The Wife: A Novel of Psychological Suspense

by Alafair Burke

  “I can’t believe you let that guy in the house.”

  “I think he really does blame himself for not finding you sooner.”

  “Finding me? He couldn’t bother to look for me. Why are you defending him?”

  Angela knew that not only Hendricks, but most of the town, had assumed that she ran away when she went missing. She had also learned how many people had come to pity Ginny for insisting that someone had kidnapped her daughter. But to this day, Angela had no idea that Danny had essentially given the town permission to feel that way. He was convinced Angela had left them. He even apologized to Hendricks for Ginny’s “pestering.”

  “I’m not defending him,” Ginny said. “But he’s offering to help, and maybe you need it. I’m simply relaying the message.”

  “Too little, too late,” Angela said. “He tried calling me last week, and I hung up on him. Felt kind of good, actually.”

  “You’re right,” Ginny said, deciding to drop the matter for now. “Fuck that guy. I learned that from your son, by the way. Kid cusses worse than I do.”

  26

  Memo

  To: Powell File

  From: Olivia Randall

  Re: Client Interview Notes

  Date: May 26

  Long interview and mock cross of Client yesterday. Full audio saved digitally. Highlights and takeaways:

  Client says Lynch was initiator. Kissed him after walking him to car after dinner (Morton’s) on Long Island. Stopped, said she had too much wine and “why are the good ones always married.” First sexual encounter was two weeks later at her house after she asked him over for a drink after end-of-day meeting at company (eight months ago).

  Three months ago, Client became aware of irregularities at business (Oasis Inc.). Unexplained payments not aligned with work performed on-site. He disclosed concerns to Lynch. She hinted that company engaged in kickbacks and doctored financial statements to cover up. She led him to believe she was looking for proof internally, but he never saw evidence.

  Lynch began asking Client to leave wife about four months ago. He never promised, but didn’t say no either. Said he stayed for son (no formal adoption; therefore, Client has no parental rights if divorces wife). Says he felt “trapped.” Didn’t want to lose Lynch. Didn’t want to leave family. Plus stress of needing her to help prove concerns against company so he could extract himself professionally with clean hands.

  No e-mails, texts, phone messages to confirm ongoing affair. Per him, Lynch was caught in yearlong affair with CEO of Oasis (Tom Fisher). Fisher’s wife was suspicious and read texts. Lynch was humiliated. Almost fired except she threatened to sue. Still on outs with company. Per Client, Lynch paranoid that company was looking for dirt on her, would fire her if they knew of affair with consultant—that’s why no texts, etc.

  He told no one of affair. Colleague Zack Hawkins noticed Lynch would be in Client’s office with him alone, once tried to walk in and found door locked.

  Client was defensive, arrogant on cross. Try to keep him off stand unless substantial improvement in future mocks.

  Denies grabbing Rachel Sutton (see above re defensiveness). Doesn’t recall exact words but said something like she “needed to live a little before she locked that down.” He was changing clothes at time. Admitted it was “possible” he “prolonged the process to get a rise” out of Rachel, whom he found “cloying” and “immature.”

  Other women may come forward. Prior infidelities during marriage (out-of-town hookups, Tinder one-night stands, etc.), but per Client, Lynch was only ongoing affair. “I thought I loved her. I can’t believe she’s doing this to me.”

  Client believes it’s possible Lynch getting financial benefit from Oasis/Fisher in exchange for undermining him. But also thinks she is angry at him for feet-dragging on leaving the wife.

  27

  Four Days Later

  I almost took a U-turn on the Saw Mill Parkway—literally, as in the middle of the highway. Listening to Spencer singing along to my playlist of early-aughts hip-hop—LL Cool J, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige—I realized how much I was going to miss him. There was a break in the metal barrier in the middle of the highway, those spots where the police wait for speed traps. I eyed it, thinking how easy it would be to just go back home.

  But then I remembered how hard I had worked that morning to keep him busy—eat your breakfast, don’t forget the sunscreen, how many pairs of underwear did you pack?—in the hope that he wouldn’t have time to go online and see any possible breaking news about Jason’s case.

  Olivia had called the night before to report that the moment Jason had warned me to expect was official. She had a source in the crime lab. The DNA on that woman’s clothing matched Jason’s. Of course it did. He had admitted to sleeping with her only days before the swab was taken. Every day felt like a new hammer dropped, but the pounding wasn’t going to stop. The DNA results would hit the news. Jason would be arrested. He would be charged. There would be a trial, then a result, one way or the other.

  So I kept driving, hoping that somehow our world would feel normal again by the time camp was over.

  Jason was on the phone in the kitchen when I made it back. He told whoever it was to hold on for a second and then walked over and hugged me. I let myself be held, knowing I should hate him more, but missing our son. Jason had wanted to come with us. I told him that I wanted Spencer to myself for the morning, but the truth was that Spencer didn’t want Jason to go. He knew it was his father’s fault he was being sent away.

