PART TWO

BOY MEETS GIRL

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

THE DAY OF

I’m so much happier now that I’m dead.

Technically, missing. Soon to be presumed dead. But as shorthand, we’ll say dead. It’s been only a matter of hours, but I feel better already: loose joints, wavy muscles. At one point this morning, I realized my face felt strange, different. I looked in the rearview mirror – dread Carthage forty-three miles behind me, my smug husband lounging around his sticky bar as mayhem dangled on a thin piano wire just above his shitty, oblivious head – and I realized I was smiling. Ha! That’s new.

My checklist for today – one of many checklists I’ve made over the past year – sits beside me in the passenger seat, a spot of blood right next to Item 22: Cut myself. But Amy is afraid of blood, the diary readers will say. (The diary, yes! We’ll get to my brilliant diary.) No, I’m not, not a bit, but for the past year I’ve been saying I am. I told Nick probably half a dozen times how afraid I am of blood, and when he said, ‘I don’t remember you being so afraid of blood,’ I replied, ‘I’ve told you, I’ve told you so many times!’ Nick has such a careless memory for other people’s problems, he just assumed it was true. Swooning at the plasma center, that was a nice touch. I really did that, I didn’t just write that I did. (Don’t fret, we’ll sort this out: the true and the not true and the might as well be true.)

Item 22: Cut myself has been on the list a long time. Now it’s real, and my arm hurts. A lot. It takes a very special discipline to slice oneself past the paper-cut layer, down to the muscle. You want a lot of blood, but not so much that you pass out, get discovered hours later in a kiddie pool of red with a lot of explaining to do. I held a box cutter to my wrist first, but looking at that crisscross of veins, I felt like a bomb technician in an action movie: Snip the wrong line and you die. I ended up cutting into the inside of my upper arm, gnawing on a rag so I wouldn’t scream. One long, deep good one. I sat cross-legged on my kitchen floor for ten minutes, letting the blood drizzle steadily until I’d made a nice thick puddle. Then I cleaned it up as poorly as Nick would have done after he bashed my head in. I want the house to tell a story of conflict between true and false. The living room looks staged, yet the blood has been cleaned up: It can’t be Amy!

So the self-mutilation was worth it. Still, hours later, the slice burns under my sleeves, under the tourniquet. (Item 30: Carefully dress wound, ensuring no blood has dripped where it shouldn’t be present. Wrap box cutter and tuck away in pocket for later disposal.)

Item 18: Stage the living room. Tip ottoman. Check.

Item 12: Wrap the First Clue in its box and tuck it just out of the way so the police will find it before dazed husband thinks to look for it. It has to be part of the police record. I want him to be forced to start the treasure hunt (his ego will make him finish it). Check.

Item 32: Change into generic clothes, tuck hair in hat, climb down the banks of the river, and scuttle along the edge, the water lapping inches below, until you reach the edge of the complex. Do this even though you know the Teverers, the only neighbors with a view of the river, will be at church. Do this because you never know. You always take the extra step that others don’t, that’s who you are.

Item 29: Say goodbye to Bleecker. Smell his little stinky cat breath one last time. Fill his kibble dish in case people forget to feed him once everything starts.

Item 33: Get the fuck out of Dodge.

Check, check, check.

I can tell you more about how I did everything, but I’d like you to know me first. Not Diary Amy, who is a work of fiction (and Nick said I wasn’t really a writer, and why did I ever listen to him?), but me, Actual Amy. What kind of woman would do such a thing? Let me tell you a story, a true story, so you can begin to understand.

To start: I should never have been born.

My mother had five miscarriages and two stillbirths before me. One a year, in the fall, as if it were a seasonal duty, like crop rotation. They were all girls; they were all named Hope. I’m sure it was my father’s suggestion – his optimistic impulse, his tie-dyed earnestness: We can’t give up hope, Marybeth. But give up Hope is exactly what they did, over and over again.

The doctors ordered my parents to stop trying; they refused. They are not quitters. They tried and tried, and finally came me. My mother didn’t count on my being alive, couldn’t bear to think of me as an actual baby, a living child, a girl who would get to come home. I would have been Hope 8, if things had gone badly. But I entered the world hollering – an electric, neon pink. My parents were so surprised, they realized they’d never discussed a name, not a real one, for a real child. For my first two days in the hospital, they didn’t name me. Each morning my mother would hear the door to her room open and feel the nurse lingering in the doorway (I always pictured her vintage, with swaying white skirts and one of those folded caps like a Chinese take-out box). The nurse would linger, and my mother would ask without even looking up, ‘Is she still alive?’

When I remained alive, they named me Amy, because it was a regular girl’s name, a popular girl’s name, a name a thousand other baby girls were given that year, so maybe the Gods wouldn’t notice this little baby nestled among the others. Marybeth said if she were to do it again, she’d name me Lydia.

I grew up feeling special, proud. I was the girl who battled oblivion and won. The chances were about 1 percent, but I did it. I ruined my mother’s womb in the process – my own prenatal Sherman’s March. Marybeth would never have another baby. As a child, I got a vibrant pleasure out of this: just me, just me, only me.

My mother would sip hot tea on the days of the Hopes’ birth-deaths, sit in a rocker with a blanket, and say she was just ‘taking a little time for myself.’ Nothing dramatic, my mother is too sensible to sing dirges, but she would get pensive, she would remove herself, and I would have none of it, needful thing that I was. I would clamber onto my mother’s lap, or thrust a crayoned drawing in her face, or remember a permission slip that needed prompt attention. My father would try to distract me, try to take me to a movie or bribe me with sweets. No matter the ruse, it didn’t work. I wouldn’t give my mother those few minutes.

I’ve always been better than the Hopes, I was the one who made it. But I’ve always been jealous too, always – seven dead dancing princesses. They get to be perfect without even trying, without even facing one moment of existence, while I am stuck here on earth, and every day I must try, and every day is a chance to be less than perfect.

It’s an exhausting way to live. I lived that way until I was thirty-one.

And then, for about two years, everything was okay. Because of Nick.

Nick loved me. A six-o kind of love: He looooooved me. But he didn’t love me, me. Nick loved a girl who doesn’t exist. I was pretending, the way I often did, pretending to have a personality. I can’t help it, it’s what I’ve always done: The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. What persona feels good, what’s coveted, what’s au courant? I think most people do this, they just don’t admit it, or else they settle on one persona because they’re too lazy or stupid to pull off a switch.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

I waited patiently – years – for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy.

But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed – she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you.

But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool Girl – I couldn’t have been Cool Girl with anyone else. I wouldn’t have wanted to. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy some of it: I ate a MoonPie, I walked barefoot, I stopped worrying. I watched dumb movies and ate chemically laced foods. I didn’t think past the first step of anything, that was the key. I drank a Coke and didn’t worry about how to recycle the can or about the acid puddling in my belly, acid so powerful it could strip clean a penny. We went to a dumb movie and I didn’t worry about the offensive sexism or the lack of minorities in meaningful roles. I didn’t even worry whether the movie made sense. I didn’t worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy.

Until Nick, I’d never really felt like a person, because I was always a product. Amazing Amy has to be brilliant, creative, kind, thoughtful, witty, and happy. We just want you to be happy. Rand and Marybeth said that all the time, but they never explained how. So many lessons and opportunities and advantages, and they never taught me how to be happy. I remember always being baffled by other children. I would be at a birthday party and watch the other kids giggling and making faces, and I would try to do that, too, but I wouldn’t understand why. I would sit there with the tight elastic thread of the birthday hat parting the pudge of my underchin, with the grainy frosting of the cake bluing my teeth, and I would try to figure out why it was fun.

With Nick, I understood finally. Because he was so much fun. It was like dating a sea otter. He was the first naturally happy person I met who was my equal. He was brilliant and gorgeous and funny and charming and charmed. People liked him. Women loved him. I thought we would be the most perfect union: the happiest couple around. Not that love is a competition. But I don’t understand the point of being together if you’re not the happiest.

I was probably happier for those few years – pretending to be someone else – than I ever have been before or after. I can’t decide what that means.

But then it had to stop, because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, Nick! I thought you knew. I thought it was a bit of a game. I thought we had a wink-wink, don’t ask, don’t tell thing going. I tried so hard to be easy. But it was unsustainable. It turned out he couldn’t sustain his side either: the witty banter, the clever games, the romance, and the wooing. It all started collapsing on itself. I hated Nick for being surprised when I became me. I hated him for not knowing it had to end, for truly believing he had married this creature, this figment of the imagination of a million masturbatory men, semen-fingered and self-satisfied. He truly seemed astonished when I asked him to listen to me. He couldn’t believe I didn’t love wax-stripping my pussy raw and blowing him on request. That I did mind when he didn’t show up for drinks with my friends. That ludicrous diary entry? I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. That was pure, dumb Cool Girl bullshit. What a cunt. Again, I don’t get it: If you let a man cancel plans or decline to do things for you, you lose. You don’t get what you want. It’s pretty clear. Sure, he may be happy, he may say you’re the coolest girl ever, but he’s saying it because he got his way. He’s calling you a Cool Girl to fool you! That’s what men do: They try to make it sound like you are the cool girl so you will bow to their wishes. Like a car salesman saying, How much do you want to pay for this beauty? when you didn’t agree to buy it yet. That awful phrase men use: ‘I mean, I know you wouldn’t mind if I …’ Yes, I do mind. Just say it. Don’t lose, you dumb little twat.

So it had to stop. Committing to Nick, feeling safe with Nick, being happy with Nick, made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was so much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy. Nick wanted Cool Amy anyway. Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you? So that’s how the hating first began. I’ve thought about this a lot, and that’s where it started, I think.

NICK DUNNE

SEVEN DAYS GONE

I made it a few steps into the woodshed before I had to lean against the wall and catch my breath.

I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it once I figured out the clue: woodshed. Midday fun. Cocktails. Because that description was not me and Amy. It was me and Andie. The woodshed was just one of many strange places where I’d had sex with Andie. We were restricted in our meeting spots. Her busy apartment complex was mostly a no go. Motels show up on credit cards, and my wife was neither trusting nor stupid. (Andie had a MasterCard, but the statement went to her mom. It hurts me to admit that.) So the woodshed, deep behind my sister’s house, was very safe when Go was at work. Likewise my father’s abandoned home (Maybe you feel guilty for bringing me here / I must admit it felt a bit queer / But it’s not like we had the choice of many a place / We made the decision: We made this our space), and a few times, my office at school (I picture myself as your student / With a teacher so handsome and wise / My mind opens up [not to mention my thighs!]), and once, Andie’s car, pulled down a dirt road in Hannibal after I’d taken her for a visit one day, a much more satisfying reenactment of my banal field trip with Amy (You took me here so I could hear you chat / About your boyhood adventures: crummy jeans and visor hat).

Each clue was hidden in a spot where I’d cheated on Amy. She’d used the treasure hunt to take me on a tour of all my infidelities. I had a shimmer of nausea as I pictured Amy trailing oblivious me in her car – to my dad’s, to Go’s, to goddamn Hannibal – watching me fuck this sweet young girl, my wife’s lips twisting in disgust and triumph.

Because she knew she’d punish me good. Now at our final stop, Amy was ready for me to know how clever she was. Because the woodshed was packed with about every gizmo and gadget that I swore to Boney and Gilpin I hadn’t bought with the credit cards I swore I didn’t know anything about. The insanely expensive golf clubs were here, the watches and game consoles, the designer clothes, they were all sitting here, in wait, on my sister’s property. Where it looked like I’d stored them until my wife was dead and I could have a little fun.

I knocked on Go’s front door, and when she answered, smoking a cigarette, I told her I had to show her something, and I turned around and led her without a word to the woodshed.

‘Look,’ I said, and ushered her toward the open door.

‘Are those—Is that all the stuff … from the credit cards?’ Go’s voice went high and wild. She put one hand to her mouth and took a step back from me, and I realized that just for a second, she thought I was making a confession to her.

We’d never be able to undo it, that moment. For that alone, I hated my wife.

‘Amy’s framing me, Go,’ I said. ‘Go, Amy bought this stuff. She’s framing me.’

She snapped to. Her eyelids clicked once, twice, and she gave a tiny shake of her head, as if to rid herself of the image: Nick as wife killer.

‘Amy’s framing me for her murder. Right? Her last clue, it led me right here, and no, I didn’t know about any of this stuff. It’s her grand statement. Presenting: Nick Goes to Jail! ’ A huge, burpy air bubble formed at the back of my throat – I was going to sob or laugh. I laughed. ‘I mean, right? Holy fuck, right?’

So hurry up, get going, please do / And this time I’ll teach you a thing or two. The final words of Amy’s first clue. How did I not see it?

‘If she’s framing you, why let you know?’ Go was still staring, transfixed by the contents of her shed.

‘Because she’s done it so perfectly. She always needed that validation, the praise, all the time. She wants me to know I’m being fucked. She can’t resist. It wouldn’t be fun for her otherwise.’

‘No,’ Go said, chewing on a nail. ‘There’s something else. Something more. Have you touched anything in here?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Then the question becomes …’

‘What does she think I’ll do when I find this, this incriminating evidence, on my sister’s property,’ I said. ‘That’s the question, because whatever she assumes I’ll do, whatever she wants me to do, I have to do the opposite. If she thinks I’ll freak out and try to get rid of all this stuff, I guarantee you she has a way I’ll get busted with it.’

‘Well, you can’t leave it here,’ Go said. ‘You’ll definitely get busted that way. Are you sure that was the last clue? Where’s your present?’

‘Oh. Shit. No. It must be inside somewhere.’

‘Don’t go in there,’ Go said.

‘I have to. God knows what else she’s got in store.’

I stepped carefully into the dank shed, keeping my hands tight by my sides, walking delicately on tiptoes so as not to leave tread marks. Just past a flat-screen TV, Amy’s blue envelope sat on top of a huge gift box, wrapped in her beautiful silvery paper. I took the envelope and the box back outside into the warm air. The object inside the package was heavy, a good thirty pounds, and broken into several pieces that slid with a strange rattle as I set the box on the ground at our feet. Go took an involuntary quick step away from it. I slid open the envelope.

