I think about what Keith said today. Craig had an illicit relationship with an eighteen-year-old woman—a student—in Marquette, one that cost him his job and reputation in Marquette, and almost his next job—here.
Keith also mentioned fuel as in the substance that kept Craig going. It wasn’t food or air, but his thirst for women, or more accurately, for girls. I’m surprisingly hurt to learn that I wasn’t his first or last conquest.
Craig Gilbert was also a predator.
Keith claimed the same. Yet in the six years since our relationship, I never thought of classifying him that way. It’s a weighty task to reevaluate so many choices. To cast him as the villain would make me a victim. I refused to see myself that way.
My chest aches in a way it hadn’t in years. I assumed that I was somehow special and now, looking at the remains of his life, I know without a doubt, I wasn’t. I was simply fuel.
I thought that after us, Craig learned his lesson. I assumed if Serena heard the rumors, she would make sure her husband was faithful. I may have even assumed that having a child between them would cement their relationship.
Assumptions are a waste of time and energy.
What if he was still sexually involved with students and Serena found out?
Why haven’t people questioned her?
Who is most likely the suspect when a husband is killed?
The wife.
I make a note to check Serena’s alibi for the morning of his disappearance. I thought I recalled reading it somewhere, that maybe she was asleep. If that’s the case, her witness is her three-year-old son, who was also sleeping.
Did they do a toxicology report on Craig?
Could he have been poisoned?
Women are statistically more likely to kill in a less-physical manner. Poisoning is a common method.
I scribble more notes and questions in random order.
Craig Gilbert’s death wasfactualwhen Becky called.
It wasactualwhen I stood over his grave and again today at the makeshift memorial, but nothing is asrealas seeing his postmortem pictures. Craig is gone. The glint in his soft brown eyes is left to live on only in the eyes of his sons.
Though my glass of iced tea is still three quarters full, I go to the sink; I open the cabinet below and remove my last bottle of wine. It’s a merlot from St. Julian in Lawton. I look up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, God, I won’t dump this out. How about instead, we make a deal?” I talk as I screw the wine opener into the cork. “Help me learn the truth, and I’ll go back to California and never black out again.”
The pop of the cork reverberates through the cottage combined with the ding of a text message.
With a filled glass, I go back to the breakfast bar. Before clicking on the picture, I check my phone. The text message is from Echo.
“HAVE YOU READ MY EMAIL”?
I hesitate to text back.I haven’t read any of her emails. I click on the one with the subject line:look at this. But I don’t read. I need to follow through on what I started with these pictures.
Taking one quick sip, I tell myself, this is just research, like any other case.
One bottle isn’t enough wine to convince myself of that.
I go back to the file I opened and click the picture.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Aknock on the back door causes me to jump. There’s someone tall on the stoop. Pushing down my computer screen, I head to the door and push aside the curtain. A smile curls my lips at the sight of Keith. Without thinking of everyone’s warnings, I open the door. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he says. “I struck out at the sheriff’s office.”