  Jason went back to his call, and I walked upstairs to our bedroom and closed the door. I looked at the Lisa Unger novel lying open on my nightstand. Susanna had given me one of her books more than a year ago, swearing I would love it. I never got around to reading it until I needed something to distract me from my actual life. Now I was on my third one.

  But instead of picking up the book, the way I should have, I reached for my laptop. I pulled up the log-in page to NYU’s e-mail system and typed in Jason’s e-mail address, followed by his password. He didn’t know I had it, or at least I didn’t think so. I only knew it because he had been the one to get cable installed after we moved into the carriage house. I had called him at work to ask the password to upgrade our Internet speed after Spencer complained that we were living “like cavemen.”

  Gretchen83

  Even then, I must have already been jealous, because I had immediately asked him who Gretchen was. Turns out, it was his grandmother. And 83 was August 3, our wedding anniversary. Now I typed that number to finalize my invasion into his privacy. I had already read every message between him and that woman. Between him and anyone at Oasis. I searched for messages from Rachel, but found nothing. I opened random messages simply because they were to or from another woman. Since he’d confessed to the affair, snooping on my husband’s e-mails had become part of my daily ritual.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly marked the open message—from someone named Melanie Upton, who apparently was the senior associate director of human resources at NYU, sending her number to Jason so they could discuss his question about his retirement account directly—as unread. I was closing my laptop when Jason walked in.

  “So that was Olivia. She met with the DA who’s handling the case.”

  I prepared myself for the blow. “Are they going to let you turn yourself in, or do I have to keep sitting here day in and day out, wondering when they’re going to barge in with handcuffs?”

  “You think you’re the one in limbo? How do you think I feel, Angela? My colleagues and students are calling me a rapist. Meanwhile, I keep showing up at school so the university doesn’t have an excuse to stop paying me and revoke my tenure. Zack is going to have to cover the podcast for now so we don’t lose advertisers, but that’s a temporary fix. Clients are calling, asking what’s going on. I’m numb. And I’m terrified.”

  I didn’t bother reminding him that NYU had asked him to take a leave of absence—with pay—for the sake o
f reducing the “disruption” on campus. Jason’s response had been to threaten to sue if they made any changes to his status when he hadn’t even been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. He continued to insist that the only way to show he was innocent was to pretend as if everything were normal. Who was I to argue? I had spent the last twelve years putting one foot in front of another to prove that what happened in the past didn’t matter.

  “Well, forgive me that I no longer have the luxury of doing what I do every day, which is to take care of our son and this family. Instead, I had to hide Spencer away at some bullshit hippie camp for rich kids, just so he wouldn’t be on the Internet reading the details of your secret life outside this house. So don’t say this isn’t about me. Now, are you going to tell me what the DA said or not?”

  “Olivia laid out Kerry’s motive to lie.” I hated hearing that woman’s name come out of his mouth. “She said the ADA looked pretty overwhelmed when she started getting into the details of the problems at Oasis. My guess is the guy can’t find the countries we’re talking about on a map. She told us not to get our hopes up, though.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I need that warning.”

  He was tentative as he sat on the bed next to me, as if he were seeking permission. “You can bail if you want. I haven’t asked you to stay.”

  I shook my head.

  “And I really am sorry about Spencer going to camp.”

  “I know.” I could feel myself starting to cry.

  “You’re scared for yourself, too, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. Everything was falling apart. Ever since his agent told him that his book was going to be #1 on the bestseller list, I had this terrible feeling that nothing would be the same again. All I wanted was to be Angela Powell, wife and mother, with my rules and routines and rituals. Good and boring. If I could have one wish, I would erase the entire world’s knowledge of my existence before I reappeared in East Hampton with Spencer.

  “Every time the phone rings, I’m convinced it’s going to be someone asking me about him.” My shoulders were shaking between sobs. I didn’t need to tell Jason that the “him” was Charlie.

  I let him hold my hand. “That’s not going to happen. And, even if it did, would that be so bad? I hate to say it, but this could wind up being a blessing in disguise—for you, obviously, not me. If it all came out, you’d be free. That cloud over your whole life would be gone.”

  If this were the first time we’d had this conversation, it might have felt like he really did want what was best for me. But Jason had always known about Susanna’s open invitation to help me “go public,” as she called it, and had never questioned my rejection of it until he himself became a public figure. He talked about the cloud over my life, but it had become a cloud over his too. And maybe the freedom he cared about now was his and not mine.

  When I didn’t respond, he knew to pivot the conversation again. “Oh, and Olivia wanted to talk to you. I told her you’d give her a call when you have a chance. I mean, if that’s okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll call her in a bit. I just want to chill out for a while after that drive.”

  “No problem. I was about to order some wine from Astor Place. Any requests?”

  I shook my head. As far as I was concerned, there were only two kinds: red and white, and I’d drink either with anything.

  “By the way, did you call the dealer yet?” I asked.

  “Jesus, Angela, seriously?”

  “What? That wobble in the front end’s still there, and it’s still under warranty.” The last time he drove it, he said he could barely tell what I was talking about. I should have known that he wouldn’t make the service appointment.

  “Excuse me for not keeping up with your to-do lists during all this.”