Darling Husband,

Now is when I take the time to tell you that I know you better than you could ever imagine. I know sometimes you think you are moving through this world alone, unseen, unnoticed. But don’t believe that for a second. I have made a study of you. I know what you are going to do before you do it. I know where you’ve been, and I know where you’re going. For this anniversary, I’ve arranged a trip: Follow your beloved river, up up up! And you don’t even have to worry about trying to find your anniversary present. This time the present will come to you! So sit back and relax, because you are DONE.

‘What’s upriver?’ Go asked, and then I groaned.

‘She’s sending me up the river.’

‘Fuck her. Open the box.’

I knelt down and nudged off the lid with my fingertips, as if expecting an explosion. Silence. I peered inside. At the bottom of the box lay two wooden puppets, side by side. They seemed to be husband and wife. The male was dressed in motley and grinning rabidly, holding a cane or a stick. I pulled the husband figure out, his limbs bouncing around excitedly, a dancer limbering up. The wife was prettier, more delicate, and stiffer. Her face looked shocked, as if she’d seen something alarming. Beneath her was a tiny baby that could be attached to her by a ribbon. The puppets were ancient, heavy, and large, almost as big as ventriloquist dummies. I picked up the male, gripped the thick, clublike handle used to move him, and his arms and legs twitched manically.

‘Creepy,’ Go said. ‘Stop.’

Beneath them lay a piece of buttery blue paper folded over once. Amy’s broken-kite handwriting, all triangles and points. It read:

The beginning of a wonderful new story, Nick! ‘That’s the way to do it!’

Enjoy.

On our mom’s kitchen table, we spread all of Amy’s treasure-hunt clues and the box containing the puppets. We stared at the objects as if we were assembling a jigsaw puzzle.

‘Why bother with a treasure hunt if she was planning … her plan,’ Go said.

Her plan had become immediate shorthand for faking her disappearance and framing you for murder. It sounded less insane.

‘Keep me distracted, for one thing. Make me believe she still loved me. I’m chasing her little clues all over Christendom, believing my wife was wanting to make amends, wanting to jump-start our marriage …’

The moony, girlish state her notes had left me in, it sickened me. It embarrassed me. Marrow-deep embarrassment, the kind that becomes part of your DNA, that changes you. After all these years, Amy could still play me. She could write a few notes and get me back completely. I was her little puppet on a string.

I will find you, Amy. Lovesick words, hateful intentions.

‘So I don’t stop to think: Hey, it sure looks like I murdered my wife, I wonder why?’

‘And the police would have found it strange – you would have found it strange – if she didn’t do the treasure hunt, this tradition,’ Go reasoned. ‘It would look as if she knew she was going to disappear.’

‘This worries me though,’ I said, pointing at the puppets. ‘They’re unusual enough that they have to mean something. I mean, if she just wanted to keep me distracted for a while, the final gift could have been anything wooden.’

Go ran a finger across the male’s motley uniform. ‘They’re clearly very old. Vintage.’ She flipped their clothing upside down to reveal the club handle of the male. The female had only a square-shaped gap at her head. ‘Is this supposed to be sexual? The male has this giant wooden handle, like a dick. And the female is missing hers. She just has the hole.’

‘It’s a fairly obvious statement: Men have penises and women have vaginas?’

Go put a finger inside the female puppet’s gap, swept around to make sure there was nothing hidden. ‘So what is Amy saying?’

‘When I first saw them, I thought: She bought children’s toys. Mom, dad, baby. Because she was pregnant.’

‘Is she even pregnant?’

A sense of despair washed over me. Or rather, the opposite. Not a wave coming in, rolling over me, but the ebb of the sea returning: a sense of something pulling away, and me with it. I could no longer hope my wife was pregnant, but I couldn’t bring myself to hope she wasn’t either.

Go pulled out the male doll, scrunched her nose, then lightbulb popped. ‘You’re a puppet on a string.’

I laughed. ‘I literally thought those exact words too. But why a male and female? Amy clearly isn’t a puppet on a string, she’s the puppetmaster.’

‘And what’s: That’s the way to do it? To do what?’

‘Fuck me for life?’

‘It’s not a phrase Amy used to say? Or some quote from the Amy books, or …’ She hurried over to her computer and searched for That’s the way to do it. Up came lyrics for ‘That’s the Way to Do It’ by Madness. ‘Oh, I remember them,’ Go said. ‘Awesome ska band.’

‘Ska,’ I said, swerving toward delirious laughter. ‘Great.’

The lyrics were about a handyman who could do many types of home-improvement jobs – including electrical and plumbing – and who preferred to be paid in cash.

‘God, I fucking hate the eighties,’ I said. ‘No lyrics ever made sense.’

‘“The reflex is an only child,”’ Go said, nodding.

‘“He’s waiting by the park,”’ I muttered back automatically.

‘So if this is it, what does it mean?’ Go said, turning to me, studying my eyes. ‘It’s a song about a handyman. Someone who might have access to your house, to fix things. Or rig things. Who would be paid in cash so there’s no record.’

‘Someone who installed video cameras?’ I asked. ‘Amy went out of town a few times during the – the affair. Maybe she thought she’d catch us on tape.’

Go shot a question at me.

‘No, never, never at our house.’

‘Could it be some secret door?’ Go suggested. ‘Some secret false panel Amy put in where she’s hidden something that will … I don’t know, exonerate you?’

‘I think that’s it. Yes, Amy is using a Madness song to give me a clue to my own freedom, if only I can decipher their wily, ska-infused codes.’

Go laughed then too. ‘Jesus, maybe we’re the ones who are bat-shit crazy. I mean, are we? Is this totally insane?’

‘It’s not insane. She set me up. There is no other way to explain the warehouse of stuff in your backyard. And it’s very Amy to drag you into it, smudge you a little bit with my filth. No, this is Amy. The gift, the fucking giddy, sly note I’m supposed to understand. No, and it has to come back to the puppets. Try the quote with the word marionettes.’

I collapsed on the couch, my body a dull throb. Go played secretary. ‘Oh my God. Duh! They’re Punch and Judy dolls. Nick! We’re idiots. That line, that’s Punch’s trademark. That’s the way to do it!’

‘Okay. The old puppet show – it’s really violent, right?’ I asked.

‘This is so fucked up.’

‘Go, it’s violent, right?’

‘Yeah. Violent. God, she’s fucking crazy.’

‘He beats her, right?’

‘I’m reading … okay. Punch kills their baby.’ She looked up at me. ‘And then when Judy confronts him, he beats her. To death.’

My throat got wet with saliva.

‘And each time he does something awful and gets away with it, he says, “That’s the way to do it!”’ She grabbed Punch and placed him in her lap, her fingers grasping the wooden hands as if she were holding an infant. ‘He’s glib, even as he murders his wife and child.’

I looked at the puppets. ‘So she’s giving me the narrative of my frame-up.’

‘I can’t even wrap my brain around this. Fucking psycho.’

‘Go?’

‘Yeah, right: You didn’t want her to be pregnant, you got angry and killed her and the unborn baby.’

‘Feels anticlimactic somehow,’ I said.

‘The climax is when you are taught the lesson that Punch never learns, and you are caught and charged with murder.’

‘And Missouri has the death penalty,’ I said. ‘Fun game.’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

THE DAY OF

You know how I found out? I saw them. That’s how stupid my husband is. One snowy April night, I felt so lonely. I was drinking warm amaretto with Bleecker and reading, lying on the floor as the snow came down, listening to old scratchy albums, like Nick and I used to (that entry was true). I had a burst of romantic cheer: I’d surprise him at The Bar, and we’d have a few drinks and wander through the empty streets together, hand in mitten. We would walk around the hushed downtown and he would press me against a wall and kiss me in the snow that looked like sugar clouds. That’s right, I wanted him back so badly that I was willing to re-create that moment. I was willing to pretend to be someone else again. I remember thinking: We can still find a way to make this work. Faith! I followed him all the way to Missouri, because I still believed he’d love me again somehow, love me that intense, thick way he did, the way that made everything good. Faith!

I got there just in time to see him leaving with her. I was in the goddamn parking lot, twenty feet behind him, and he didn’t even register me, I was a ghost. He didn’t have his hands on her, not yet, but I knew. I could tell because he was so aware of her. I followed them, and suddenly, he pressed her up against a tree – in the middle of town – and kissed her. Nick is cheating, I thought dumbly, and before I could make myself say anything, they were going up to her apartment. I waited for an hour, sitting on the doorstep, then got too cold – blue fingernails, chattering teeth – and went home. He never even knew I knew.

I had a new persona, not of my choosing. I was Average Dumb Woman Married to Average Shitty Man. He had single-handedly de-amazed Amazing Amy.

I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I’ve always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.

I could hear the tale, how everyone would love telling it: how Amazing Amy, the girl who never did wrong, let herself be dragged, penniless, to the middle of the country, where her husband threw her over for a younger woman. How predictable, how perfectly average, how amusing. And her husband? He ended up happier than ever. No. I couldn’t allow that. No. Never. Never. He doesn’t get to do this to me and still fucking win. No.

I changed my name for that piece of shit. Historical records have been altered – Amy Elliott to Amy Dunne – like it’s nothing. No, he does not get to win.

So I began to think of a different story, a better story, that would destroy Nick for doing this to me. A story that would restore my perfection. It would make me the hero, flawless and adored.

Because everyone loves the Dead Girl.

It’s rather extreme, framing your husband for your murder. I want you to know I know that. All the tut-tutters out there will say: She should have just left, bundled up what remained of her dignity. Take the high road! Two wrongs don’t make a right! All those things that spineless women say, confusing their weakness with morality.

I won’t divorce him because that’s exactly what he’d like. And I won’t forgive him because I don’t feel like turning the other cheek. Can I make it any more clear? I won’t find that a satisfactory ending. The bad guy wins? Fuck him.

For over a year now, I’ve smelled her twat on his fingertips as he slipped into bed next to me. I’ve watched him ogle himself in the mirror, grooming himself like a horny baboon for their dates. I’ve listened to his lies, lies, lies – from simplistic child’s fibs to elaborate Rube Goldbergian contraptions. I’ve tasted butterscotch on his dry-kiss lips, a cloying flavor that was never there before. I’ve felt the stubble on his cheeks that he knows I don’t like but apparently she does. I’ve suffered betrayal with all five senses. For over a year.

So I may have gone a bit mad. I do know that framing your husband for your murder is beyond the pale of what an average woman might do.

But it’s so very necessary. Nick must be taught a lesson. He’s never been taught a lesson! He glides through life with that charming-Nicky grin, his beloved-child entitlement, his fibs and shirkings, his shortcomings and selfishness, and no one calls him on anything. I think this experience will make him a better person. Or at least a sorrier one. Fucker.

I’ve always thought I could commit the perfect murder. People who get caught get caught because they don’t have patience; they refuse to plan. I smile again as I shift my crappy getaway car into fifth gear (Carthage now seventy-eight miles in the dust) and brace myself for a speeding truck – the car seems ready to take flight every time a semi passes. But I do smile, because this car shows just how smart I am: purchased for twelve hundred dollars cash from a Craigslist posting. Five months ago, so the memory wouldn’t be fresh in anyone’s mind. A 1992 Ford Festiva, the tiniest, most forgettable car in the world. I met the sellers at night, in the parking lot of a WalMart in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I took the train down with a bundle of cash in my purse – eight hours each way, while Nick was on a boys’ trip. (And by boys’ trip, I mean fucking the slut.) I ate in the train’s dining car, a clump of lettuce with two cherry tomatoes that the menu described as a salad. I was seated with a melancholy farmer returning home after visiting his baby granddaughter for the first time.

The couple selling the Ford seemed as interested in discretion as I. The woman remained in the car the whole time, a pacifiered toddler in her arms, watching her husband and me trade cash for keys. (That is the correct grammar, you know: her husband and me.) Then she got out and I got in. That quick. In the rearview mirror, I saw the couple strolling into WalMart with their money. I’ve been parking it in long-term lots in St. Louis. I go down twice a month and park it somewhere new. Pay cash. Wear a baseball cap. Easy enough.

So that’s just an example. Of patience, planning, and ingenuity. I am pleased with myself; I have three hours more until I reach the thick of the Missouri Ozarks and my destination, a small archipelago of cabins in the woods that accepts cash for weekly rentals and has cable TV, a must. I plan to hole up there the first week or two; I don’t want to be on the road when the news hits, and it’s the last place Nick would think I’d hide once he realizes I’m hiding.

This stretch of highway is particularly ugly. Middle-America blight. After another twenty miles, I see, up on the off-ramp, the remains of a lonesome family gas station, vacant but not boarded up, and when I pull to the side, I see the women’s restroom door swung wide. I enter – no electricity, but there’s a warped metal mirror and the water is still on. In the afternoon sunlight and the sauna heat, I remove from my purse a pair of metal scissors and bunny-brown hair dye. I shear off large chunks of my hair. All the blond goes into a plastic bag. Air hits the back of my neck, and my head feels light, like a balloon – I roll it around a few times to enjoy. I apply the color, check my watch, and linger in the doorway, looking out over miles of flatland pocked with fast-food restaurants and motel chains. I can feel an Indian crying. (Nick would hate that joke. Derivative! And then he’d add, ‘although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative.’ I’ve got to get him out of my head – he still steps on my lines from a hundred miles away.) I wash my hair in the sink, the warm water making me sweat, and then back in the car with my bag of hair and trash. I put on a pair of outdated wire-rim glasses and look in the rearview mirror and smile again. Nick and I would never have married if I had looked like this when we met. All this could have been avoided if I were less pretty.

Item 34: Change look. Check.

I’m not sure, exactly, how to be Dead Amy. I’m trying to figure out what that means for me, what I become for the next few months. Anyone, I suppose, except people I’ve already been: Amazing Amy. Preppy ’80s Girl. Ultimate-Frisbee Granola and Blushing Ingenue and Witty Hepburnian Sophisticate. Brainy Ironic Girl and Boho Babe (the latest version of Frisbee Granola). Cool Girl and Loved Wife and Unloved Wife and Vengeful Scorned Wife. Diary Amy.

