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At last, I shower, and then I have to double and triple check everything. I feel like Tom would be proud. I can’t take the risk of making even a minor mistake. I am not Goldilocks and these are not the three bears. This is real life, and mistakes will get you caught.
When I’m all fresh and clean, I choose something from Beth’s closet. I consider taking something as a memento, something other than the Chanel dress I slip into. But I don’t want to be tied in any way to this house or to this night, and as much as I know it will kill me to discard the vintage dress I’ve selected when the time comes, I know I will be better for it in the end.
It’s just a dress. I will have enough money to buy my own Chanel and my own lake house. In fact, I will have something better. I will have things no one can take away. Not my parents, not my husband, no one. I will have the power and the influence I’ve always wanted. God knows, I’ve earned it.
When everything is neat and tidy, scoured clean, brushed of evidence—just as they would have wanted it—I walk to the nearest gas station, which is another five miles away. From there I call Adam.
“I can’t pick you up,” he informs me.
“Well, what do you expect me to do? My phone is in your trunk. I don’t have any money. And I wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you.”
“Yes you would.”
“You kidnapped me!”
“I had to,” he says.
“I was terrified. I never saw your face. Jesus, I uploaded what I thought were my final moments to Instalook…I had no idea it was you behind this. Your shenanigans—your lack of communication— it could have ruined everything.”
There’s a long silence neither of us rushes to fill.
“Adam?”
“Hold on,” he sighs before another layer of silence blankets the conversation, smothering the words we’re both thinking but won’t say.
When he comes back on the line, he gives me a credit card number. “You’ll have to call a ride-share. I can’t leave now.”
I don’t have anything to write it down. He doesn’t hide his annoyance when I mention this. “Four numbers, four times. Surely, you can manage sixteen digits.”
I exhale into the receiver.
Adam spits the numbers out once again.
This time, I do remember. Tom would be proud. They will come in handy.
“It’s the church card,” he tells me. Just in case I get any ideas.
Chapter Thirty
Melanie
When you rule something out, you limit your focus. Thankfully, I’m smarter than that. But I am disappointed. To say the least. I’m particularly pissed Adam expected me to use that credit card. Surely, he would have known that to do so would have been too close for comfort. He had to have understood it would’ve linked me to the scene. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. This wasn’t the first time he betrayed me. Nor was it likely to be the last. If only Adam hadn’t failed the test. I really wanted to believe in him.
Everyone slips up at some point
Just not me. When the driver delivered me to my house, I simply ran in and grabbed cash. I refuse to have my every movement tracked and traced. I won’t be tied to that lake house in any way.
Afterward, I was so tired that I dropped to Tom’s side of the bed and fell fast asleep. I dreamed that I woke up and my husband was downstairs making bacon and eggs. Only in my dream, my husband wasn’t Tom. Then the doorbell rings and my stomach sinks. In my dream, I realize I am going to live the same day, thousands of times, a lifetime of times, unless something is done.
Unfortunately, sometimes the dream world and real life collide because I am ripped from my dream to find the doorbell really is ringing, and it is because there are cops at my door. This is never a pleasant situation to wake to.
“Are you Melanie Anderson?” they ask when I open the door.
Pretty standard stuff.
I fold my arms over my chest. “I am.”
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident involving your husband.”
