“You got most of it right. I did take the money, but I had every intention of paying it back. I won’t go through the justification again. Corinne found out. I begged her not to say anything, that it would ruin my life. I was trying to buy time. But really, there was no way I could repay that money. Not yet. So yeah, I have a background in bookkeeping. I did it at my dad’s store for years. I started to change the books so the finger pointed more at her. Corinne didn’t know about it, of course. She actually listened to me and kept quiet. She didn’t even tell you, did she?”

“No,” Adam said. “She didn’t.”

“So I went to Bob and Cal and then, with great pretend regret, Len. I told all of them Corinne had stolen the lacrosse funds. Strangely enough, Bob was the one who didn’t really buy it. So I told him that when I confronted Corinne, she said it was him.”

“And then Bob went to his cousin.”

“I didn’t count on that.”

“Where is Corinne now?”

“You’re standing right where I buried her.”

Just like that.

Adam made himself look down. Vertigo took over. He didn’t bother to steady himself. The earth beneath his feet, he could see, had recently been disturbed. He collapsed to the side, leaning against a tree, his breath hitching in his chest.

“You okay, Adam?”

He swallowed and lifted the gun. Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together. . . .

“Start digging,” Adam said.

“What good is that going to do? I already told you she’s there.”

Still dizzy, Adam staggered toward him and put the gun right in his face. “Start digging now.”

Tripp shrugged and walked past him. Adam kept the gun on him, trying hard to not even blink. Tripp pierced the dirt with the shovel, scooped up the dirt, tossed it to the side.

“Tell me the rest of it,” Adam said.

“You know the rest of it, don’t you? After you confronted her about faking the pregnancy, Corinne was furious. She’d had enough. She was going to tell what I’d done. So I told her, okay, fair enough, I’ll come forward. I said, let’s just meet at lunchtime and go over it, so we’re on the same page. She was reluctant, but hey, I can be persuasive.”

The shovel dug into the earth again. Then again.

“Where did you meet?” Adam asked.

Tripp tossed the dirt to the side. “Your place. I went in through the garage. Corinne came out and met me. She didn’t want me in the actual house, you know? Like it was a place only for her family.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you think I did?”

Tripp looked down and smiled at the ground. Then he stepped back so Adam could see.

“I shot her.”

Adam looked past him and down to the ground. His heart crumbled into dust. There, lying in the dirt, was Corinne.

“Oh no. . . .”

His legs gave way. Adam dropped next to Corinne and started brushing the dirt off her face. “Oh no. . . .” Her eyes were closed, and she was still so damn beautiful. “No . . . Corinne . . . Oh God, please . . .”

He lost it then. He placed his cheek against her cold, lifeless one and sobbed.

A small dim part of him thought about Tripp, about him still holding the shovel and maybe attacking him. Adam looked up, gun ready.

But Tripp hadn’t moved.

He stood there with a small smile on his face.

“Are you ready to go now, Adam?”

“What?”

“Are you ready to go home?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s like I promised back at the office. You know the truth now. It’s over. We need to bury her again.”

Adam’s head started spinning again. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No, my friend, but perhaps you are.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry about killing her. I really am. But I saw no other way out. Seriously. Like I said, we kill for our own, right? Your wife was threatening my family. What would you have done?”

“I wouldn’t have stolen the money.”

“It’s done, Adam.” His voice was like a steel gate slamming shut. “Now we both need to move on.”

“You’re insane.”

“And you haven’t thought this through.” The smile came back to his lips. “The lacrosse books are a mess. No one will ever be able to untangle them. So what will the police know? You found out Corinne tricked you by faking a pregnancy. You two had a huge fight about it. The next day, she was shot in your garage. I cleaned up the blood a bit, but so what? The police will find traces of it. I used the cleaner under your sink. I threw out the bloody rags in your garbage can. Are you starting to see, Adam?”

He looked back down at Corinne’s beautiful face.

“I put her body in the trunk of her own car. The shovel in my hand—doesn’t it look familiar? It should. I took it from your garage.”

Adam just stared down at his beautiful wife.

“And if that’s not enough, the security cameras in my office corridor will show you forcing me into my car with a gun. If any of my fibers or DNA are found on the body now, well, you forced me to dig her up. You killed her, you buried her here, you parked her car near an airport, but you stayed away from an actual airport lot because everyone knows they have a ton of security cameras. Then you bought time by sending yourself a text about her running off. Then, to confuse matters more, you probably, oh I don’t know, tossed her cell phone in the back of a delivery truck at, say, a Best Buy store. If anyone searched for it, they’d think she was driving somewhere, at least as long as the battery lasted. That would cause more confusion.”

Adam just shook his head. “They’re never going to buy that.”

“Sure they will. And if not, let’s be honest. You’re the husband. It’s a lot more logical than claiming I killed her, don’t you think?”

Adam turned back to his wife. Her lips were purple. Corinne didn’t look peaceful in death. She looked lost and scared and alone. He stroked her face with his hand. In one way, Tripp Evans was right. It was over, no matter what happened now. Corinne was dead. His life partner had been taken away from him forever. His sons, Ryan and Thomas, would never be the same. His boys—no, her boys—would never know the comfort and love of their mother again.

“What’s done is done, Adam. It’s détente now. Don’t make something bad even worse.”

And then Adam saw one more thing that broke his heart all over again.

Her earlobes.

Her earlobes . . . they were empty. He flashed back to that Forty-Seventh Street jewelry store, the Chinese restaurant, the waiter delivering them on the plate, the smile on her face, the way Corinne carefully took them off and left them on the night table before going to bed.

Tripp hadn’t just killed her. He had stolen the diamond studs off her dead body.

“And one more thing,” Tripp said.

Adam looked up at him.

“If you ever go near my family or threaten them,” he said, “well, I’ve already shown you what I will do.”

“Yes, you have.”

And then Adam lifted the gun, aimed it at the center of Tripp’s chest, and squeezed the trigger three times.

Chapter 56

SIX MONTHS LATER

The lacrosse game took place in the optimistically dubbed SuperDome, an air-inflated sports facility made from some sort of pliable material. Thomas was playing in an indoor league for the winter season. Ryan had come along too. He half watched his brother, half played catch in the corner with a couple of other kids. Ryan also kept looking over at his father. He did that a lot now, looked for his father, as though Adam might suddenly vanish into thin air. Adam got it, of course. He tried to reassure him, but what could he really say?

He didn’t want to lie to the boys. But he wanted them to feel happy and safe.

Every parent has to deal with that balance. That hadn’t changed with Corinne’s death, but maybe you learn that happiness based on untruths is, at best, fleeting.