I hope you liked Diary Amy. She was meant to be likable. Meant for someone like you to like her. She’s easy to like. I’ve never understood why that’s considered a compliment – that just anyone could like you. No matter. I thought the entries turned out nicely, and it wasn’t simple. I had to maintain an affable if somewhat naive persona, a woman who loved her husband and could see some of his flaws (otherwise she’d be too much of a sap) but was sincerely devoted to him – all the while leading the reader (in this case, the cops, I am so eager for them to find it) toward the conclusion that Nick was indeed planning to kill me. So many clues to unpack, so many surprises ahead!

Nick always mocked my endless lists. (‘It’s like you make sure you’re never satisfied, that there’s always something else to be perfected, instead of just enjoying the moment.’) But who wins here? I win, because my list, the master list entitled Fuck Nick Dunne, was exacting – it was the most complete, fastidious list that has ever been created. On my list was Write Diary Entries for 2005 to 2012. Seven years of diary entries, not every day, but twice monthly, at least. Do you know how much discipline that takes? Would Cool Girl Amy be able to do that? To research each week’s current events, to cross-consult with my old daily planners to make sure I forgot nothing important, then to reconstruct how Diary Amy would react to each event? It was fun, mostly. I’d wait for Nick to leave for The Bar, or to go meet his mistress, the ever-texting, gum-chewing, vapid mistress with her acrylic nails and the sweatpants with logos across the butt (she isn’t like this, exactly, but she might as well be), and I’d pour some coffee or open a bottle of wine, pick one of my thirty-two different pens, and rewrite my life a little.

It is true that I sometimes hated Nick less while I was doing this. A giddy Cool Girl perspective will do that. Sometimes Nick would come home, stinking of beer or of the hand sanitizer he wiped on his body post-mistress-coitus (never entirely erased the stink, though – she must have one rank pussy), and smile guiltily at me, be all sweet and hangdog with me, and I’d almost think: I won’t go through with this. And then I’d picture him with her, in her stripper thong, letting him degrade her because she was pretending to be Cool Girl, she was pretending to love blow jobs and football and getting wasted. And I’d think, I am married to an imbecile. I’m married to a man who will always choose that, and when he gets bored with this dumb twat, he’ll just find another girl who is pretending to be that girl, and he’ll never have to do anything hard in his life.

Resolve stiffened.

One hundred and fifty-two entries total, and I don’t think I ever lose her voice. I wrote her very carefully, Diary Amy. She is designed to appeal to the cops, to appeal to the public should portions be released. They have to read this diary like it’s some sort of Gothic tragedy. A wonderful, good-hearted woman – whole life ahead of her, everything going for her, whatever else they say about women who die – chooses the wrong mate and pays the ultimate price. They have to like me. Her.

My parents are worried, of course, but how can I feel sorry for them, since they made me this way and then deserted me? They never, ever fully appreciated the fact that they were earning money from my existence, that I should have been getting royalties. Then, after they siphoned off my money, my ‘feminist’ parents let Nick bundle me off to Missouri like I was some piece of chattel, some mail-order bride, some property exchange. Gave me a fucking cuckoo clock to remember them by. Thanks for thirty-six years of service! They deserve to think I’m dead, because that’s practically the state they consigned me to: no money, no home, no friends. They deserve to suffer too. If you can’t take care of me while I’m alive, you have made me dead anyway. Just like Nick, who destroyed and rejected the real me a piece at a time – you’re too serious, Amy, you’re too uptight, Amy, you overthink things, you analyze too much, you’re no fun anymore, you make me feel useless, Amy, you make me feel bad, Amy. He took away chunks of me with blase´ swipes: my independence, my pride, my esteem. I gave, and he took and took. He Giving Treed me out of existence.

That whore, he picked that little whore over me. He killed my soul, which should be a crime. Actually, it is a crime. According to me, at least.

NICK DUNNE

SEVEN DAYS GONE

I had to phone Tanner, my brand-new lawyer, mere hours after I’d hired him, and say the words that would make him regret taking my money: I think my wife is framing me. I couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine it – the eye roll, the grimace, the weariness of a man who hears nothing but lies for a living.

‘Well,’ he finally said after a gaping pause, ‘I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning, and we will sort this out – everything on the table – and in the meantime, sit tight, okay? Go to sleep and sit tight.’

Go took his advice, she popped two sleeping pills and left me just before eleven, while I literally sat tight, in an angry ball on her couch. Every so often I’d go outside and glare at the woodshed, my hands on my hips, as if it were a predator I could scare off. I’m not sure what I thought I was accomplishing, but I couldn’t stop myself. I could stay seated for five minutes, tops, before I’d have to go back outside and stare.

I had just come back inside when a knock rattled the back door. Fucking Christ. Not quite midnight. Cops would come to the front – right? – and reporters had yet to stake out Go’s (this would change, a matter of days, hours). I was standing, unnerved, undecided, in the living room when the banging came again, louder, and I cursed under my breath, tried to get myself angry instead of scared. Deal with it, Dunne.

I flung open the door. It was Andie. It was goddamn Andie, pretty as a picture, dressed up for the occasion, still not getting it – that she was going to put my neck right in the noose.

‘Right in the noose, Andie.’ I yanked her inside, and she stared at my hand on her arm. ‘You are going to put my neck right in the fucking noose.’

‘I came to the back door,’ she said. When I stared her down, she didn’t apologize, she steeled herself. I could literally see her features harden. ‘I needed to see you, Nick. I told you. I told you I had to see you or talk to you every day, and today you disappeared. Straight to voice mail, straight to voice mail, straight to voice mail.’

‘If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I can’t talk, Andie. Jesus, I was in New York, getting a lawyer. He’ll be here first thing tomorrow.’

‘You got a lawyer. That was what kept you so busy that you couldn’t call me for ten seconds?’

I wanted to smack her. I took a breath. I had to cut things off with Andie. It wasn’t just Tanner’s warning I had in mind. My wife knew me: She knew I’d do almost anything to avoid dealing with confrontation. Amy was depending on me to be stupid, to let the relationship linger – and to ultimately be caught. I had to end it. But I had to do it perfectly. Make her believe that this was the decent thing.

‘He’s actually given me some important advice,’ I began. ‘Advice I can’t ignore.’

I’d been so sweet and doting just last night, at my mandatory meeting in our pretend fort. I’d made so many promises, trying to calm her down. She wouldn’t see this coming. She wouldn’t take this well.

‘Advice? Good. Is it to stop being such an asshole to me?’

I felt the rage rise up; that this was already turning into a high school fight. A thirty-four-year-old man in the middle of the worst night of my life, and I was having a meet me by the lockers! squabble with a pissed-off girl. I shook her once, hard, a tiny droplet of spit landing on her lower lip.

‘I—You don’t get it, Andie. This isn’t some joke, this is my life.’

‘I just … I need you,’ she said, looking down at her hands. ‘I know I keep saying that, but I do. I can’t do it, Nick. I can’t go on like this. I’m falling apart. I’m so scared all the time.’

She was scared. I pictured the police knocking, and here I was with a girl I’d been fucking the morning my wife went missing. I’d sought her out that day – I had never gone to her apartment since that first night, but I went right there that morning, because I’d spent hours with my heart pounding behind my ears, trying to get myself to say the words to Amy: I want a divorce. I am in love with someone else. We have to end. I can’t pretend to love you, I can’t do the anniversary thing – it would actually be more wrong than cheating on you in the first place. (I know: debatable.) But while I was gathering the guts, Amy had preempted me with her speech about still loving me (lying bitch!), and I lost my nerve. I felt like the ultimate cheat and coward, and – the catch-22 – I craved Andie to make me feel better.

But Andie was no longer the antidote to my nerves. Quite the opposite.

The girl was wrapping herself around me even now, oblivious as a weed.

‘Look, Andie,’ I said, a big exhale, not letting her sit down, keeping her near the door. ‘You are such a special person to me. You’ve handled all this so amazingly well—’ Make her want to keep you safe.

‘I mean …’ Her voice wavered. ‘I feel so sorry, for Amy. Which is insane. I know I don’t even have a right to feel sad for her, or worried. And on top of feeling sad, I feel so guilty.’ She leaned her head against my chest. I retreated, held her at arm’s length so she had to look at me.

‘Well, that’s one thing I think we can fix. I think we need to fix,’ I said, pulling up Tanner’s exact words.

‘We should go to the police,’ she said. ‘I’m your alibi for that morning, we’ll just tell them.’

‘You’re my alibi for about an hour that morning,’ I said. ‘No one saw or heard Amy after eleven p.m. the night before. The police can say I killed her before I saw you.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

I shrugged. I thought, for a second, about telling her about Amy – my wife is framing me – and quickly dismissed it. Andie couldn’t play the game on Amy’s level. She’d want to be my teammate, and she’d drag me down. Andie would be a liability going forward. I put my hands on her arms again, relaunched my speech.

‘Look, Andie, we are both under an amazing amount of stress and pressure, and a lot of it is brought on by our feelings of guilt. Andie, the thing is, we are good people. We were attracted to each other, I think, because we both have similar values. Of treating people right, of doing the right thing. And right now we know what we are doing is wrong.’

Her broken, hopeful expression changed – the wet eyes, the gentle touch, they disappeared: a weird flicker, a window shade pulled down, something darker in her face.

‘We need to end this, Andie. I think we both know that. It’s so hard, but it’s the decent thing to do. I think it’s the advice we’d give ourselves if we could think straight. As much as I love you, I am still married to Amy. I have to do the right thing.’

‘And if she’s found?’ She didn’t say dead or alive.

‘That’s something we can discuss then.’

‘Then! And until then, what?’

I shrugged helplessly: Until then, nothing.

‘What, Nick? I fuck off until then?’

‘That’s an ugly choice of words.’

‘But that’s what you mean.’ She smirked.

‘I’m sorry, Andie. I don’t think it’s right for me to be with you right now. It’s dangerous for you, it’s dangerous for me. It doesn’t sit well with my conscience. It’s just how I feel.’

‘Yeah? You know how I feel?’ Her eyes burst over, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘I feel like a dumb college girl that you started fucking because you were bored with your wife and I made it extremely convenient for you. You could go home to Amy and eat dinner with her and play around in your little bar that you bought with her money, and then you could meet me at your dying dad’s house and jack off on my tits because, poor you, your mean wife would never let you do that.’

‘Andie, you know that’s not—’

‘What a shit you are. What kind of man are you?’

‘Andie, please.’ Contain this, Nick. ‘I think because you haven’t been able to talk about this stuff, everything has gotten a little bigger in your mind, a little—’

‘Fuck you. You think I’m some dumb kid, some pathetic student you can manage? I stick by you through all this – this talk about how you might be a murderer – and as soon as it’s a little tough for you? No, no. You don’t get to talk about conscience and decency and guilt and feel like you are doing the right thing. Do you understand me? Because you are a cheating, cowardly, selfish shit.’

She turned away from me, sobbing, sucking in loud gulps of moist air, and breathing out mewls, and I tried to stop her, I grabbed her by the arm. ‘Andie, this isn’t how I want to—’

‘Hands off me! Hands off me!’

She moved toward the back door, and I could see what would happen, the hatred and embarrassment coming off her like heat, I knew she’d open a bottle of wine, or two, and then she’d tell a friend, or her mother, and it would spread like an infection.

I moved in front of her, barring her way to the door – Andie, please – and she reached up to slap me, and I grabbed her arm, just for defense. Our joined arms moved up and down and up and down like crazed dance partners.

‘Let me go, Nick, or I swear.’

‘Just stay for a minute. Just listen to me.’

‘You, let me go!’

She moved her face toward mine like she was going to kiss me. She bit me. I jerked back and she shot out the door.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

FIVE DAYS GONE

You may call me Ozark Amy. I am ensconced in the Hide-A-Way Cabins (has ever there been a more apt name?), and I sit quietly, watching all the levers and latches I put in place do their work.

I have shed myself of Nick, and yet I think about him more than ever. Last night at 10:04 p.m. my disposable cell phone rang. (That’s right, Nick, you’re not the only one who knows the old ‘secret cell phone’ trick.) It was the alarm company. I didn’t answer, of course, but now I know Nick has made it as far as his dad’s house. Clue 3. I changed the code two weeks before I disappeared and listed my secret cell as the first number to call. I can picture Nick, my clue in hand, entering his dad’s dusty, stale house, fumbling with the alarm code … then the time runs out. Beep beep beeeep! His cell is listed as the backup if I can’t be reached (and I obviously can’t).

So he tripped the alarm, and he talked to someone at the alarm company, and so he’s on record as being in his dad’s house after my disappearance. Which is good for the plan. It’s not foolproof, but it doesn’t have to be foolproof. I’ve already left enough for the police to make a case against Nick: the staged scene, the mopped-up blood, the credit-card bills. All these will be found by even the most incompetent police departments. Noelle will spill my pregnancy news very soon (if she hasn’t already). It is enough, especially once the police discover Able Andie (able to suck cock on command). So all these extras, they’re just bonus fuck-yous. Amusing booby traps. I love that I am a woman with booby traps.

Ellen Abbott is part of my plan too. The biggest cable crime-news show in the country. I adore Ellen Abbott, I love how protective and maternal she gets about all the missing women on her show, and how rabid-dog vicious she is once she seizes on a suspect, usually the husband. She is America’s voice of female righteousness. Which is why I’d really like her to take on my story. The Public must turn against Nick. It’s as much a part of his punishment as prison, for darling Nicky – who spends so much time worrying about people liking him – to know he is universally hated. And I need Ellen to keep me apprised of the investigation. Have the police found my diary yet? Do they know about Andie? Have they discovered the bumped-up life insurance? This is the hardest part: waiting for stupid people to figure things out.

