The Woman in the Window

by A. J. Finn

  “You didn’t even know who she was,” he says. “You thought she was someone else. You didn’t know I was adopted.” He pushes his foot against my neck. “So how could—”

  “She told me. I didn’t—” I swallow, my throat swelling. “I didn’t understand at the time, but she told me . . .”

  Once more he’s silent. Air hisses through my throat; rain hisses on the asphalt.

  “Who?”

  I stay silent.

  “Who?” He kicks me in the stomach. I suck in air, curl up, but already he’s seized me by the shirt, hauling me to my knees. I slump forward. He drives his hand into my throat, squeezes.

  “What did she say?” he screams.

  My fingers scrabble at my neck. He starts to lift me and I rise with him, my knees quaking, until we stand eye to eye.

  He looks so young, his skin bathed smooth in the rain, his lips full, his hair slicked across his forehead. A very nice boy. Beyond him I see the spread of the park, the vast shadow of his house. And at my heels I feel the bulge of the skylight.

  “Tell me!”

  I try to speak, fail.

  “Tell me.”

  I gag.

  He relaxes his grip on my throat. I flick my eyes down; the letter opener is still clasped in his fist.

  “He was an architect,” I gasp.

  He watches me. Rain falls around us, between us.

  “He loved dark chocolate,” I say. “He called her ‘slugger.’” His hand has fallen from my neck.

  “He liked movies. They both did. They liked—”

  He frowns. “When did she tell you this?”

  “The night she visited me. She said she loved him.”

  “What happened to him? Where is he?”

  I shut my eyes. “He died.”

  “When?”

  I shake my head. “A while ago. It doesn’t matter. He died and she fell apart.”

  His hand grasps my throat again, and my eyes fly open. “Yes, it matters. When—”

  “What matters is that he loved you,” I croak.

  He freezes. He drops his hand from my neck.

  “He loved you,” I repeat. “They both did.”

  With Ethan glaring at me, with the letter opener gripped in his hand, I breathe deeply.

  And I hug him.

  He goes stiff, but then his body slackens. We stand there in the rain, my arms around him, his hands at his sides.

  I sway, swoon, and he holds me as I twist around him. When I’m back on my feet, we’ve traded positions, my hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

  “They both did,” I murmur.

  And then, with all my weight, I lean into him and push him onto the skylight.

  98

  He lands on his back. The skylight shudders.

  He says nothing, just looks at me, confused, as though I’ve asked him a difficult question.

  The letter opener has skidded to one side. He splays his hands against the glass, starts to push himself upright. My heart slows. Time slows.

  And then the skylight disintegrates beneath him, soundless in the storm.

  In an instant he drops out of sight. If he screams, I can’t hear it.

  I stumble to the edge of where the skylight used to be, peer over it into the well of the house. Shreds of rain swirl in the void like sparks; on the landing below glitters a galaxy of broken glass. I can’t look any deeper—it’s too dark.

  I stand there in the storm. I feel dazed. Water laps at my feet.

  Then I step away. Move carefully around the skylight. Walk toward the trapdoor, still flung wide.

  Down I go. Down, down, down. My fingers slip on the rungs.

  I reach the floor, the runner soaked with water. Tread to the top of the stairs, passing beneath the gouge in the roof; rain showers onto me.

  I reach Olivia’s bedroom. Stop. Look in.

  My baby. My angel. I’m so sorry.

  After a moment I turn, walk downstairs; the rattan is dry and rough now. At the landing I stop again, cross below the waterfall, and stand, dripping, in the doorway of my bedroom. I survey the bed, the curtains, the black specter of the Russell house beyond the park.

  Once more through the shower, once more down the steps, and now I’m in the library—Ed’s library; my library—watching the rain gust across the window. The clock on his mantel chimes the hour. Two a.m.

  I avert my eyes and leave the room.

  From the landing I can already see the wreckage of his body, disarranged on the floor, a fallen angel. I descend the staircase.

  A dark crown of blood flames from his head. One hand is folded over his heart. His eyes look at me.

  I look back.

  And then I step past him.

  And I enter the kitchen.

  And I plug in the landline so that I can call Detective Little.

  Six Weeks Later

  99

  The last flakes sifted down an hour ago, and now the midday sun floats in an aching-blue sky—a sky “not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye.” Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. I’ve devised my own reading syllabus. No more long-distance book club for me.

  It does please the eye. Likewise the street below, paved with white, high wattage in the sunshine. Fourteen inches dropped on the city this morning. I watched for hours from my bedroom window, saw the snow tumbling thick, frosting the sidewalks, carpeting doorsteps, piling high in flower boxes. Sometime after ten the four Grays streamed from their house in a happy herd; they shrieked amid the flurries, lurched through the drifts and down the block, out of sight. And across the road Rita Miller emerged on her front stoop to marvel at the weather, wrapped in a robe, a mug in one hand. Her husband appeared behind her, circled her in his arms, hooked his chin over her shoulder. She kissed him on the cheek.

