envelope away.

“Why are you telling me?” she asked.

“It’s what we do.”

“The wedding is four days away.” She looked up at him. “So now what do I do?”

“That’s not up to me,” the stranger said.

“Right, of course.” There was bitterness in her voice. “You just rip open lives. Closing them back up again—that’s not up to you.”

The stranger said nothing.

“I guess you figured, what, I’ll go back to David now? Tell him I know the truth and ask his forgiveness? And then what? He’ll take me in his arms and we’ll live happily ever after? Is that how you see this working out? You being the hero of our love?”

In truth, the thought had occurred to the stranger, though not the hero part. But that idea of righting a wrong, that idea of restoring balance, that idea of putting her back on the life path she’d been taking—yes, he had hoped for that sort of resolution.

“But here’s the problem, Mr. Secret Revealer.” Michaela stepped closer to him. “Even when I was dating David, I had a crush on Marcus. That’s the irony, right? Marcus didn’t have to do this. We would have ended up together. Maybe, I don’t know, but maybe Marcus feels bad about what he did. Guilty. Maybe he’s trying to make up for it, and that’s why he’s so good to me.”

“That’s not a reason to be good to someone.”

“Oh, so now you’re offering life advice?” she snapped. “Do you know what choices you’ve left me with? I can blow up my life or I can live a lie.”

“You’re still young and attractive—”

“And I’m in love. With Marcus.”

“Even now? Even though you know he’s capable of doing something like this?”

“People are capable of doing all sorts of things in the name of love.”

Her voice was soft now. The fight had gone out of it. She turned away and pressed the call button on the elevator. “Are you going to tell anyone else about this?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good night.”

“So you’re still going to marry him?”

The elevator doors opened. Michaela stepped inside and turned to face him. “You didn’t reveal a secret,” she said. “You just created another one.”

Chapter 18

Adam pulled over when he hit the Cedarfield town line. He took out his phone and texted Corinne again:

I’M WORRIED. THE BOYS ARE WORRIED. PLEASE COME HOME.

He hit SEND and put the car back into drive. Adam started to wonder, not for the first time, how he ended up spending his life in the town of Cedarfield. It was a simple thought, and yet the obvious implications weighed on him. Had something this important been a conscious choice? He didn’t think so. He and Corinne could, he knew, have chosen to live anywhere, but then again, what was wrong with Cedarfield? It was, in many ways, the winner’s spoils in the war we call the American dream. Cedarfield had picturesque homes with expansive yards. There was a lovely town center with a variety of restaurants and shops and even a movie theater. There were updated sports facilities, a modern library, and a duck pond. No less a nearly biblical authority than Money magazine had ranked Cedarfield the twenty-seventh “Best Place to Live in America” last year. According to the New Jersey Department of Education, Cedarfield was classified in the socioeconomic District Factor Group of J, the highest of eight categories. Yes, the government ranks towns in this way for real. Why they do this ranking is anybody’s guess.

In fairness, Cedarfield was a great place to raise your kids, even though you were raising them to be you. Some thought of it as the cycle of life, but for Adam, it felt more like a shampoo-rinse-repeat existence, with so many of their neighbors and friends—good, solid people whom Adam liked a lot—growing up in Cedarfield, leaving for four-year stints to college, returning, marrying, raising their own children in Cedarfield, who would grow up here and leave for four-year stints to college, in the hopes of returning, marrying, and raising their own children here.

Nothing wrong with that, was there?

After all, Corinne, who had spent the first ten years of her life in Cedarfield, had not, it seemed, been fortunate enough to follow this well-trodden trajectory. When she was in fourth grade, this town and its values already deeply ingrained in her DNA, Corinne’s father was killed in a car accident. He had been only thirty-seven, too young presumably to have worried about stuff like his own mortality or estate planning. His insurance coverage was a pittance, and soon after, Corinne’s mother had to sell the house and downsize with Corinne and her older sister, Rose, to a brick garden apartment in the somewhat less upscale city of Hackensack.

For a few months, Corinne’s mother had made the ten-mile trek between Hackensack and Cedarfield so that Corinne could still see her old friends. But then school started and predictably her friends got busy with town sports and dance classes Corinne could no longer afford, and while the physical distance stayed the same, the societal chasm grew too far to bridge. The childhood relationships quickly frayed on their way to completely falling apart.

Corinne’s sister, Rose, acted out conventionally, doing poorly in school, rebelling against her mother, experimenting with a potpourri of recreational drugs and dead-end boys. Corinne, on the other hand, channeled the deep hurt and resentment into what most might consider positive outlets. She grew focused in school and in life, determined to do her best in all endeavors. Corinne kept her head down, studied hard, ignored the normal teenage temptations, and silently vowed to return victorious to the place where she’d been a seemingly happy girl with a father. Corinne spent the next two decades like a child with her face pressed against the upper suburban glass, until, at long last, the window opened or—just as likely—shattered.