I flip on the TV in my little room once an hour, eager to see if Ellen has picked up my story. She has to, I can’t see how she could resist. I am pretty, Nick is pretty, and I have the Amazing Amy hook. Just before noon, she flares up, promising a special report. I stay tuned, glaring at the TV: Hurry up, Ellen. Or: Hurry up, Ellen. We have that in common: We are both people and entities. Amy and Amy, Ellen and Ellen.

Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxipad commercial, Windex commercial. You’d think all women do is clean and bleed.

And finally! There I am! My debut!

I know from the second Ellen shows up, glowering like Elvis, that this is going to be good. A few gorgeous photos of me, a still shot of Nick with his insane love me! grin from the first press conference. News: There has been a fruitless multi-site search for ‘the beautiful young woman with everything going for her.’ News: Nick fucked himself already. Taking candid photos with a townie during a search for me. This is clearly what hooked Ellen, because she is pissed. There he is, Nick in his sweetie-pie mode, the I am the beloved of all women mode, his face pressed against the strange woman’s, as if they’re happy-hour buddies.

What an idiot. I love it.

Ellen Abbott is making much of the fact that our backyard leads right to the Mississippi River. I wonder then if it has been leaked – the search history on Nick’s computer, which I made sure includes a study on the locks and dams of the Mississippi, as well as a Google search of the words body float Mississippi River. Not to put too fine a point on it. It could happen – possibly, unlikely, but there is precedent – that the river might sweep my body all the way to the ocean. I’ve actually felt sad for myself, picturing my slim, naked, pale body, floating just beneath the current, a colony of snails attached to one bare leg, my hair trailing like seaweed until I reach the ocean and drift down down down to the bottom, my waterlogged flesh peeling off in soft streaks, me slowly disappearing into the current like a watercolor until just the bones are left.

But I’m a romantic. In real life, if Nick had killed me, I think he would have just rolled my body into a trash bag and driven me to one of the landfills in the sixty-mile radius. Just dispose of me. He’d have even taken a few items with him – the broken toaster that’s not worth fixing, a pile of old VHS tapes he’s been meaning to toss – to make the trip efficient.

I’m learning to live fairly efficiently myself. A girl has to budget when she’s dead. I had time to plan, to stockpile some cash: I gave myself a good twelve months between deciding to disappear and disappearing. That’s why most people get caught in murders: They don’t have the discipline to wait. I have $10,200 in cash. If I’d cleared out $10,200 in a month, that would have been noticed. But I collected cash forwards from credit cards I took out in Nick’s name – the cards that would make him look like a greedy little cheat – and I siphoned off another $4,400 from our bank accounts over the months: withdrawals of $200 or $300, nothing to attract attention. I stole from Nick, from his pockets, a $20 here, a $10 there, a slow deliberate stockpile – it’s like that budgeting plan where you put the money you’d spend on your morning Starbucks into a jar, and at the end of the year you have $1,500. And I’d always steal from the tip jar when I went to The Bar. I’m sure Nick blamed Go, and Go blamed Nick, and neither of them said anything because they felt too sorry for the other.

But I am careful with money, my point. I have enough to live on until I kill myself. I’m going to hide out long enough to watch Lance Nicholas Dunne become a worldwide pariah, to watch Nick be arrested, tried, marched off to prison, bewildered in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. To watch Nick squirm and sweat and swear he is innocent and still be stuck. Then I will travel south along the river, where I will meet up with my body, my pretend floating Other Amy body in the Gulf of Mexico. I will sign up for a booze cruise – something to get me out into the deep end but nothing requiring identification. I will drink a giant ice-wet shaker of gin, and I will swallow sleeping pills, and when no one is looking, I’ll drop silently over the side, my pockets full of Virginia Woolf rocks. It requires discipline, to drown oneself, but I have discipline in spades. My body may never be discovered, or it may resurface weeks, months, later – eroded to the point that my death can’t be time-stamped – and I will provide a last bit of evidence to make sure Nick is marched to the padded cross, the prison table where he’ll be pumped with poison and die.

I’d like to wait around and see him dead, but given the state of our justice system, that may take years, and I have neither the money nor the stamina. I’m ready to join the Hopes.

I did veer from my budget a bit already. I spent about $500 on items to nice-up my cabin – good sheets, a decent lamp, towels that don’t stand up by themselves from years of bleaching. But I try to accept what I’m offered. There’s a man a few cabins away, a taciturn fellow, a hippie dropout of the Grizzly Adams, homemade-granola variety – full beard and turquoise rings and a guitar he plays on his back deck some nights. His name, he says, is Jeff, just like my name, I say, is Lydia. We smile only in passing, but he brings me fish. A couple of times now, he brings a fish by, freshly stinking but scaled and headless, and presents it to me in a giant icy freezer bag. ‘Fresh fish!’ he says, knocking, and if I don’t open the door immediately, he disappears, leaving the bag on my front doorstep. I cook the fish in a decent skillet I bought at yet another Wal-Mart, and it’s not bad, and it’s free.

‘Where do you get all the fish?’ I ask him.

‘At the getting place,’ he says.

Dorothy, who works the front desk and has already taken a liking to me, brings tomatoes from her garden. I eat the tomatoes that smell like the earth and the fish that smells like the lake. I think that by next year, Nick will be locked away in a place that smells only of the inside. Fabricated odors: deodorant and old shoes and starchy foods, stale mattresses. His worst fear, his own personal panic dream: He finds himself in jail, realizing he did nothing wrong but unable to prove it. Nick’s nightmares have always been about being wronged, about being trapped, a victim of forces beyond his control.

He always gets up after these dreams, paces around the house, then puts on clothes and goes outside, wanders along the roads near our house, into a park – a Missouri park, a New York park – going wherever he wants. He is a man of the outdoors, if he is not exactly outdoorsy. He’s not a hiker, a camper, he doesn’t know how to make fires. He wouldn’t know how to catch fish and present them to me. But he likes the option, he likes the choice. He wants to know he can go outside, even if he chooses instead to sit on the couch and watch cage fighting for three hours.

I do wonder about the little slut. Andie. I thought she’d last exactly three days. Then she wouldn’t be able to resist sharing. I know she likes to share because I’m one of her friends on Facebook – my profile name is invented (Madeleine Elster, ha!), my photo is stolen from a popup ad for mortgages (blond, smiling, benefiting from historically low interest rates). Four months ago, Madeleine randomly asked to be Andie’s friend, and Andie, like a hapless puppy, accepted, so I know the little girl fairly well, along with all her minutiae-enthralled friends, who take many naps and love Greek yogurt and pinot grigio and enjoy sharing that with each other. Andie is a good girl, meaning she doesn’t post photos of herself ‘partying,’ and she never posts lascivious messages. Which is unfortunate. When she’s exposed as Nick’s girlfriend, I’d prefer the media find photos of her doing shots or kissing girls or flashing her thong; this would more easily cement her as the homewrecker she is.

Homewrecker. My home was disheveled but not yet wrecked when she first started kissing my husband, reaching inside his trousers, slipping into bed with him. Taking his cock in her mouth, all the way to the root so he feels extra big as she gags. Taking it in her ass, deep. Taking cum shots to the face and tits, then licking it off, yum. Taking, definitely taking. Her type would. They’ve been together for over a year. Every holiday. I went through his credit-card statements (the real ones) to see what he got her for Christmas, but he’s been shockingly careful. I wonder what it feels like to be a woman whose Christmas present must be bought in cash. Liberating. Being an undocumented girl means being the girl who doesn’t have to call the plumber or listen to gripes about work or remind and remind him to pick up some goddamn cat food.

I need her to break. I need 1) Noelle to tell someone about my pregnancy; 2) the police to find the diary; 3) Andie to tell someone about the affair. I suppose I had her stereotyped – that a girl who posts updates on her life five times a day for anyone to see would have no real understanding of what a secret is. She’s made occasional grazing mentions of my husband online:

Saw Mr Hunky today.

(Oh, do tell!)

(When do we get to meet this stud?)

(Bridget likes this!)

A kiss from a dreamy guy makes everything better.

(Too true!)

(When do we get to meet Dreamy?!)

(Bridget likes this!)

But she’s been surprisingly discreet for a girl of her generation. She’s a good girl (for a cunt). I can picture her, that heart-shaped face tilted to one side, the gently furrowed brow. I just want you to know I’m on your side, Nick. I’m here for you. Probably baked him cookies.

The Ellen Abbott cameras are now panning the Volunteer Center, which looks a little shabby. A correspondent is talking about how my disappearance has ‘rocked this tiny town,’ and behind her, I can see a table lined with homemade casseroles and cakes for poor Nicky. Even now the asshole has women taking care of him. Desperate women spotting an opening. A good-looking, vulnerable man – and fine, he may have killed his wife, but we don’t know that. Not for sure. For now it’s a relief just to have a man to cook for, the fortysomething equivalent of driving your bike past the cute boy’s house.

They are showing Nick’s grinning cell-phone photo again. I can picture the townie slut in her lonely, glistening kitchen – a trophy kitchen bought with alimony money – mixing and baking while having an imaginary conversation with Nick: No, I’m forty-three, actually. No, really, I am! No, I don’t have men swarming all over me, I really don’t, the men in town aren’t that interesting, most of them …

I get a burst of jealousy toward that woman with her cheek against my husband’s. She is prettier than me as I am now. I eat Hershey bars and float in the pool for hours under a hot sun, the chlorine turning my flesh rubbery as a seal’s. I’m tan, which I’ve never been before – at least not a dark, proud, deep tan. A tanned skin is a damaged skin, and no one likes a wrinkled girl; I spent my life slick with SPF. But I let myself darken a bit before I disappeared, and now, five days in, I’m on my way to brown. ‘Brown as a berry!’ old Dorothy, the manager says. ‘You are brown as a berry, girl!’ she says with delight when I come in to pay next week’s rent in cash.

I have dark skin, my mouse-colored helmet cut, the smart-girl glasses. I gained twelve pounds in the months before my disappearance – carefully hidden in roomy sundresses, not that my inattentive husband would notice – and already another two pounds since. I was careful to have no photos taken of me in the months before I disappeared, so the public will know only pale, thin Amy. I am definitely not that anymore. I can feel my bottom move sometimes, on its own, when I walk. A wiggle and a jiggle, wasn’t that some old saying? I never had either before. My body was a beautiful, perfect economy, every feature calibrated, everything in balance. I don’t miss it. I don’t miss men looking at me. It’s a relief to walk into a convenience store and walk right back out without some hangabout in sleeveless flannel leering as I leave, some muttered bit of misogyny slipping from him like a nacho-cheese burp. Now no one is rude to me, but no one is nice to me either. No one goes out of their way, not overly, not really, not the way they used to.

I am the opposite of Amy.

NICK DUNNE

EIGHT DAYS GONE

As the sun came up, I held an ice cube to my cheek. Hours later, and I could still feel the bite: two little staple-shaped creases. I couldn’t go after Andie – a worse risk than her wrath – so I finally phoned her. Voice mail.

Contain, this must be contained.

‘Andie, I am so sorry, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what’s going on. Please forgive me. Please.’

I shouldn’t have left a voice mail, but then I thought: She may have hundreds of my voice mails saved, for all I know. Good God, if she played a hit list of the raunchiest, nastiest, smittenist … any woman on any jury would send me away just for that. It’s one thing to know I’m a cheat and another to hear my heavy teacher voice telling a young co-ed about my giant, hard—

I blushed in the dawn light. The ice cube melted.

I sat on Go’s front steps, began phoning Andie every ten minutes, got nothing. I was sleepless, my nerves barbwired, when Boney pulled in to the driveway at 6:12 a.m. I said nothing as she walked toward me, bearing two Styrofoam cups.

‘Hey, Nick, I brought you some coffee. Just came over to check on you.’

‘I bet.’

‘I know you’re probably reeling. From the news about the pregnancy.’ She made an elaborate show of pouring two creamers into my coffee, the way I like it, and handed it to me. ‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing to my cheek.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Nick, what is wrong with your face? There’s a giant pink …’ She leaned in closer, grabbed my chin. ‘It’s like a bite mark.’

‘It must be hives. I get hives when I’m stressed.’

‘Mm-hmmm.’ She stirred her coffee. ‘You do know I’m on your side, right, Nick?’

‘Right.’

‘I am. Truly. I wish you’d trust me. I just – I’m getting to the point where I won’t be able to help you if you don’t trust me. I know that sounds like a cop line, but it’s the truth.’

We sat in a strange semi-companionable silence, sipping coffee.

‘Hey, so I wanted you to know before you hear it anywhere,’ she said brightly. ‘We found Amy’s purse.’

‘What?’

‘Yep, no cash left, but her ID, cell phone. In Hannibal, of all places. On the banks of the river, south of the steamboat landing. Our guess: Someone wanted to make it look like it’d been tossed in the river by the perp on the way out of town, heading over the bridge into Illinois.’

‘Make it look like?’

‘It had never been fully submerged. There are fingerprints still at the top, near the zipper. Now sometimes fingerprints can hold on even in water, but … I’ll spare you the science, I’ll just say, the theory is, this purse was kinda settled on the banks to make sure it was found.’

‘Sounds like you’re telling me this for a reason,’ I said.

‘The fingerprints we found were yours, Nick. Which isn’t that crazy – men get into their wives’ purses all the time. But still—’ She laughed as if she got a great idea. ‘I gotta ask: You haven’t been to Hannibal recently, have you?’

She said it with such casual confidence, I had a flash: a police tracker hidden somewhere in the undercarriage of my car, released to me the morning I went to Hannibal.

‘Why, exactly, would I go to Hannibal to get rid of my wife’s purse?’

‘Say you’d killed your wife and staged the crime scene in your home, trying to get us to think she was attacked by an outsider. But then you realized we were beginning to suspect you, so you wanted to plant something to get us to look outside again. That’s the theory. But at this point, some of my guys are so sure you did it, they’d find any theory that fit. So let me help you: You in Hannibal lately?’

I shook my head. ‘You need to talk to my lawyer. Tanner Bolt.’

‘Tanner Bolt? You sure that’s the way you want to go, Nick? I feel like we’ve been pretty fair with you so far, pretty open. Bolt, he’s a … he’s a last-ditch guy. He’s the guy guilty people call in.’

