“But once Dashiell died, they really had nothing in common anymore. The rest of us don’t have small kids—though Rachel and Susannah are trying to get pregnant, but they wouldn’t tell Sutton that. Why hurt her? Ellen’s kids are older, in college. Filly was the one with the step-by-step instructions. That woman is a walking What to Expect When You’re Expecting encyclopedia.” She gave a delicate little shudder. “The things they’d talk about, put you right off your coffee. Sorry. You have children?”
“No. Talk to me about the baby for a minute.”
Ivy closed her eyes again, as if remembering. “He was such a cute kid. Of course they blamed each other. The finding was SIDS, but what is that, really? The baby stopped breathing, for some unknown reason. They found him on his stomach, that I do know.”
“They found him? They were together?”
“No. Sutton...Sutton found him. Ethan, well, he blamed her. She wasn’t supposed to put the baby down on his stomach.”
“He was old enough to roll over, right?”
“I guess. I don’t really know the milestones. No, Sutton put him down, and a few hours later he was dead. Ethan will never not blame her. Even if it was an accident.”
“You don’t think it was intentional, do you?”
Ivy’s eyes were clear chips of ice blue. “Did Ethan tell you the story? About how they got pregnant?”
“No. Did they have difficulties?”
“You could say that. Sutton didn’t want to have children. Ever. She wasn’t the mother type.”
“It was an accident?”
“I guess you could call it that. Ethan switched out her birth control pills. He didn’t tell her until after she had the baby. And she hated him for it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. She felt raped. Completely violated. You know, in the beginning, she wanted to abort, but I talked her out of it.”
“Why?”
Ivy sighed. “She didn’t want to be a mother. Didn’t want to have a child. Everyone supported her in that, except for me. I was the only one who thought she should keep the baby. Everyone else wanted her to get rid of it. But I knew that would put a fork in their marriage, once and for all. They belong together, Ethan and Sutton. They complete each other. They just don’t always know it.”
“So they fought?”
“Oh, yeah. They fought. You’re the police, did you not see the list of domestic calls in the past year?”
“I did. Sutton never pressed charges.”
“Of course she didn’t. She never would. She and Ethan are explosive.”
“She also claimed she never made the calls.”
“Well, how’s that possible? How else would the police find out they were arguing?”
“I’m inclined to agree. Abused women often regret their calls for help, especially if their aggressor is still nearby.”
“Very true. Back to the baby. In the end, Sutton waited too long, and then the choice was made for her. I don’t know that she ever truly bonded with Dashiell, though. Ethan, on the other hand, was overjoyed. He loved that child.”
“And she didn’t?”
“No, she did, don’t get me wrong. But you have to wonder, sometimes, if she was in a self-destructive mode, whether she wasn’t as careful as she could have been. I mean, everyone knows not to put babies on their stomachs. And she was drunk when she came home that night. Ethan told me, after.”
Holly chose to ignore that last statement for the time being. “Sutton was often self-destructive?”
“At times. That’s why I’m so worried about her.”
“So for the record, you don’t think Ethan had anything to do with Sutton’s disappearance?”
Brookes chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know if I’d phrase it that way. Sutton may have gone off to punish him, but if she did, it’s because Ethan drove her to it. His standards were impossible to keep up with. And he’s not been writing, which makes him utterly insufferable. He may not have pulled the trigger, but if she’s dead, he’s certainly responsible.”
“So he was abusive.”
“You didn’t hear that from me.” She looked at her watch, jumped up. “Goodness, I am so sorry, but I have another appointment. Please excuse me. And if there’s anything else I can do, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am worried sick about her. I really hope she’s just holed up somewhere, making us all sweat.”
“Thanks for your time.”
Holly went to her car, reviewed her notes, adding a bit here and there as she recalled something. Two women, two somewhat disparate views of who Sutton Montclair really was.
Her voice mail was blinking. A message from Ellen Jones. Holly hit Play.
“Officer Graham, I will be home in about an hour. Please feel free to stop by.”
Holly looked at the car’s clock. Good timing, Mrs. Jones.
AN UNEXPECTED SURPRISE
Then
“I have a secret,” Ethan said.
“Oh?” Sutton poured the wine into the large glasses she favored, the ones without stems, so the bowl sat directly on the table. He didn’t like them—the stem served a purpose, to keep fingers off the bowl, so the heat wouldn’t interfere with the wine’s opening process—but she thought they were fun and had consigned all the traditional Waterford stemware to the attic. At least she’d let him keep the lowballs.
“Out with it, then. What’s this big secret?”
He took a mouthful of the Brunello. He’d opened it especially; had decanted it for an hour. This taste was like heaven. Rich, spicy, bold. Be bold, Ethan. Be very bold.
“It’s ancient history, really. You’ll have a laugh when I tell you.”
She was making stir-fry, with chicken, and the wooden spoon hovered over the wok. He saw a shadow cross her eyes.
“If you’ve had an affair, I don’t want to hear about it. Truly, Ethan, I don’t. After the last time...it nearly broke me.”