Corinne and Adam had bought a house that looked suspiciously like the one in which Corinne had been raised. If it had bothered him at the time, Adam didn’t recall it, but maybe by then, he shared her quest. When you marry, you marry your spouse’s hopes and dreams too. Hers were to triumphantly return to a place that had cast her aside. There was a thrill, he now guessed, in helping Corinne fulfill that twenty-year odyssey.

The lights were still on at the aptly named Hard-core Gym (motto: You’re Not Hard-core Unless You Lift Hard-core). Adam took a quick gander at the parking lot and spotted Kristin Hoy’s car. He hit the speed dial for Thomas’s cell phone—again, no point in calling the home phone; neither boy would ever answer it—and waited. Thomas answered on the third ring and gave his customary distracted and barely audible “Hullo?”

“All okay at home?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“And by nothing, you mean?”

“Playing Call of Duty. I just started.”

Right.

“Homework done?” Adam asked out of habit. It was an oft-repeated parent-child verbal hamster-wheel of a question, never going anywhere, though somehow still mandatory.

“Pretty much.”

He didn’t bother telling him to “pretty much” finish it first. Pointless. Let the kid do it on his own. Let go a little.

“Where’s your brother?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he’s home, right?”

“I guess.”

Brothers. “Just make sure he’s okay. I’ll be home soon.”

“Okay. Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s away,” he said again.

“Where?”

“It’s some teachers’ thing. We can talk about it when I get home, okay?”

The pause was long. “Yeah, okay.”

He parked next to Kristin’s Audi convertible and headed inside. The bloated musclehead behind the desk looked Adam up and down and clearly found him wanting. He had the Cro-Magnon brow. His lips were frozen in a sneer of disdain. He wore some kind of sleeveless unitard. Adam feared the man might call him Brah.

“Help ya?”

“I’m looking for Kristin Hoy.”

“Member?”

“What?”

“You a member?”

“No, I’m a friend. My wife’s a member. Corinne Price.”

He nodded as if that explained everything. Then he asked, “She okay?”

The question surprised Adam. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

He might have shrugged, but the bowling balls flanking his head barely budged. “Big week to miss. Competition next Friday.”

Corinne, he knew, didn’t compete. She was nicely built and all, but there was no way she’d don one of those skimpy suits and start posing. She had, however, attended nationals with Kristin last year.

Musclehead pointed—he actually flexed when he did so—toward a corner in the back of the gym. “Room B.”

Adam pushed through the glass door. Some gyms were quiet. Some featured loud music. And some, like this one, echoed with primordial grunts and the clank of heavy metal weights. All the walls were mirrored, and here, and only here, primping and posing for self-pleasure was not only acceptable but expected. The place reeked of sweat, disinfectant, and what he imagined from the commercials Axe cologne smelled like.

He found room B, knocked lightly, and pushed it open. It looked like a yoga studio with blond wood floors, a balance beam, and, yep, tons of mirrors. A super-toned woman tottered out onto the floor in a bikini and ridiculously high heels.

“Stop,” Kristin shouted.

The woman did so. Kristin strutted over in a skimpy pink bikini and the same ridiculously high heels. There was no totter, no awkwardness, no hesitation. She stalked across the floor as though it owed her something.

“Your smile is weak. You look as though you’ve never been in high heels before.”

“I don’t normally wear them,” the woman said.

“Well, you’re going to have to practice. They will judge you on everything—how you enter, how you exit, how you walk, your poise, your smile, your confidence, your demeanor, your facial expression. You get one chance to make that first impression. You can lose the competition with your very first step. Okay, all of you sit.” Five other super-toned women sat on the floor. Kristin stood in front of them, pacing back and forth. Her muscles coiled and uncoiled with each step.

“You should all still be leaning out,” Kristin said. “Thirty-six hours before competition, most of you will carbo-load. This will prevent your muscles from flattening out and get them to have that natural puff look we’re going for. Right now, you should still be eating ninety percent protein. You all have the specific diet plan, am I right?”

Nods.

“Follow it like a religious scripture. You should all be drinking one and a half gallons of water per day. That’s a minimum. We’ll start scaling that down as we get closer. Only sips the day before Nationals and no water at all on competition day. I have water pills if any of you are still retaining water weight. Any questions?”

One hand went up.

“Yes?”

“Will we rehearse the evening gown competition?”

“We will. Remember, ladies. Most people think this is a bodybuilding competition. It is not. The WBFF is about fitness. You will have your poses and pose-off, just as we’ve been doing. But the judges now are looking for Miss America, Victoria’s Secret, Fashion Week, and yes, MuscleMag all wrapped into one elegant package. Harriet will help you coordinate your evening gowns. Oh, and now let’s go over travel necessities. Please bring with you the following: butt glue for your bikini, tape for the top of your suit, E6000 glue, breast pad petals, blister bandages, shoe glue—we always have last-minute strap disasters—tanner, gloves for your tanner, tan-block cream for those palms and feet bottoms, teeth whitener strips, red-eye drop—”

It was then that she spotted Adam in the mirror. Her face changed all at once. Gone was the taskmaster preparing for the WBFF nationals. Back was the friend and fellow teacher. It was amazing how easily we all slip in and out of roles, Adam thought.