‘Huh. Well, I’m clearly your lead suspect, Rhonda. I have to look out for myself.’

‘Let’s all get together when he gets in, okay? Talk this through.’

‘Definitely – that’s our plan.’

‘A man with a plan,’ Boney said. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ She stood up, and as she walked away, she called back: ‘Witch hazel’s good for hives.’

An hour later, the doorbell rang, and Tanner Bolt stood there in a baby-blue suit, and something told me it was the look he wore when he went ‘down South.’ He was inspecting the neighborhood, eyeing the cars in the driveways, assessing the houses. He reminded me of the Elliotts, in a way – examining and analysing at all times. A brain with no off switch.

‘Show me,’ Tanner said before I could greet him. ‘Point me toward the shed – do not come with me, and do not go near it again. Then you’ll tell me everything.’

We settled down at the kitchen table – me, Tanner, and a just-woken Go, huddling over her first cup of coffee. I spread out all of Amy’s clues like some awful tarot-card reader.

Tanner leaned toward me, his neck muscles tense. ‘Okay, Nick, make your case,’ he said. ‘Your wife orchestrated this whole thing. Make the case!’ He jabbed his index finger on the table. ‘Because I’m not moving forward with my dick in one hand and a wild story about a frame-up in the other. Unless you convince me. Unless it works.’

I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. I was always better at writing than talking. ‘Before we start,’ I said, ‘you have to understand one very key thing about Amy: She is fucking brilliant. Her brain is so busy, it never works on just one level. She’s like this endless archaeological dig: You think you’ve reached the final layer, and then you bring down your pick one more time, and you break through to a whole new mine shaft beneath. With a maze of tunnels and bottomless pits.’

‘Fine,’ Tanner said. ‘So …’

‘The second thing you need to know about Amy is, she is righteous. She is one of those people who is never wrong, and she loves to teach lessons, dole out punishment.’

‘Right, fine, so …’

‘Let me tell you a story, one quick story. About three years ago, we were driving up to Massachusetts. It was awful, road-rage traffic, and this trucker flipped Amy off – she wouldn’t let him in – and then he zoomed up and cut her off. Nothing dangerous, but really scary for a second. You know those signs on the back of trucks: How Am I Driving? She had me call and give them the license plate. I thought that was the end of it. Two months later – two months later – I walked into our bedroom, and Amy was on the phone, repeating that license plate. She had a whole story: She was traveling with her two-year-old, and the driver had nearly run her off the road. She said it was her fourth call. She said she’d even researched the company’s routes so she could pick the correct highways for her fake near-accidents. She thought of everything. She was really proud. She was going to get that guy fired.’

‘Jesus, Nick,’ Go muttered.

‘That’s a very … enlightening story, Nick,’ Tanner said.

‘It’s just an example.’

‘So, now, help me put this all together,’ he said. ‘Amy finds out you’re cheating. She fakes her death. She makes the supposed crime scene look just fishy enough to raise eyebrows. She’s screwed you over with the credit cards and the life insurance and your little man-cave situation out back …’

‘She picks an argument with me the night before she goes missing, and she does it standing near an open window so our neighbor will hear.’

‘What was the argument?’

‘I am a selfish asshole. Basically, the same one we always have. What our neighbor doesn’t hear is Amy apologizing later – because Amy doesn’t want her to hear that. I mean, I remember being astonished, because it was the quickest makeup we’ve ever had. By the morning she was freakin’ making me crepes, for crying out loud.’

I saw her again at the stove, licking powdered sugar off her thumb, humming to herself, and I pictured me, walking over to her and shaking her until—

‘Okay, and the treasure hunt?’ Tanner said. ‘What’s the theory there?’

Each clue was unfolded on the table. Tanner picked up a few and let them drop.

‘Those are all just bonus fuck-yous,’ I said. ‘I know my wife, believe me. She knew she had to do a treasure hunt or it would look fishy. So she does it, and of course it has eighteen different meanings. Look at the first clue.’

I picture myself as your student,

With a teacher so handsome and wise

My mind opens up (not to mention my thighs!)

If I were your pupil, there’d be no need for flowers

Maybe just a naughty appointment during your office hours

So hurry up, get going, please do

And this time I’ll teach you a thing or two.

‘It’s pure Amy. I read this, I think: Hey, my wife is flirting with me. No. She’s actually referring to my … infidelity with Andie. Fuck-you number one. So I go there, to my office, with Gilpin, and what’s waiting for me? A pair of women’s underwear. Not even close to Amy’s size – the cops kept asking everyone what size Amy wore, I couldn’t figure out why.’

‘But Amy had no way of knowing Gilpin would be with you.’ Tanner frowned.

‘It’s a damn good bet,’ Go interrupted. ‘Clue One was part of the actual crime scene – so the cops would know about it – and she has the words office hours right in it. It’s logical they’d go there, with or without Nick.’

‘So whose panties are they?’ Tanner asked. Go squinched her nose at the word panties.

‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘I’d assumed they were Andie’s, but … Amy probably just bought them. The main point is they’re not Amy’s size. They lead anyone to believe something inappropriate happened in my office with someone who is not my wife. Fuck-you number two.’

‘And if the cops weren’t with you when you went to the office?’ Tanner asked. ‘Or no one noticed the panties?’

‘She doesn’t care, Tanner! This treasure hunt, it’s as much for her amusement as anything. She doesn’t need it. She’s overdone it all just to make sure there are a million damning little clues in circulation. Again, you’ve got to know my wife: She’s a belt-and-suspenders type.’

‘Okay. Clue Two,’ Tanner said.

Picture me: I’m crazy about you

My future is anything but hazy with you

You took me here so I could hear you chat

About your boyhood adventures: crummy jeans and visor hat

Screw everyone else, for us they’re all ditched

And let’s sneak a kiss … pretend we just got hitched.

‘This is Hannibal,’ I said. ‘Amy and I visited there once, so that’s how I read it, but it’s also another place where I had … relations with Andie.’

‘And you didn’t get a red flag?’ Tanner said.

‘No, not yet, I was too moony about the notes Amy had written me. God, the girl knows me cold. She knows exactly what I want to hear. You are brilliant. You are witty. And how fun for her to know that she could fuck with my head like that still. Long-distance, even. I mean, I was … Christ, I was practically falling in love with her again.’

My throat hitched for a moment. The goofy story about her friend Insley’s half-dressed, disgusting baby. Amy knew that was what I had loved most about us back when I loved us: not the big moments, not the Romantic with capital-R moments, but our secret inside jokes. And now she was using them all against me.

‘And guess what?’ I said. ‘They just found Amy’s purse in Hannibal. I’m sure as hell someone can place me there. Hell, I paid for my tour ticket with my credit card. So again, here is this piece of evidence, and Amy making sure I can be linked to it.’

‘What if no one found the purse?’ Tanner asked.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Go said. ‘She’s keeping Nick running in circles, she’s amusing herself. I’m sure she was happy just knowing what a guilt trip it must be for Nick to be reading all these sweet notes when he knows he’s a cheat and she’s gone missing.’

I tried not to wince at her disgusted tone: cheat.

‘What if Gilpin were still with Nick when he went to Hannibal?’ Tanner persisted. ‘What if Gilpin were with Nick the whole time, so he knew that Nick didn’t plant the purse then?’

‘Amy knows me well enough to know I’d ditch Gilpin. She knows I wouldn’t want a stranger watching me read this stuff, gauging my reactions.’

‘Really? How do you know that?’

‘I just do.’ I shrugged. I knew, I just knew.

‘Clue Three,’ I said, and pushed it into Tanner’s hand.

Maybe you feel guilty for bringing me here

I must admit it felt a bit queer

But it’s not like we had the choice of many a place

We made the decision: We made this our space.

Let’s take our love to this little brown house

Gimme some goodwill, you hot lovin’ spouse.

‘See, I misread this, thinking that bringing me here meant Carthage, but again, she’s referring to my father’s house, and—’

‘It’s yet another place where you fucked this Andie girl,’ Tanner said. He turned to my sister. ‘Pardon the vulgarity.’

Go gave a no-problem flick of her hand.

Tanner continued: ‘So, Nick. There are incriminating women’s panties in your office, where you fucked Andie, and there is Amy’s incriminating purse in Hannibal, where you fucked Andie, and there is an incriminating treasure trove of secret credit-card purchases in the woodshed, where you fucked Andie.’

‘Uh, yeah. Yes, that’s right.’

‘So what’s at your dad’s house?’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

SEVEN DAYS GONE

I’m pregnant! Thank you, Noelle Hawthorne, the world knows it now, you little idiot. In the day since she pulled her stunt at my vigil (I do wish she hadn’t upstaged my vigil, though – ugly girls can be such thunder stealers), the hatred against Nick has ballooned. I wonder if he can breathe with all that fury building around him.

I knew the key to big-time coverage, round-the-clock, frantic, bloodlust never-ending Ellen Abbott coverage, would be the pregnancy. Amazing Amy is tempting as is. Amazing Amy knocked up is irresistible. Americans like what is easy, and it’s easy to like pregnant women – they’re like ducklings or bunnies or dogs. Still, it baffles me that these self-righteous, self-enthralled waddlers get such special treatment. As if it’s so hard to spread your legs and let a man ejaculate between them.

You know what is hard? Faking a pregnancy.

Pay attention, because this is impressive. It started with my vacant-brained friend Noelle. The Midwest is full of these types of people: the nice-enoughs. Nice enough but with a soul made of plastic – easy to mold, easy to wipe down. The woman’s entire music collection is formed from Pottery Barn compilations. Her bookshelves are stocked with coffee-table crap: The Irish in America. Mizzou Football: A History in Pictures. We Remember 9/11. Something Dumb with Kittens. I knew I needed a pliant friend for my plan, someone I could load up with awful stories about Nick, someone who would become overly attached to me, someone who’d be easy to manipulate, who wouldn’t think too hard about anything I said because she felt privileged to hear it. Noelle was the obvious choice, and when she told me she was pregnant again – triplets weren’t enough, apparently – I realized I could be pregnant too.

A search online: how to drain your toilet for repair.

Noelle invited for lemonade. Lots of lemonade.

Noelle peeing in my drained, unflushable toilet, each of us so terribly embarrassed!

Me, a small glass jar, the pee in my toilet going into the glass jar.

Me, a well-laid history of needle/blood phobia.

Me, the glass jar of pee hidden in my purse, a doctor’s appointment (oh, I can’t do a blood test, I have a total phobia of needles … urine test, that’ll do fine, thank you).

Me, a pregnancy on my medical record.

Me, running to Noelle with the good news.

Perfect. Nick gets another motive, I get to be sweet missing pregnant lady, my parents suffer even more, Ellen Abbott can’t resist. Honestly, it was thrilling to be selected finally, officially for Ellen among all the hundreds of other cases. It’s sort of like a talent competition: You do the best you can, and then it’s out of your hands, it’s up to the judges.

And, oh, does she hate Nick and love me. I wished my parents weren’t getting such special treatment, though. I watch them on the news coverage, my mom thin and reedy, the cords in her neck like spindly tree branches, always flexed. I see my dad grown ruddy with fear, the eyes a little too wide, the smile squared. He’s a handsome man, usually, but he’s beginning to look like a caricature, a possessed clown doll. I know I should feel sorry for them, but I don’t. I’ve never been more to them than a symbol anyway, the walking ideal. Amazing Amy in the flesh. Don’t screw up, you are Amazing Amy. Our only one. There is an unfair responsibility that comes with being an only child – you grow up knowing you aren’t allowed to disappoint, you’re not even allowed to die. There isn’t a replacement toddling around; you’re it. It makes you desperate to be flawless, and it also makes you drunk with the power. In such ways are despots made.

This morning I stroll over to Dorothy’s office to get a soda. It’s a tiny wood-paneled room. The desk seems to have no purpose other than holding Dorothy’s collection of snow globes from places that seem unworthy of commemoration: Gulf Shores, Alabama, Hilo, Arkansas. When I see the snow globes, I don’t see paradise, I see overheated hillbillies with sunburns tugging along wailing, clumsy children, smacking them with one hand, with the other clutching giant non-biodegradable Styrofoam cups of warm corn-syrupy drinks.

Dorothy has one of those ’70s kitten-in-a-tree posters – Hang in There! She posts her poster with all sincerity. I like to picture her running into some self-impressed Williamsburg bitch, all Bettie Page bangs and pointy glasses, who owns the same poster ironically. I’d like to listen to them try to negotiate each other. Ironic people always dissolve when confronted with earnestness, it’s their kryptonite. Dorothy has another gem taped to the wall by the soda machine, showing a toddler asleep on the toilet – Too Tired to Tinkle. I’ve been thinking about stealing this one, a fingernail under the old yellow tape, while I distract-chat with Dorothy. I bet I could get some decent cash for it on eBay – I’d like to keep some cash coming in – but I can’t do it, because that would create an electronic trail, and I’ve read plenty about those from my myriad true-crime books. Electronic trails are bad: Don’t use a cell phone that’s registered to you, because the cell towers can ping your location. Don’t use your ATM or credit card. Use only public computers, well trafficked. Beware of the number of cameras that can be on any given street, especially near a bank or a busy intersection or bodegas. Not that there are any bodegas down here. There are no cameras either, in our cabin complex. I know – I asked Dorothy, pretending it was a safety issue.

‘Our clients aren’t exactly Big Brother types,’ she said. ‘Not that they’re criminals, but they don’t usually like to be on the radar.’

No, they don’t seem like they’d appreciate that. There’s my friend Jeff, who keeps his odd hours and returns with suspicious amounts of undocumented fish that he stores in massive ice chests. He is literally fishy. At the far cabin is a couple who are probably in their forties, but meth-weathered, so they look at least sixty. They stay inside most of the time, aside from occasional wild-eyed treks to the laundry room – darting across the gravel parking lot with their clothes in trash bags, some sort of tweaky spring cleaning. Hellohello, they say, always twice with two head nods, then continue on their way. The man sometimes has a boa constrictor wrapped around his neck, though the snake is never acknowledged, by me or him. In addition to these regulars, a goodly amount of single women straggle through, usually with bruises. Some seem embarrassed, others horribly sad.