  “You want your wife and son to get in a car accident because you’re too busy dealing with your mistress to make a phone call?” I knew I was being a bitch, but one of the rules when we bought that car was that he’d be the one to oversee the maintenance. One of our other splurges when Jason started making outside money was to upgrade our wagon from the Subaru to an Audi. The only improvement I cared about was the built-in GPS and satellite radio. I had no interest in taking care of a fancy German car with all the other bells and whistles.

  His voice softened. “Fine, I’ll call the dealer.”

  “And can you ask them to install the GPS update while they’re at it?”

  I was almost daring him to say something. How many times had he told me to use my phone like everyone else? Both he and Spencer teased me mercilessly for my airplane-mode-in-the-car rule. It’s called airplane mode, not car mode, Mom! I didn’t care what everyone else did. I’d read an article two years earlier about people who crashed when their phones rang unexpectedly. I wasn’t going to risk Spencer’s life because I couldn’t go offline for a little while. I knew the two of them cheated by silencing their phones instead, but the rule stood.

  Once again he pretended to defer to me. “No problem,” he said. “And please let me know once you’ve talked to Olivia. I appreciate your doing that.”

  He was about to leave the room when I stopped him. “You didn’t tell her, did you? About me?” I had seen what she’d done to Rachel to help her client.

  There was no hesitation in his reply: “Of course not.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  28

  Brian King was wrestling a dumpling between chopsticks when Corrine knocked on his open office door.

  “You can use a fork, you know. Chinese people will forgive you.”

  “Seems wrong somehow. I once stopped seeing a woman because she ordered a banana daiquiri at a wine bar.”

  “Good riddance to her. I’ve got something for you.” She dropped the lab results on his desk. The DNA on Kerry Lynch’s skirt and panties was Powell’s. “We were expecting it, but now it’s official.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but I already got the heads-up. Is it bad that I was kind of hoping it would be a bust?”

  He nudged the takeout container in her direction, and she plucked a dumpling with her fingers.

  “I know you’ve got a losing streak right now—”

  “The office has a losing streak,” he corrected.

  “Fine, whatever. But this case is winnable.”

  “Except he’s got one of the best defense attorneys in the city. Not surprisingly, she called me within half an hour of my getting the results, asking for a meeting. She’s got a way of nabbing inside information. I think half of law enforcement is secretly in love with her.”

  “If she were a man, you’d admire his vast network of contacts.”

  “If she were a man, I wouldn’t have asked her out two years ago, only to get shut down. She was in here this morning giving me a preview of what we’re looking at if we go to trial. They’re claiming consent, and not just the one time. According to Powell, he and Kerry have been having an affair since last October.”

  “Bullshit. Why didn’t he say something the first time I asked about her?”

  “Because you showed up at his house while his wife and kid were within earshot. And he didn’t think it was relevant. They’ll argue you misled him into thinking you were still investigating Rachel Sutton’s complaint, so he didn’t see the harm of lying about a completely consensual extramarital dalliance.”

  “We did mislead him. That’s what you told me to do.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe we were being a little too cute. I wouldn’t be surprised if a judge suppressed his statement altogether.”

  Corrine reminded him of the footage from the hotel elevator. “He said, ‘What did I do?’ It’s basically a confession.”

  “You don’t understand how Olivia Randall operates. It’s scorched earth. She’ll hire experts to say that lipreading isn’t scientifically reliable. And if she loses that, she’ll get a linguistics professor to testify he said something else. Every single piece of evidence will be a battle. And even if the evidence
comes in, she’ll say he was so anguished about having cheated on his beloved wife that he was racked with guilt when he left her room.” He re-created the moment, placing his hands on his head. “‘What did I do?’ And my boss has made it damn clear that I have to win this case.”

  “Well, I think I have something that potentially helps.”

  When she first ran Powell for priors, the only entries she found were an incident when Powell witnessed a domestic violence assault in Washington Square Park and a report from a fender-bender. After Kerry came forward, Corrine ordered copies of the reports to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.

  The assault incident was from eight years ago and, if anything, made Powell seem like a hero. He saw a man push his girlfriend to the ground and continue to try to grab her arm as the two of them walked away together. He followed the couple, asking the woman if she needed help. The man took a swing at Powell, who responded by punching the man in the face and breaking his nose. A bystander called 911, making it clear that Powell had acted in self-defense.

  At first glance, the report from the car accident, five years later, was a snoozer. A taxi pulled away with a fare and sideswiped Powell’s Subaru in full view of a patrol officer. According to the report, Powell planned to seek repair of his car through his own insurance and did not want the incident reported. Corrine suspected that the taxi driver had mouthed off to the officer, because he had insisted on writing up the accident and forwarding the report to the city’s taxi and limousine commission. It was the kind of thing that happened hundreds of times a month in this city, except that on that specific day, Jason Powell had a passenger in his car, a twenty-four-year-old white female named Lana Sullivan.

  So curiosity kicked in again, and Corrine ran Lana Sullivan for hits. Three years ago, if the patrol officer had run her for warrants, he would have come up empty-handed. But that was three years ago.