“Sutton, no, it’s nothing like that. I swore to you I would never be unfaithful again, and I’ve been true to my word. Never mind. Forget it. I was being silly. I’ll set the table, and we can have dinner. It looks delicious.”
She set the wooden spoon in its pewter holder. Crossed her arms on her chest.
Shit. This wasn’t how he wanted her tonight, defenses up. He wanted them to have a nice, normal evening. Dinner, a lovely wine, maybe a little adult playtime before the baby had to nurse again.
He stepped to her, massaging the back of her neck. Nuzzled for a moment. She let him. She’d been so much more physical since the baby, the whole pregnancy, really. She liked being touched, and not only during sex. It was as if the old Sutton was back, the woman he knew in the beginning, ravenous for the touch of his skin on hers.
She smelled like milk and baby and honeysuckle, a weird combination that managed to be both off-putting and erotic at the same time.
“Taste the wine. Tell me what it reminds you of.”
She shut her eyes, sniffed, took a sip.
“The dinner at the vineyard in Montalcino. The wine tasted like liquid gold. When I told the owner he laughed at me.”
“He didn’t laugh at you, he was delighted, and wanted to change the name of the wine to Sutton’s. I’ve bought a case. That’s my secret. I thought you’d like it for special occasions.”
She opened her eyes. The warmth in them was hard to miss. They shone with pleasure, her beautiful eyes, luminous and wide, the gray blue of late-summer evenings, thickly rimmed in lashes women would pay money for.
“What a lovely surprise. This is a special occasion, I take it? The outing of your secret?”
Good, she was back to playful mode. He kissed her, lingering and slow, until he felt the muscles unclench in her back and she leaned into him, soft and wanting, an
d gave him a regretful look when he pulled away.
“There’s more, I’m afraid. I used the monthly deposit into Dashiell’s bank account to buy the wine. I hope you’re not angry.”
“That you’re drinking away your son’s future? That the poor child will have nothing left to live on when we pass, much less go to college? You’re forgiven.” She took another sip, comically smacked her lips. “Actually, I heartily approve of your fiscal irresponsibility.”
Goodness, she was in a good mood.
“I think you have another secret,” she said. “You can tell me. I swear I won’t be upset. I think it’s high time you told me anyway, don’t you? I mean, I already know.”
Could she possibly be serious? “About Dashiell?”
“You have a secret about Dashiell? Let me guess. You’re not his real father. No, that’s not it. I’m not his real mother.” Her eyes began to dance, and she stepped back, a wide smile on her face. “No, silly. I heard you typing. You’ve started a new book, haven’t you?” She snapped his leg with the dish towel. “That’s why you bought the fabulous wine. I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me. What’s it about? Please tell me.”
Ethan turned away, busied himself with the wine. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Lie. Lie, right the fuck now.
But Sutton had already caught on. So perceptive, his wife.
“You haven’t started a book.”
“No.”
“Then what did you mean earlier? You have a secret about Dashiell? Did you drop him or something?” She sighed, huge and gusty, the wine sweet on her breath. “I’ve told you a thousand times, you need to pick him up with both hands, not try to hoist him out of the crib like a football—”
“Darling, please. Stop. I didn’t drop the boy. He’s fine. Let it go, okay? Let’s just drink the wine and have dinner.”
But that wasn’t going to happen; he could see the anger simmering in her eyes. It all turned on a dime with them. It always did.
“Tell me what you’ve done to him.”
He didn’t answer. She gave dinner a stir.
“I’ll give you one more chance. Talk.”
Oh, he was so royally, completely screwed. But the weight of it was dragging him down. It was time to be out with it. She’d hate him, but she’d forgive him, eventually.
“It’s a funny thing, actually. When we’re old, you’ll look back on this moment and laugh and laugh.”
Silence.
He took a sip for courage. “Before you got pregnant, I switched your birth control pills out with sugar pills.”
More silence. Then she took a step toward him, her face aflame. “What? What did you just say?”
He held up his wineglass, smiling. “I knew you needed a little nudge toward getting pregnant. I knew you had doubts. I figured if it happened, great. And it did. Look what we made.” He gestured toward the baby. Dashiell was parked in his seat on the dining room table in his carrier, deeply asleep, a small mobile of butterflies hanging above him, barely disturbed by his breath. “He’s perfect!”
Sutton’s face went blank with shock.
“I wanted a child so badly, and I knew you did, as well. Deep down, you did. And it’s been so good for us. He’s been so good for us. Our marriage has never been stronger. You love him so much, and so do I. He’s made everything right between us.”
He was babbling now. She’d turned inward, wasn’t present anymore, not in this room, though her body was standing next to the stove, methodically stirring the contents of the wok.
He’d seen it happen when she was thinking hard about a book idea, assumed his face did the same thing when he came up with a line and turned it over and over in his brain. He stepped closer to force her mind back to him, to the present. To the truth.