One moved in yesterday, a blond girl, very young, with brown eyes and a split lip. She sat on her front porch – the cabin next to mine – smoking a cigarette, and when we caught each other’s eye, she sat up straight, proud, her chin jutted out. No apology in her. I thought: I need to be like her. I will make a study of her: She is who I can be for a bit – the abused tough girl hiding out until the storm passes over.

After a few hours of morning TV – scanning for any news on the Amy Elliott Dunne case – I slip into my clammy bikini. I’ll go to the pool. Float a bit, take a vacation from my harpy brain. The pregnancy news was gratifying, but there is still so much I don’t know. I planned so hard, but there are things beyond my control, spoiling my vision of how this should go. Andie hasn’t done her part. The diary may need some help being found. The police haven’t made a move to arrest Nick. I don’t know what all they’ve discovered, and I don’t like it. I’m tempted to make a call, a tip-line call, to nudge them in the right direction. I’ll wait a few more days. I have a calendar on my wall, and I mark three days from now with the words CALL TODAY. So I know that’s how long I’ve agreed to wait. Once they find the diary, things will move quickly.

Outside, it’s jungle-hot once again, the cicadas closing in. My inflatable raft is pink with mermaids on it and too small for me – my calves dangle in the water – but it keeps me floating aimlessly for a good hour, which is something I’ve learned ‘I’ like to do.

I can see a blond head bobbing across the parking lot, and then the girl with the split lip comes through the chain-link gate with one of the bath towels from the cabins, no bigger than a tea towel, and a pack of Merits and a book and SPF 120. Lung cancer but not skin. She settles herself and applies the lotion carefully, which is different from the other beat-up women who come here – they slather themselves in baby oil, leave greasy shadows on the lawn chairs.

The girl nods to me, the nod men give each other when they sit down at a bar. She is reading The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. A sci-fi girl. Abused women like escapism, of course.

‘Good book,’ I toss over to her, a harmless conversational beach ball.

‘Someone left it in my cabin. It was this or Black Beauty.’ She puts on fat, cheap sunglasses.

‘Not bad either. Black Stallion’s better, though.’

She looks up at me with sunglasses still on. Two black bee-eyed discs. ‘Hunh.’

She turns back to her book, the pointed I am now reading gesture usually seen on crowded airplanes. And I am the annoying busybody next to her who hogs the armrest and says things like ‘Business or pleasure?’

‘I’m Nancy,’ I say. A new name – not Lydia – which isn’t smart in these cramped quarters, but it comes out. My brain sometimes goes too fast for my own good. I was thinking of the girl’s split lip, her sad, pre-owned vibe, and then I was thinking of abuse and prostitution, and then I was thinking of Oliver!, my favorite musical as a child, and the doomed hooker Nancy, who loved her violent man right until he killed her, and then I was wondering why my feminist mother and I ever watched Oliver!, considering ‘As Long as He Needs Me’ is basically a lilting paean to domestic violence, and then I was thinking that Diary Amy was also killed by her man, she was actually a lot like—

‘I’m Nancy,’ I say.

‘Greta.’

Sounds made up.

‘Nice to meet you, Greta.’

I float away. Behind me I hear the shwick of Greta’s lighter, and then smoke wafts overhead like spindrifts.

Forty minutes later, Greta sits down on the edge of the pool, dangles her legs in the water. ‘It’s hot,’ she says. ‘The water.’ She has a husky, hardy voice, cigarettes and prairie dirt.

‘Like bathwater.’

‘It’s not very refreshing.’

‘The lake’s not much cooler.’

‘I can’t swim anyway,’ she says.

I’ve never met anyone who can’t swim. ‘I can just barely,’ I lie. ‘Dog paddle.’

She ruffles her legs, the waves gently rocking my raft. ‘So what’s it like here?’ she asks.

‘Nice. Quiet.’

‘Good, that’s what I need.’

I turn to look at her. She has two gold necklaces, a perfectly round bruise the size of a plum near her left breast, and a shamrock tattoo just above her bikini line. Her swimsuit is brand-new, cherry-red, cheap. From the marina convenience store where I bought my raft.

‘You on your own?’ I ask.

‘Very.’

I am unsure what to ask next. Is there some sort of code that abused women use with each other, a language I don’t know?

‘Guy trouble?’

She twitches an eyebrow at me that seems to be a yes.

‘Me too,’

I say. ‘It’s not like we weren’t warned,’ she says. She cups her hand into the water, lets it dribble down her front. ‘My mom, one of the first things she ever told me, going to school the first day: Stay away from boys. They’ll either throw rocks or look up your skirt.’

‘You should make a T-shirt that says that.’

She laughs. ‘It’s true, though. It’s always true. My mom lives in a lesbian village down in Texas. I keep thinking I should join her. Everyone seems happy there.’

‘A lesbian village?’

‘Like a, a whaddayacallit. A commune. Bunch of lesbians bought land, started their own society, sort of. No men allowed. Sounds just freakin’ great to me, world without men.’ She cups another handful of water, pulls up her sunglasses, and wets her face. ‘Too bad I don’t like pussy.’

She laughs, an old woman’s angry-bark laugh. ‘So, are there any asshole guys here I can start dating?’ she says. ‘That’s my, like, pattern. Run away from one, bump into the next.’

‘It’s half empty most of the time. There’s Jeff, the guy with the beard, he’s actually really nice,’ I say. ‘He’s been here longer than me.’

‘How long are you staying?’ she asks.

I pause. It’s odd, I don’t know the exact amount of time I will be here. I had planned on staying until Nick was arrested, but I have no idea if he will be arrested soon.

‘Till he stops looking for you, huh?’ Greta guesses.

‘Something like that.’

She examines me closely, frowns. My stomach tightens. I wait for her to say it: You look familiar.

‘Never go back to a man with fresh bruises. Don’t give him the satisfaction,’ Greta intones. She stands up, gathers her things. Dries her legs on the tiny towel.

‘Good day killed,’ she says.

For some reason, I give a thumbs-up, which I’ve never done in my life.

‘Come to my cabin when you get out, if you want to,’ she says. ‘We can watch TV.’

I bring a fresh tomato from Dorothy, held in my palm like a shiny housewarming gift. Greta comes to the door and barely acknowledges me, as if I’ve been dropping over for years. She plucks the tomato from my hand.

‘Perfect, I was just making sandwiches,’ she says. ‘Grab a seat.’ She points toward the bed – we have no sitting rooms here – and moves into her kitchenette, which has the same plastic cutting board, the same dull knife, as mine. She slices the tomato. A plastic disc of lunch meat sits on the counter, the stomachy-sweet smell filling the room. She sets two slippery sandwiches on paper plates, along with handfuls of goldfish crackers, and marches them into the bedroom area, her hand already on the remote, flipping from noise to noise. We sit on the edge of the bed, side by side, watching the TV.

‘Stop me if you see something,’ Greta says.

I take a bite of my sandwich. My tomato slips out the side and onto my thigh.

The Beverly Hillbillies, Suddenly Susan, Armageddon.

Ellen Abbott Live. A photo of me fills the screen. I am the lead story. Again. I look great.

‘You seen this?’ Greta asked, not looking at me, talking as if my disappearance were a rerun of a decent TV show. ‘This woman vanishes on her five-year wedding anniversary. Husband acts real weird from the start, all smiley and shit. Turns out he bumped up her life insurance, and they just found out the wife was pregnant. And the guy didn’t want it.’

The screen cuts to another photo of me juxtaposed with Amazing Amy.

Greta turns to me. ‘You remember those books?’

‘Of course!’

‘You like those books?’

‘Everyone likes those books, they’re so cute,’ I say.

Greta snorts. ‘They’re so fake.’

Close-up of me.

I wait for her to say how beautiful I am.

‘She’s not bad, huh, for, like, her age,’ she says. ‘I hope I look that good when I’m forty.’

Ellen is filling the audience in on my story; my photo lingers on the screen.

‘Sounds to me like she was a spoiled rich girl,’ Greta says. ‘High-maintenance. Bitchy.’

That is simply unfair. I’d left no evidence for anyone to conclude that. Since I’d moved to Missouri – well, since I’d come up with my plan – I’d been careful to be low-maintenance, easygoing, cheerful, all those things people want women to be. I waved to neighbors, I ran errands for Mo’s friends, I once brought cola to the ever-soiled Stucks Buckley. I visited Nick’s dad so that all the nurses could testify to how nice I was, so I could whisper over and over into Bill Dunne’s spiderweb brain: I love you, come live with us, I love you, come live with us. Just to see if it would catch. Nick’s dad is what the people of Comfort Hill call a roamer – he is always wandering off. I love the idea of Bill Dunne, the living totem of everything Nick fears he could become, the object of Nick’s most profound despair, showing up over and over and over on our doorstep.

‘How does she seem bitchy?’ I ask.

She shrugs. The TV goes to a commercial for air freshener. A woman is spraying air freshener so her family will be happy. Then to a commercial for very thin panty liners so a woman can wear a dress and dance and meet the man she will later spray air freshener for.

Clean and bleed. Bleed and clean.

‘You can just tell,’ Greta says. ‘She just sounds like a rich, bored bitch. Like those rich bitches who use their husbands’ money to start, like, cupcake companies and card shops and shit. Boutiques.’

In New York, I had friends with all those kinds of businesses – they liked to be able to say they worked, even though they only did the little stuff that was fun: Name the cupcake, order the stationery, wear the adorable dress that was from their very own store.

‘She’s definitely one of those,’ Greta said. ‘Rich bitch putting on airs.’

Greta leaves to go to the bathroom, and I tiptoe into her kitchen, go into her fridge, and spit in her milk, her orange juice, and a container of potato salad, then tiptoe back to the bed.

Flush. Greta returns. ‘I mean, all that doesn’t mean it’s okay that he killed her. She’s just another woman, made a very bad choice in her man.’

She is looking right at me, and I wait for her to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute …’

But she turns back to the TV, rearranges herself so she is lying on her stomach like a child, her chin in her hands, her face directed at my image on the screen.

‘Oh, shit, here it goes,’ Greta says. ‘People are hatin’ on this guy.’

The show gets underway, and I feel a bit better. It is the apotheosis of Amy.

Campbell MacIntosh, childhood friend: ‘Amy is just a nurturing, motherly type of woman. She loved being a wife. And I know she would have been a great mother. But Nick – you just knew Nick was wrong somehow. Cold and aloof and really calculating – you got the feeling that he was definitely aware of how much money Amy had.’

(Campbell is lying: She got all googly around Nick, she absolutely adored him. But I’m sure she liked the idea that he only married me for my money.)

Shawna Kelly North, Carthage resident: ‘I found it really, really strange how totally unconcerned he was at the search for his wife. He was just, you know, chatting, passing the time. Flirting around with me, who he didn’t know from Adam. I’d try to turn the conversation to Amy, and he would just – just no interest.’

(I’m sure this desperate old slut absolutely did not try to turn the conversation toward me.)

Steven ‘Stucks’ Buckley, longtime friend of Nick Dunne: ‘She was a sweetheart. Sweet. Heart. And Nick? He just didn’t seem that worried about Amy being gone. The guy was always like that: self-centered. Stuck up a little. Like he’d made it all big in New York and we should all bow down.’

(I despise Stucks Buckley, and what the fuck kind of name is that?)

Noelle Hawthorne, looking like she just got new highlights: ‘I think he killed her. No one will say it, but I will. He abused her, and he bullied her, and he finally killed her.’

(Good dog.)

Greta glances sideways at me, her cheeks smushed up under her hands, her face flickering in the TV glow.

‘I hope that’s not true,’ she says. ‘That he killed her. It’d be nice to think that maybe she just got away, just ran away from him, and she’s hiding out all safe and sound.’

She kicks her legs back and forth like a lazy swimmer. I can’t tell if she’s fucking with me.

NICK DUNNE

EIGHT DAYS GONE

We searched every cranny of my father’s house, which didn’t take long, since it’s so pathetically empty. The cabinets, the closets. I yanked at the corners of rugs to see if they came up. I peeked into his washer and dryer, stuck a hand up his chimney. I even looked behind the toilet tanks.

‘Very Godfather of you,’ Go said.

‘If it were very Godfather, I’d have found what we were looking for and come out shooting.’

Tanner stood in the center of my dad’s living room and tugged at the end of his lime tie. Go and I were smeared with dust and grime, but somehow Tanner’s white button-down positively glowed, as if it retained some of the strobe-light glamour of New York. He was staring at the corner of a cabinet, chewing on his lip, tugging at the tie, thinking. The man had probably spent years perfecting this look: the Shut up, client, I’m thinking look.

‘I don’t like this,’ he finally said. ‘We have a lot of uncontained issues here, and I won’t go to the cops until we’re very, very contained. My first instinct is to get ahead of the situation – report that stuff in the shed before we get busted with it. But if we don’t know what Amy wants us to find here, and we don’t know Andie’s mind-set … Nick, do you have a guess about what Andie’s mind-set is?’

I shrugged. ‘Pissed.’

‘I mean, that makes me very, very nervous. We’re in a very prickly situation, basically. We need to tell the cops about the woodshed. We have to be on the front end of that discovery. But I want to lay out for you what will happen when we do. And what will happen is: They will go after Go. It’ll be one of two options. One: Go is your accomplice, she was helping you hide this stuff on her property, and in all likelihood, she knows you killed Amy.’

‘Come on, you can’t be serious,’ I said.

‘Nick, we’d be lucky with that version,’ Tanner said. ‘They can interpret this however they want. How about this one: It was Go who stole your identity, who got those credit cards. She bought all that crap in there. Amy found out, there was a confrontation, Go killed Amy.’

‘Then we get way, way ahead of all this,’ I said. ‘We tell them about the woodshed, and we tell them Amy is framing me.’

‘I think that is a bad idea in general, and right now it’s a really bad idea if we don’t have Andie on our side, because we’d have to tell them about Andie.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if we go to the cops with your story, that Amy framed you—’

‘Why do you keep saying my story, like it’s something I made up?’

