The Wife: A Novel of Psychological Suspense
Page 29
Angela might have immunity, but Ginny didn’t, which meant Corrine might have an angle, if she could only find them.
She had searched every drawer in every room of the small house. The only hint she had gleaned came from the family photographs on the walls, nearly all of them on the beach—but the world had a lot of beaches. Her final, desperate step was to flip through each book on the built-in shelf of what had once been Angela’s bedroom. A hollowed-out book was still one of the best do-it-yourself hiding places.
A photograph slipped from a dusty, dog-eared copy of Flowers in the Attic. Two teenage girls stood on the beach, their arms around each other’s waists. Angela’s sandy-blond hair was pulled into a ponytail at the top of her head. She was wearing a high-leg one-piece that would have been trendy in the late 1990s. Her friend had short, blunt-cut dark brown hair and was wearing a bikini top and baggy, low-slung cutoff jean shorts, exposing a tattoo of a rose vine on her right hip.
Corrine was about to tuck the photo back in place when she did a double take. The location of the tattoo matched. So did the size. And something about the girl’s face seemed vaguely familiar. She looked like someone. Corrine clicked through every possibility: Angela, Jason, Kerry, Rachel, Colin, Spencer. Spencer. She remembered thinking he looked more like Charles Franklin than his mother.
She finished her search, found Lucy in the living room, and held up the picture. “Do you know who this girl is with Angela?”
Lucy made a tsk sound. “Trisha Faulkner. Those two were inseparable back in the day.” She did not make it sound like a good thing.
“Do you know where she is now?”
“Nope. She used to come and go as she pleased, even as a teenager. She up and left for good right after high school. Can’t say I blame her. That whole family’s full of criminals.”
Corrine’s gaze drifted back to the photograph, wondering if it was possible. She ran the dates in her head. “So she’s been gone for about fourteen years?”
“Well, she was a year ahead of Angela, so, yeah, I guess that’s right. Time sure does fly.”
The timing couldn’t be a coincidence. And the longer Corrine studied Trisha’s features, the greater the resemblance she saw to Spencer Powell.
Corrine’s mind was pinging with possibilities, but she was certain of one thing: this girl deserved to be claimed. She could call the Pittsburgh Police and suggest they compare the DNA of Franklin’s unidentified victim to one of Trisha’s family members. Depending on what she learned about the Faulkners, maybe she would keep her suspicions about Spencer’s biological lineage to herself, at least for the time being.
When she got to her car, she called ADA King. “I want you to get me a meeting with Olivia Randall.”
He knew she was annoyed that the Nassau County DA had blown her off about the mileage on the loaner car, but he had talked her out of going to Powell’s defense attorney directly.
“You’re not letting this go, are you?”
“No way.”
“Fine. I’ll make the call.”
Corrine had asked Angela how well she knew her husband. Now she was going to find out how much Jason knew about his wife.
Acknowledgments
One of the loveliest perks of completing a new book is the opportunity to thank the many generous people who helped along the way.
I am grateful for the valuable expertise and sage advice of Matthew Connolly; Kenneth Crum; Roseanne DeLaglio; Dr. Jonathan Hayes, associate medical examiner for District 20, Naples, Florida; Dr. Jill Hechtman, medical director of Tampa Obstetrics; Shannon Kircher; Michael Koryta; NYPD lieutenant Lucas Miller; Miriam Parker; Don Rees, Multnomah County chief deputy district attorney; Anne-Lise Spitzer; and Dr. Elayne Tobin, clinical assistant professor, New York University.
My editor, Jennifer Barth, has been my trusted sounding board and closest reader since she acquired my first novel more than fifteen years ago. I consider myself lucky to work with a person of her talents and integrity. She and the matchmaker who introduced us, Philip Spitzer, aka the Jerry Maguire of literary agents, remain my biggest champions. I’m not kidding: Speak poorly of one of their writers near them, and I can’t protect you.
I am also thankful to Amy Baker, Jonathan Burnham, Heather Drucker, Jimmy Iacobelli, Doug Jones, Michael Morrison, Katie O’Callaghan, Mary Sasso, Leah Wasielewski, Erin Wicks, and Lydia Weaver at HarperCollins; Lukas Ortiz and Kim Lombardini at the Spitzer Agency; Angus Cargill, Lauren Nicoll, and Sophie Portas at Faber & Faber; Kate McLennan at Abner Stein Ltd.; Giulia De Biase at Edizioni Piemme; and Jody Hotchkiss.
To my loving friends and family, especially my extraordinary husband, Sean Simpson: thanks for believing I deserve you.
Last, but never least, thanks to my incredible readers, especially the longtime “kitchen cabinet” crew. Some days, simply knowing that someone other than my parents is enjoying my work and waiting for the next story is what keeps me at the keyboard. Happy reading.
About the Author
Alafair Burke is the Edgar-nominated, New York Times bestselling author of eleven previous novels, including the stand-alones The Ex, Long Gone, and If You Were Here, as well as the Ellie Hatcher series: All Day and a Night, Never Tell, 212, Angel’s Tip, and Dead Connection. She is also the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan.
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Also by Alafair Burke
Long Gone
If You Were Here
The Ex
The Ellie Hatcher Series
Dead Connection
Angel’s Tip
212
Never Tell
All Day and a Night
The Samantha Kincaid Series
Judgment Calls
Missing Justice
Close Case
The Under Suspicion Series
(with Mary Higgins Clark)
The Cinderella Murder
All Dressed in White
The Sleeping Beauty Killer
Every Breath You Take
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 wife. Copyright © 2018 by Alafair Burke. 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.
Cover design by James Iacobelli
Cover photograph © Lucas Olivier / EyeEm / Getty Images
first edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition JANUARY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-239053-0
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-239051-6
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