Page 74 of Not a Word

Crane opened the front trunk of the Porsche. “You said she had another set of docs.”

“Right.”

Crane hauled out an overnight bag, placed it on the driveway, unzipped it, rooted through, finding only clothes, a makeup bag, a hair dryer, and shoes. There was a shallow pouch on the outside of the bag. In there, a manila envelope. He opened it, peered inside, nodded to himself, and set it on the driveway while he closed up the bag, returned it to the car, and shut the trunk. He put the envelope in his car, then tossed the Porsche keys to Brent. He fumbled them and they hit the ground.

“God help me,” Crane said under his breath as Brent scooped up the keys. “I’ll lead the way,” Crane said, opening the door to his own car. To Catherine, he said, “You stay, look for anything—anything—that says she was here. Anything she touched.”

Catherine nodded and watched as the two cars—Crane’s first, and then Evelyn’s, with Brent behind the wheel—backed out onto the street and drove off.

Catherine stayed up until Brent returned.

Almost three hours later, Crane’s car came down the street, stopped in front of the house long enough for Brent to get out, then did a three-point turn and disappeared. Brent came up the drive like someone who’d just run a marathon.

Catherine had the door open before he got there. He walked past her without saying a word or looking at her. He went to the kitchen, poured himself a scotch, downed it, poured himself another.

“Brent,” she said.

He ignored her.

“Brent, talk to me.”

He didn’t acknowledge her as he headed for the stairs and up to their room. He stripped down, walked into the bathroom naked, and turned on the shower. He stayed in there ten minutes, hands on the tiled wall, head bowed, letting the water rain on his back. Finally, he came out, toweled off, put on a pair of boxers, Catherine watching him the whole time.

“It had to be done,” she said.

He went back to the kitchen, opened a lower cupboard door where they kept garbage bags, grabbed one and returned to the bedroom, where he bagged everything he’d been wearing. He knotted the top of the bag, pulled on a bathrobe, then went back outside, where two metal garbage cans were already at the curb. He lifted the lid of one, stuffed the bag inside, then came back into the house.

“Brent . . .” Catherine, who had followed him downstairs, began.

He stopped, eyed her, and said, “Evelyn won’t be the last. Someone else will come forward. Maybe not this week, or this month, or even this year. But it will all come out eventually.”

Catherine eyed him warily.

“Don’t worry. It won’t be from me. But I’m quitting. I’ll wait a few days, wait for things to die down. Don’t want it to look suspicious, me walking out the same week one of the company’s star employees is found murdered. And then I’m selling all our stock while it’s still worth something. We’ll be okay until I find something new.”

He had one last thing to say.

“For the sake of the boys, I’ll stay with you. But we’re done.”

And he went to bed.

Twenty-Six

As it got to be eleven on Saturday morning, Alicia rolled out of Holden’s bed and planted her feet on the floor.

“Coooffeeee,” she said, reaching for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and lighting one up.

“Ermmm,” Holden said, his face in the pillow.

Alicia glanced back at him, at the rumpled bedclothes, at the dresser so littered with personal items including headache remedies, tissues (still in the dispenser as well as used), crumpled receipts and parking tickets, dirty glasses and empty beer bottles that there was hardly a spot to put anything else, and said, “Did you not hear me? I need coffee.”

Holden rolled over and stood. Wearing only his boxers, he trudged from the bedroom to the kitchen and could be heard running water from the tap, banging around cups and plates and other items that had been left in the sink.

“You want toast or anything?” he called out.

Alicia was propped up in bed, waving her cigarette in the air. “This is my breakfast. I just need the coffee.”

“You think I deliver or something?”