“Work on your starting poses,” Kristin said, her eyes on Adam now. “When you first walk out, you do one front, then one back, then you walk away. That’s it. Okay, Harriet will lead you out. I’ll be right back.”

Kristin headed toward him without pause, again crossing the room in the high heels that made her nearly as tall as he was. “Anything new?” she asked him.

“Not really.”

Kristin led him into the corner. “So what’s up?”

It shouldn’t be awkward talking to a woman standing in ridiculously high heels and sporting a skimpy bikini. But it was. When Adam was eighteen, he spent two weeks in Spain’s Costa del Sol. Many of the women went topless, and Adam had fancied himself too mature to ogle. He didn’t ogle, but he did feel a little awkward. That feeling was coming back to him now.

“I guess you’re preparing for a show,” Adam said.

“Not just any show, but Nationals. If I can be selfish for a moment? Corinne left at a bad time. She’s my travel partner. I know in the scheme of things, this doesn’t seem like much, but this is my first show since turning pro and . . . okay, that’s a dumb thing to care about. But that’s a small part of how I’m feeling. The bigger part, though, is I’m really worried. This isn’t like her.”

“I know,” Adam said. “It’s why I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

He didn’t know how to do it, so he just dove in. “It’s about her pregnancy two years ago.”

Pay dirt.

His words hit Kristin Hoy like a surprise wave at the beach. Now it was Kristin’s turn to teeter on the ridiculously high heels. “What about it?”

“You look surprised,” he said.

“What?”

“When I mentioned her pregnancy. You looked like you’d seen a ghost or something.”

Her eyes darted everywhere but on him. “I guess I was surprised. I mean, she disappears, and for some reason, you start asking about something that happened two years ago. I don’t see the connection.”

“But you remember her pregnancy?”

“Of course. Why?”

“How did she tell you?”

“About being pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I don’t remember.” But she did. He could tell. Kristin was lying to him. “What’s the difference how she told me?”

“I need you to think. Do you remember anything odd about it?”

“No.”

“Nothing unusual about the pregnancy at all?”

Kristin put her hands on her hips. Her skin glistened from a fine sheen of perspiration or maybe something left over from a bronzer. “What are you trying to get at?”

“How about when she miscarried?” Adam tried. “How was she acting then?”

Oddly enough, those two questions seemed to center her somehow. Kristin took her time now, breathing slowly as though meditating, the prominent clavicle rising and falling. “Funny.”

“Yes?”

“I thought her reaction was low-key.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, I was thinking about it. She was so good about getting over it. So after you left school today, I started thinking—I mean, at first—that maybe Corinne had been too good after the miscarriage.”

“I’m not following.”

“A person needs to grieve, Adam. A person needs to express and feel. If you don’t express and feel, toxins develop in your bloodstream.”

Adam tried not to frown at the new age babble.

“It seemed to me like maybe Corinne had bottled up her pain,” she continued. “And when you do that, you create not only toxins but internal pressure. Eventually, something has to give. So after you left, I started wondering. Maybe Corinne had submerged the pain of losing the baby. Maybe she pushed it down and tried to keep it down, but now, two years later, whatever walls she had built suddenly gave way.”

Adam just looked at her. “At first.”

“What?”

“You said you started thinking this ‘at first.’ So somewhere along the line you changed your mind.”

She didn’t reply.

“Why?”

“She’s my friend, Adam.”

“I know that.”

“You’re the husband she’s trying to get away from, right? I mean, if you’re telling the truth and nothing bad happened to her.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am.” Kristin swallowed hard. “You walk down the streets where we all live. You see the nice neighborhoods and the manicured lawns and the nice patio furniture in the backyard. But none of us knows what really goes on behind those facades, do we?”

He stood there.

“For all I know, Adam, you abuse her.”

“Oh, come on—”

Kristin held up her hand. “I’m not saying you do. I’m just giving you an example. We just don’t know.” There were tears in her eyes, and now he wondered about her husband, Hank, and why, with this physique, she sometimes wore those long sleeves and cover-ups. He had thought that maybe she had wanted to be modest. But that might not be it.

She had a point, though. They might live in a seemingly friendly community or a close-knit neighborhood, but every home is its own island with its own secrets.

“You know something about this,” Adam said to her.

“I don’t. And I really have to get back to the girls now.”

Kristin turned away from him. Adam almost reached out and grabbed her arm. Instead, he said, “I don’t think Corinne was really pregnant.”

Kristin stopped.

“You knew, didn’t you?”

With her back still turned, she shook her head. “Corinne never said anything to me.”

“But you knew.”

“I knew nothing,” Kristin said in a low voice. “You need to go now.”