  I learned her real name, by the way—Little told me, once he’d interviewed the neighbors. It’s Sue. Disappointing.

  The park is a field of snow, so clean it sparkles. Beyond it, windows shuttered, hunching beneath that dazzled sky, is what the more frantic newspapers have dubbed killer teen’s $4m house! It cost less, I know, but I guess $3.45m! doesn’t sound as sexy.

  It’s empty now. Has been for weeks. Little visited me at home a second time that morning, after the police arrived, after the EMTs had removed the body. His body. Alistair Russell was arrested, the detective said, charged with accessory to murder; he’d confessed immediately, as soon as he heard about his son. It happened just as Ethan described it, he admitted. Apparently Alistair broke down; Jane was the tough one. I wonder what she knew. I wonder if she knew.

  “I owe you an apology,” Little muttered, shaking his head. “And Val—man, she really owes you one.”

  I didn’t disagree.

  He dropped by the next day, too. By that point reporters were knocking on my door, leaning on my buzzer. I ignored them. If nothing else, over the past year I’ve gotten good at ignoring the outside world.

  “How you doing, Anna Fox?” asked Little. “And this must be the famous psychiatrist.”

  Dr. Fielding had followed me from the library. Now he stood at my side, gawking at the detective, at the sheer scale of the man. “Glad she’s got you, sir,” said Little, pumping his hand.

  “I am, too,” Dr. Fielding replied.

  And so am I. The past six weeks have stabilized me, clarified me. The skylight’s repaired, for one thing. A professional cleaner swung by, spit-polished the house. And I’m dosing properly, drinking less. Drinking not at all, in fact, thanks in part to a tattooed miracle worker named Pam. “I’ve dealt with all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations,” she told me on her first visit.

  “This might be a new one,” I said.

  I tried to apologize to David—called him at least a dozen times, but he never answered. I wonder where he is. I wonder if he’s safe. I found his earbuds coiled beneath the bed in the basement. I took them upstairs, tucked them into a drawer. In case he calls back.

 
And a few weeks ago I rejoined the Agora. They’re my tribe; they’re a sort of family. I will promote healing and well-being.

  I’ve been resisting Ed and Livvy. Not all the time, not fully; some nights, when I hear them, I murmur back. But the conversations are over.

  100

  “Come on.”

  Bina’s hand is dry. My own is not.

  “Come on, come on.”

  She’s yanked the garden door open. A shivering wind blows in.

  “You did this on a roof in the rain.”

  But that was different. I was fighting for my life.

  “This is your garden. In the sunshine.”

  True.

  “And you’ve got your snow boots on.”

  Also true. I found them in the utility closet. I hadn’t worn them since that night in Vermont.

  “So what are you waiting for?”

  Nothing—not anymore. I’ve waited for my family to return; they won’t. I’ve waited for my depression to lift; it wouldn’t, not without my help.

  I’ve waited to rejoin the world. Now is the time.

  Now, when the sun is blasting my house. Now, when I’m clearheaded, clear-eyed. Now, as Bina leads me to the door, to the top of the stairs.

  She’s right: I did this on a roof in the rain. I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die.

  And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living.

  What are you waiting for?

  One, two, three, four.

  She releases my hand and walks into the garden, tracking footprints in the snow. She turns, beckons me.

  “Come on.”

  I close my eyes.

  And I open them.

  And I step into the light.

  Acknowledgments

  Jennifer Joel, my friend, agent, and invaluable guide;

  Felicity Blunt, for working wonders;

  Jake Smith-Bosanquet and Alice Dill, who gave me the world;

  the teams at ICM and Curtis Brown.

  Jennifer Brehl and Julia Wisdom, my clear-eyed, bighearted champions;

  the teams at Morrow and Harper;

  my international publishers, with gratitude.

  Josie Freedman, Greg Mooradian, Elizabeth Gabler, and Drew Reed.

  Hope Brooks, the astute first reader and tireless cheerleader;

  Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, longtime inspiration;

  Liate Stehlik, who said I could;

  my family and friends, who said I should.

  About the Author

  A. J. FINN has written for numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and The Times Literary Supplement (UK). Finn’s debut novel, The Woman in the Window, has been sold in thirty-five territories worldwide and is in development as a major motion picture from Fox. A native of New York, Finn lived in England for ten years before returning to New York City.

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  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  the woman in the window. Copyright © 2018 by A. J. Finn, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  first edition

  Cover design by Elsie Lyons

  Cover images © Shutterstock

  Digital Edition January 2018 ISBN 978-0-06-267844-7

  Print ISBN 978-0-06-267841-6 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-06-279955-5 (international edition)

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