‘Ha. Good point. If we explain to the cops how Amy is framing you, we have to explain why she is framing you. Why: because she found out you have a very pretty, very young girlfriend on the side.’

‘Do we really have to tell them that?’ I asked.

‘Amy framed you for her murder because … she was … what, bored?’

I swallowed my lips.

‘We have to give them Amy’s motive, it doesn’t work otherwise. But the problem is, if we set Andie, gift-wrapped, on their doorstep, and they don’t buy the frame-up theory, then we’ve given them your motive for murder. Money problems, check. Pregnant wife, check. Girlfriend, check. It’s a murderer’s triumvirate. You’ll go down. Women will line up to tear you apart with their fingernails.’ He began pacing. ‘But if we don’t do anything, and Andie goes to them on her own …’

‘So what do we do?’ I asked.

‘I think the cops will laugh us out of the station if we say right now that Amy framed you. It’s too flimsy. I believe you, but it’s flimsy.’

‘But the treasure hunt clues—’ I started.

‘Nick, even I don’t understand those clues,’ Go said. ‘They’re all inside baseball between you and Amy. There’s only your word that they’re leading you into … incriminating situations. I mean, seriously: crummy jeans and visor equals Hannibal?’

‘Little brown house equals your dad’s house, which is blue,’ Tanner added.

I could feel Tanner’s doubt. I needed to really show him Amy’s character. Her lies, her vindictiveness, her score-settling. I needed other people to back me up – that my wife wasn’t Amazing Amy but Avenging Amy.

‘Lets see if we can reach out to Andie today,’ Tanner finally said.

‘Isn’t it a risk to wait?’ Go asked.

Tanner nodded. ‘It’s a risk. We have to move fast. If another bit of evidence pops up, if the police get a search warrant for the woodshed, if Andie goes to the cops—’

‘She won’t,’ I said.

‘She bit you, Nick.’

‘She won’t. She’s pissed off right now, but she’s … I can’t believe she’d do that to me. She knows I’m innocent.’

‘Nick, you said you were with Andie for about an hour the morning Amy disappeared, yes?’

‘Yes. From about ten-thirty to right before twelve.’

‘So where were you between seven-thirty and ten?’ Tanner asked. ‘You said you left the house at seven-thirty, right? Where did you go?’

I chewed on my cheek.

‘Where did you go, Nick – I need to know.’

‘It’s not relevant.’

‘Nick!’ Go snapped.

‘I just did what I do some mornings. I pretended to leave, then I drove to the most deserted part of our complex, and I … one of the houses there has an unlocked garage.’

‘And?’ Tanner said.

‘And I read magazines.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I read back issues of my old magazine.’

I still missed my magazine – I hid copies like porn and read them in secret, because I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.

I looked up, and both Tanner and Go felt very, very sorry for me.

I drove back to my house just after noon, was greeted by a street full of news vans, reporters camped out on my lawn. I couldn’t get into my driveway, was forced to park in front of the house. I took a breath, then flung myself out of the car. They set on me like starving birds, pecking and fluttering, breaking formation and gathering again. Nick, did you know Amy was pregnant? Nick, what is your alibi? Nick, did you kill Amy?

I made it inside, locked myself in. On each side of the door were windows, so I braved it and quickly pulled down the shades, all the while cameras clicking at me, questions called. Nick, did you kill Amy? Once the shades were pulled, it was like covering a canary for the night: The noise out front stopped.

I went upstairs and satisfied my shower craving. I closed my eyes and let the spray dissolve the dirt from my dad’s house. When I opened them back up, the first thing I saw was Amy’s pink razor on the soap dish. It felt ominous, malevolent. My wife was crazy. I was married to a crazy woman. It’s every asshole’s mantra: I married a psycho bitch. But I got a small, nasty bite of gratification: I really did marry a genuine, bona fide psycho bitch. Nick, meet your wife: the world’s foremost mindfucker. I was not as big an asshole as I’d thought. An asshole, yes, but not on a grandiose scale. The cheating, that had been preemptive, a subconscious reaction to five years yoked to a madwoman: Of course I’d find myself attracted to an uncomplicated, good-natured hometown girl. It’s like when people with iron deficiencies crave red meat.

I was toweling off when the doorbell rang. I leaned out the bathroom door and heard the reporters’ voices geared up again: Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you’ll be a grandpa, Rand? Do you think Nick killed your daughter, Marybeth?

They stood side by side on my front step, grim-faced, their backs rigid. There were about a dozen journalists, paparazzi, but they made the noise of twice that many. Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you’ll be a grandpa, Rand? The Elliotts entered with mumbled hellos and downcast eyes, and I slammed the door shut on the cameras. Rand put a hand on my arm and immediately removed it under Marybeth’s gaze.

‘Sorry, I was in the shower.’ My hair was still dripping, wetting the shoulders of my T-shirt. Marybeth’s hair was greasy, her clothes wilted. She looked at me like I was insane.

‘Tanner Bolt? Are you serious?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Nick: Tanner Bolt, are you serious. He only represents guilty people.’ She leaned in closer, grabbed my chin. ‘What’s on your cheek?’

‘Hives. Stress.’ I turned away from her. ‘That’s not true about Tanner, Marybeth. It’s not. He’s the best in the business. I need him right now. The police – all they’re doing is looking at me.’

‘That certainly seems to be the case,’ she said. ‘It looks like a bite mark.’

‘It’s hives.’

Marybeth released an aggravated sigh, turned the corner into the living room. ‘This is where it happened?’ she asked. Her face had collapsed into a series of fleshy ridges – eye bags and saggy cheeks, her lips downcast.

‘We think. Some sort of … altercation, confrontation, also happened in the kitchen.’

‘Because of the blood.’ Marybeth touched the ottoman, tested it, lifted it a few inches, and let it drop. ‘I wish you hadn’t fixed everything. You made it look like nothing ever happened.’

‘Marybeth, he has to live here,’ Rand said.

‘I still don’t understand how – I mean, what if the police didn’t find everything? What if … I don’t know. It seems like they gave up. If they just let the house go. Open to anyone.’

‘I’m sure they got everything,’ Rand said, and squeezed her hand. ‘Why don’t we ask if we can look at Amy’s things so you can pick something special, okay?’ He glanced at me. ‘Would that be all right, Nick? It’d be a comfort to have something of hers.’ He turned back to his wife. ‘That blue sweater Nana knitted for her.’

‘I don’t want the goddamn blue sweater, Rand!’

She flung his hand off, began pacing around the room, picking up items. She pushed the ottoman with a toe. ‘This is the ottoman, Nick?’ she asked. ‘The one they said was flipped over but it shouldn’t have been?’

‘That’s the ottoman.’

She stopped pacing, kicked it again, and watched it remain upright.

‘Marybeth, I’m sure Nick is exhausted’ – Rand glanced at me with a meaningful smile – ‘like we all are. I think we should do what we came here for and—’

‘This is what I came here for, Rand. Not some stupid sweater of Amy’s to snuggle up against like I’m three. I want my daughter. I don’t want her stuff. Her stuff means nothing to me. I want Nick to tell us what the hell is going on, because this whole thing is starting to stink. I never, I never – I never felt so foolish in my life.’ She began crying, swiping away the tears, clearly furious at herself for crying. ‘We trusted you with our daughter. We trusted you, Nick. Just tell us the truth!’ She put a quivering index finger under my nose. ‘Is it true? Did you not want the baby? Did you not love Amy anymore? Did you hurt her?’

I wanted to smack her. Marybeth and Rand had raised Amy. She was literally their work product. They had created her. I wanted to say the words Your daughter is the monster here, but I couldn’t – not until we’d told the police – and so I remained dumbfounded, trying to think of what I could say. But I looked like I was stonewalling. ‘Marybeth, I would never—’

‘I would never, I could never, that’s all I hear from your goddamn mouth. You know, I hate even looking at you anymore. I really do. There’s something wrong with you. There’s something missing inside you, to act the way you’ve been acting. Even if it turns out you’re totally blameless, I will never forgive you for how casually you’ve taken all of this. You’d think you mislaid a damn umbrella! After all Amy gave up for you, after all she did for you, and this is what she gets in return. It—You – I don’t believe you, Nick. That’s what I came here to let you know. I don’t believe in you. Not anymore.’

She began sobbing, turned away, and flung herself out the front door as the thrilled cameramen filmed her. She got in the car, and two reporters pressed against the window, knocking on it, trying to get her to say something. In the living room, we could hear them repeating and repeating her name. Marybeth – Marybeth—

Rand remained, hands in his pockets, trying to figure out what role to play. Tanner’s voice – we have to keep the Elliotts on our side – was Greek-chorusing in my ear.

Rand opened his mouth, and I headed him off. ‘Rand, tell me what I can do.’

‘Just say it, Nick.’

‘Say what?’

‘I don’t want to ask, and you don’t want to answer. I get that. But I need to hear you say it. You didn’t kill our daughter.’

He laughed and teared up at the same time. ‘Jesus Christ, I can’t keep my head straight,’ Rand said. He was turning pink, flushed, a nuclear sunburn. ‘I can’t figure out how this is happening. I can’t figure it out!’ He was still smiling. A tear dribbled on his chin and fell to his shirt collar. ‘Just say it, Nick.’

‘Rand, I did not kill Amy or hurt her in any way.’ He kept his eyes on me. ‘Do you believe me, that I didn’t physically harm her?’

Rand laughed again. ‘You know what I was about to say? I was about to say I don’t know what to believe anymore. And then I thought, that’s someone else’s line. That’s a line from a movie, not something I should be saying, and I wonder for a second, am I in a movie? Can I stop being in this movie? Then I know I can’t. But for a second, you think, I’ll say something different, and this will all change. But it won’t, will it?’

With one quick Jack Russell headshake, he turned and followed his wife to the car.

Instead of feeling sad, I felt alarmed. Before the Elliotts were even out of my driveway, I was thinking: We need to go to the cops quickly, soon. Before the Elliotts started discussing their loss of faith in public. I needed to prove my wife was not who she pretended to be. Not Amazing Amy: Avenging Amy. I flashed to Tommy O’Hara – the guy who called the tip line three times, the guy Amy had accused of raping her. Tanner had gotten some background on him: He wasn’t the macho Irishman I’d pictured from his name, not a fire-fighter or cop. He wrote for a humor website based in Brooklyn, a decent one, and his contributor photo revealed him to be a scrawny guy with dark-framed glasses and an uncomfortable amount of thick black hair, wearing a wry grin and a T-shirt for a band called the Bingos.

He picked up on the first ring. ‘Yeah?’

‘This is Nick Dunne. You called me about my wife. Amy Dunne. Amy Elliott. I have to talk with you.’

I heard a pause, waited for him to hang up on me like Hilary Handy.

‘Call me back in ten minutes.’

I did. The background was a bar, I knew the sound well enough: the murmur of drinkers, the clatter of ice cubes, the strange pops of noise as people called for drinks or hailed friends. I had a burst of homesickness for my own place.

‘Okay, thanks,’ he said. ‘Had to get to a bar. Seemed like a Scotch conversation.’ His voice got progressively closer, thicker: I could picture him huddling protectively over a drink, cupping his mouth to the phone.

‘So,’ I began, ‘I got your messages.’

‘Right. She’s still missing, right? Amy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I ask you what you think has happened?’ he said. ‘To Amy?’

Fuck it, I wanted a drink. I went into my kitchen – next best thing to my bar – and poured myself one. I’d been trying to be more careful about the booze, but it felt so good: the tang of a Scotch, a dark room with the blinding sun right outside.

‘Can I ask you why you called?’ I replied.

‘I’ve been watching the coverage,’ he said. ‘You’re fucked.’

‘I am. I wanted to talk to you because I thought it was … interesting that you’d try to get in touch. Considering. The rape charge.’

‘Ah, you know about that,’ he said.

‘I know there was a rape charge, but I don’t necessarily believe you’re a rapist. I wanted to hear what you had to say.’

‘Yeah.’ I heard him take a gulp of his Scotch, kill it, shake the ice cubes around. ‘I caught the story on the news one night. Your story. Amy’s. I was in bed, eating Thai. Minding my own business. Totally fucked me in the head. Her after all these years.’ He called to the bartender for another. ‘So my lawyer said no way I should talk to you, but … what can I say? I’m too fucking nice. I can’t let you twist. God, I wish you could still smoke in bars. This is a Scotch and cigarette conversation.’

‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘About the assault charge. The rape.’

‘Like I said, man, I’ve seen the coverage, the media is shitting all over you. I mean, you’re the guy. So I should leave well enough alone – I don’t need that girl back in my life. Even, like, tangentially. But shit. I wish someone had done me the favor.’

‘So do me the favor,’ I said.

‘First of all, she dropped the charges – you know that, right?’

‘I know. Did you do it?’

‘Fuck you. Of course I didn’t do it. Did you do it?’

‘No.’

‘Well.’

Tommy called again for his Scotch. ‘Let me ask: Your marriage was good? Amy was happy?’

I stayed silent.

‘You don’t have to answer, but I’m going to guess no. Amy was not happy. For whatever reason. I’m not even going to ask. I can guess, but I’m not going to ask. But I know you must know this: Amy likes to play God when she’s not happy. Old Testament God.’

‘Meaning?’

‘She doles out punishment,’ Tommy said. ‘Hard.’ He laughed into the phone. ‘I mean, you should see me,’ he said. ‘I do not look like some alpha-male rapist. I look like a twerp. I am a twerp. My goto karaoke song is “Sister Christian,” for crying out loud. I weep during Godfather II. Every time.’ He coughed after a swallow. Seemed like a moment to loosen him up.

‘Fredo?’ I asked.

‘Fredo, man, yeah. Poor Fredo.’

‘Stepped over.’

Most men have sports as the lingua-franca of dudes. This was the film-geek equivalent to discussing some great play in a famous football game. We both knew the line, and the fact that we both knew it eliminated a good day’s worth of are we copacetic small talk.