“Darling, forgive me. I promised myself I’d never mention it, but clearly, that wasn’t the right thing to do. You have a right to know what I did. It was wrong. So wrong. But look at our son.”
The words were low, broken. “You bastard.”
“Please, please forgive me, Sutton. Because I want us to try again. I want to have another child.”
He tried to take her in his arms again, but she turned and fled, splashing him with vegetables and hot oil as she rushed away, into the garage. She slapped the button as she went out, and the door began to rise. The house door slammed, her car turned over. She peeled out of the garage and was gone before he’d made it to the door.
She didn’t come back for several hours. When she did, she was drunk.
And the next day, Dashiell was dead.
A VIDEO IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
Before she went to Jones’s place, Holly checked her email in the car, looking for the missing persons report Sergeant Moreno had promised. It was there, black and white: no signs of bank account use, Montclair’s passport and license unflagged at any port of call, email untouched, social media dark. Sutton Montclair had simply disappeared.
The lack of activity wasn’t good news. All they had to go on now were witness statements, which were already contradictory, and the internet, which was a cesspool of possibilities.
She glanced through the rest of her email, saw one from an address she didn’t recognize. It was halfway down the page. The subject line was KENTUCKY.
Thinking about the random call she’d received, she clicked it open. A video began to play.
Holly watched as a woman, who she immediately identified as Sutton Montclair, appeared on a small porch. She was wearing a trench coat and sunglasses, carrying a small brown bag. She placed the bag squarely on the mat, bent down. A few seconds later, a small fire began, tiny flames shooting up. She waited a second to make sure the bag was well aflame, flipped the bird toward the front door, then rang the doorbell and scurried out of the frame.
The video ended with someone from the house opening the door.
Holly sat back and shook her head. What the heck was this?
She played it back a few times, looking for a date stamp, any identifying information. The video looked like it had been shot from a home security camera. But who had sent it? The email address was a jumble of letters and numbers; how it had slipped past her spam filter was rather a miracle.
It didn’t take a genius to figure things out. She went back through her notes, looked for the name of the reviewer. Rosemary George. She found her information, address, and phone, and placed the call.
“Hello?”
“Is Ms. George available? My name is Holly Graham. I’m with the Franklin Police in Tennessee.”
“Is this about that awful woman who’s gone missing?”
“Sutton Montclair? Yes, ma’am.”
“I have no comment.”
And the phone went dead.
Holly rolled her eyes. She didn’t relish a drive to Kentucky to dig out this woman’s story. She called back. The phone rang off the hook.
She called a friend she had in the tech division. “Holly Golightly, what’s up?”
“Hey, Jim. If I forward you an email, can you take it apart for me? It was sent anonymously, but I want to know where it came from.”
“Sure. I can trace the IP address. Shouldn’t be a big deal. Send away.”
“On its way. How long will it take?”
“Hang tight, I can tell you in a second.” She heard typing and clicking. “It’s local, a Franklin IP. Huh. That’s weird.”
“What?”
“Well, I’ve been running all the stuff from the Montclair case, right? This IP address matches their router.”
“But the email, it’s all sorts of gibberish. Who owns the email account?”
“You ready for this?”
“Let me guess. Ethan Montclair.”
“Yep.”
“But why in the wor
ld would he send me an anonymous video of his wife on some woman’s doorstep?”
“No idea. But here’s one more weird thing. The password Montclair gave us wasn’t accurate.”
“No?”
“No. It was written on a Post-it on the laptop lid—I love Ethan Montclair.”
“How sweet.”
“Barf. Regardless, that’s not the right password. I had to mess around with it, but I was able to crack it. I hooked in my UFED, knocked it out in ten seconds flat.”
“’Cause you’re a regular crackerjack IT dude, Jim. What the hell is a UFED?”
“Universal Forensic Extraction Device. Mine’s called Sally. I can pull information from any encrypted device you give me. I don’t need a password or fingerprint to get into a phone when Sally gets her way.”
“Um, thank you, Sally?”
“Yes, thank you, Sally. Don’t you want to know what the right password was?”
“Enlighten me.”
“Ethan killed our baby.”
GOOD TIMING, OFFICER
Now
A car pulled up outside. Ethan glanced out the window, saw it was Officer Graham. He also saw the bevy of news vans and microphones part before the blue-and-white car.
“Bloody hell.”
Graham looked neither right nor left, ignoring the shouts and cries from the media. She came onto the porch and he sensed movement from the crowd, a surge toward the house, but she turned and said something, and the movement ceased. They stayed on alert, like hunting dogs on point, but the groundswell was sufficiently halted.
He made sure to turn his head away and stand behind the door when he opened it, just in case. Graham came inside briskly, and Ethan heard the clatter of cameras snapping.
“You’re suddenly a very popular man,” she said.
“Thanks to you.”
A sharp look. “Hey, I come in peace. And I didn’t call the media. They were already on your house when Sergeant Moreno and I left, after you reported your wife missing.”
Lie to Me Page 11