He took another drink. ‘It was so fucking absurd.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You’re not taping this or anything, right? No one’s listening in? Because I don’t want that.’

‘Just us. I’m on your side.’

‘So I meet Amy at a party – this is, like, seven years ago now – and she’s so damn cool. Just hilarious and weird and … cool. We just clicked, you know, and I don’t click with a lot of girls, at least not girls who look like Amy. So I’m thinking … well, first I’m thinking I’m being punked. Where’s the catch, you know? But we start dating, and we date a few months, two, three months, and then I find out the catch: She’s not the girl I thought I was dating. She can quote funny things, but she doesn’t actually like funny things. She’d rather not laugh, anyway. In fact, she’d rather that I not laugh either, or be funny, which is awkward since it’s my job, but to her, it’s all a waste of time. I mean, I can’t even figure out why she started dating me in the first place, because it seems pretty clear that she doesn’t even like me. Does that make sense?’

I nodded, swallowed a gulp of Scotch. ‘Yeah. It does.’

‘So, I start making excuses not to hang out so much. I don’t call it off, because I’m an idiot, and she’s gorgeous. I’m hoping it might turn around. But you know, I’m making excuses fairly regularly: I’m stuck at work, I’m on deadline, I have a friend in town, my monkey is sick, whatever. And I start seeing this other girl, kinda sorta seeing her, very casual, no big deal. Or so I think. But Amy finds out – how, I still don’t know, for all I know, she was staking out my apartment. But … shit …’

‘Take a drink.’

We both took a swallow.

‘Amy comes over to my place one night – I’d been seeing this other girl like a month – and Amy comes over, and she’s all back like she used to be. She’s got some bootleg DVD of a comic I like, an underground performance in Durham, and she’s got a sack of burgers, and we watch the DVD, and she’s got her leg flopped over mine, and then she’s nestling into me, and … sorry. She’s your wife. My main point is: The girl knew how to work me. And we end up …’

‘You had sex.’

‘Consensual sex, yes. And she leaves and everything is fine. Kiss goodbye at the door, the whole shebang.’

‘Then what?’

‘The next thing I know, two cops are at my door, and they’ve done a rape kit on Amy, and she has “wounds consistent with forcible rape.” And she has ligature marks on her wrists, and when they search my apartment, there on the headboard of my bed are two ties – like, neckties – tucked down near the mattress, and the ties are, quote, “consistent with the ligature marks.”’

‘Had you tied her up?’

‘No, the sex wasn’t even that … that, you know? I was totally caught off guard. She must have tied them there when I got up to take a piss or whatever. I mean, I was in some serious shit. It was looking very bad. And then suddenly she dropped the charges. Couple of weeks later, I got a note, anonymous, typed, says: Maybe next time you’ll think twice.’

‘And you never heard from her again?’

‘Never heard from her again.’

‘And you didn’t try to press charges against her or anything?’

‘Uh, no. Fuck no. I was just glad she went away. Then last week, I’m eating my Thai food, sitting in my bed, watching the news report. On Amy. On you. Perfect wife, anniversary, no body, a real shitstorm. I swear, I broke out in a sweat. I thought: That’s Amy, she’s graduated to murder. Holy shit. I’m serious, man, I bet whatever she’s got cooked up for you, it’s drum-fucking-tight. You should be fucking scared.’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

EIGHT DAYS GONE

I am wet from the bumper boats; we got more than five dollars’ worth of time because the two sun-stunned teenage girls would rather flip through gossip magazines and smoke cigarettes than try to herd us off the water. So we spent a good thirty minutes on our lawn-mower-motor-propelled ships, ramming each other and turning wild twists, and then we got bored and left of our own accord.

Greta, Jeff, and I, an odd crew in a strange place. Greta and Jeff have become good friends in just a day, which is how people do it here, where there’s nothing else to do. I think Greta is deciding whether she’ll make Jeff another of her disastrous mating choices. Jeff would like it. He prefers her. She is much prettier than I am, right now, in this place. Cheap pretty. She is wearing a bikini top and jean shorts, with a spare shirt tucked into the back pocket for when she wants to enter a store (T-shirts, wood carvings, decorative rocks) or restaurant (burger, barbecue, taffy). She wants us to get Old West photos taken, but that’s not going to happen for reasons aside from the fact that I don’t want redneck-lake-person lice.

We end up settling for a few rounds on a decrepit miniature golf course. The fake grass is torn off in patches, the alligators and windmills that once moved mechanically are still. Jeff does the honors instead, twirling the windmill, snapping open and shut the gator jaws. Some holes are simply unplayable – the grass rolled up like carpeting, the farmhouse with its beckoning mousehole collapsed in on itself. So we roam between courses in no particular order. No one is even keeping score.

This would have annoyed Old Amy no end: the haphazardness of it all, the pointlessness. But I’m learning to drift, and I do it quite well. I am overachieving at aimlessness, I am a type-A, alpha-girl lollygagger, the leader of a gang of heartbroken kids, running wild across this lonely strip of amusements, each of us smarting from the betrayals of a loved one. I catch Jeff (cuckolded, divorced, complicated custody arrangement) furrowing his brow as we pass a Love Tester: Squeeze the metal grip and watch the temperature rise from ‘just a fling’ to ‘soulmate.’ The odd equation – a crushing clutch means true love – reminds me of poor smacked-around Greta, who often places her thumb over the bruise on her chest like it’s a button she can push.

‘You’re up,’ Greta says to me. She’s drying her ball off on her shorts – twice she’s gone into the cesspool of dirty water.

I get in position, wiggle once or twice, and putt my bright red ball straight into the birdhouse opening. It disappears for a second, then reappears out a chute and into the hole. Disappear, reappear. I feel a wave of anxiety – everything reappears at some point, even me. I am anxious because I think my plans have changed.

I have changed plans only twice so far. The first was the gun. I was going to get a gun and then, on the morning I disappeared, I was going to shoot myself. Nowhere dangerous: through a calf or a wrist. I would leave behind a bullet with my flesh and blood on it. A struggle occurred! Amy was shot! But then I realized this was a little too macho even for me. It would hurt for weeks, and I don’t love pain (my sliced arm feels better now, thank you very much). But I still liked the idea of a gun. It made for a nice MacGuffin. Not Amy was shot but Amy was scared. So I dolled myself up and went to the mall on Valentine’s Day, so I’d be remembered. I couldn’t get one, but it’s not a big deal as far as changed plans go.

The other one is considerably more extreme. I have decided I’m not going to die.

I have the discipline to kill myself, but can’t stomach the injustice. It’s not fair that I have to die. Not really die. I don’t want to. I’m not the one who did anything wrong.

The problem now though, is money. It’s so ludicrous, that of all things it’s money that should be an issue for me. But I have only a finite amount – $9,132 at this point. I will need more. This morning I went to chat with Dorothy; as always, holding a handkerchief so as not to leave fingerprints (I told her it was my grandmother’s – I try to give her a vague impression of southern wealth gone to squander, very Blanche DuBois). I leaned against her desk as she told me, in great bureaucratic detail, about a blood thinner she can’t afford – the woman is an encyclopedia of denied pharmaceuticals – and then I said, just to test the situation: ‘I know what you mean. I’m not sure where I’m going to get rent for my cabin after another week or two.’

She blinked at me, and blinked back toward the TV set, a game show where people screamed and cried a lot. She took a grandmotherly interest in me, she’d certainly let me stay on, indefinitely: The cabins were half empty, no harm.

‘You better get a job, then,’ Dorothy said, not turning away from the TV. A contestant made a bad choice, the prize was lost, a wuhwaaahhh sound effect voiced her pain.

‘A job like what? What kind of job can I get around here?’

‘Cleaning, babysitting.’

Basically, I was supposed to be a housewife for pay. Irony enough for a million Hang in There posters.

It’s true that even in our lowly Missouri state, I didn’t ever have to actually budget. I couldn’t go out and buy a new car just because I wanted to, but I never had to think about the day-to-day stuff, coupon clipping and buying generic and knowing how much milk costs off the top of my head. My parents never bothered teaching me this, and so they left me unprepared for the real world. For instance, when Greta complained that the convenience store at the marina charged five dollars for a gallon of milk, I winced because the kid there always charged me ten dollars. I’d thought that seemed like a lot, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the little pimply teenager just threw out a number to see if I’d pay.

So I’d budgeted, but my budget – guaranteed, according to the Internet, to last me six to nine months – is clearly off. And so I am off.

When we’re done with golf – I win, of course I do, I know because I’m keeping score in my head – we go to the hot-dog stand next door for lunch, and I slip around the corner to dig into my zippered money belt under my shirt, and when I glance back, Greta has followed me, she catches me right before I can stuff the thing away.

‘Ever heard of a purse, Moneybags?’ she cracks. This will be an ongoing problem – a person on the run needs lots of cash, but a person on the run by definition has nowhere to keep the cash. Thankfully, Greta doesn’t press the issue – she knows we are both victims here. We sit in the sun on a metal picnic bench and eat hot dogs, white buns wrapped around cylinders of phosphate with relish so green it looks toxic, and it may be the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten because I am Dead Amy and I don’t care.

‘Guess what Jeff found in his cabin for me?’ Greta says. ‘Another book by the Martian Chronicle guy.’

‘Ray Bradburrow,’ Jeff says. Bradbury, I think.

‘Yeah, right. Something Wicked This Way Comes,’ Greta says. ‘It’s good.’ She chirps the last bit as if that were all to say about a book: It’s good or it’s bad. I liked it or I didn’t. No discussions of the writing, the themes, the nuances, the structure. Just good or bad. Like a hot dog.

‘I read it when I first moved in there,’ Jeff says. ‘It is good. Creepy.’ He catches me watching him and makes a goblin face, all crazy eyes and leering tongue. He isn’t my type – the fur on the face is too bristly, he does suspicious things with fish – but he is nice-looking. Attractive. His eyes are very warm, not like Nick’s frozen blues. I wonder if ‘I’ might like sleeping with him – a nice slow screw with his body pressed against mine and his breath in my ear, the bristles on my cheeks, not the lonely way Nick fucks, where our bodies barely connect: right angle from behind, L-shape from the front, and then he’s out of bed almost immediately, hitting the shower, leaving me pulsing in his wet spot.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ Jeff says. He never calls me by name, as if to acknowledge that we both know I’ve lied. He says this lady or pretty woman or you. I wonder what he would call me in bed. Baby, maybe.

‘Just thinking.’

‘Uh-oh,’ he says, and smiles again.

‘You were thinking about a boy, I can tell,’ Greta says.

‘Maybe.’

‘I thought we were steering clear of the assholes for a while,’ she says. ‘Tend to our chickens.’ Last night after Ellen Abbott, I was too excited to go home, so we shared a six-pack and imagined our recluse life as the token straight girls on Greta’s mother’s lesbian compound, raising chickens and hanging laundry to dry in the sun. The objects of gentle, platonic courtship from older women with gnarled knuckles and indulgent laughs. Denim and corduroy and clogs and never worrying about makeup or hair or nails, breast size or hip size, or having to pretend to be the understanding wifey, the supportive girlfriend who loves everything her man does.

‘Not all guys are assholes,’ Jeff says. Greta makes a noncommital noise.

We return to our cabins liquid-limbed. I feel like a water balloon left in the sun. All I want to do is sit under my sputtering window air conditioner and blast my skin with the cool while watching TV. I’ve found a rerun channel that shows nothing but old ’70s and ’80s shows, Quincy and The Love Boat and Eight Is Enough, but first comes Ellen Abbott, my new favorite show!

Nothing new, nothing new. Ellen doesn’t mind speculating, believe me, she’s hosted an array of strangers from my past who swear they are my friends, and they all have lovely things to say about me, even the ones who never much liked me. Post-life fondness.

Knock on the door, and I know it will be Greta and Jeff. I switch off the TV, and there they are on my doorstep, aimless.

‘Whatcha doing?’ Jeff asks.

‘Reading,’ I lie.

He sets down a six-pack of beer on my counter, Greta padding in behind. ‘Oh, I thought we heard the TV.’

Three is literally a crowd in these small cabins. They are blocking the door for a second, sending a pulse of nervousness through me – why are they blocking the door? – and then they keep moving and they are blocking my bedside table. Inside my bedside table is my money belt packed with eight thousand dollars in cash. Hundreds, fifties, and twenty-dollar bills. The money belt is hideous, flesh-colored and bunchy. I can’t possibly wear all my money at once – I leave some scattered around the cabin – but I try to wear most, and when I do, I am as conscious of it as a girl at the beach with a maxipad. A perverse part of me enjoys spending money, because every time I pull off a wad of twenties, that’s less money to hide, to worry about being stolen or lost.

Jeff clicks on the TV, and Ellen Abbott – and Amy – buzz into focus. He nods, smiles to himself.

‘Want to watch … Amy?’ Greta asks.

I can’t tell if she used a comma: Want to watch, Amy? or Want to watch Amy?

‘Nah. Jeff, why don’t you grab your guitar and we can sit on the porch?’

Jeff and Greta exchange a look.

‘Awww … but that’s what you were watching, right?’ Greta says. She points at the screen, and it’s me and Nick at a benefit, me in a gown, my hair pulled back in a chignon, and I look more like I look now, with my short hair.

‘It’s boring,’ I say.

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s boring at all,’ Greta says, and flops down on my bed.

I think what a fool I am, to have let these two people inside. To have assumed I could control them, when they are feral creatures, people used to finding the angle, exploiting the weakness, always needing, whereas I am new to this. Needing. Those people who keep backyard pumas and living room chimps – this must be how they feel when their adorable pet rips them open.

‘You know what, would you guys mind … I feel kinda crummy. Too much sun, I think.’

They look surprised and a little offended, and I wonder if I’ve got it wrong – that they are harmless and I’m just paranoid. I’d like to believe that.

‘Sure, sure, of course,’ Jeff says. They shuffle out of my cabin, Jeff grabbing his beer on the way. A minute later, I hear Ellen Abbott snarling from Greta’s cabin. The accusatory questions. Why did … Why didn’t … How can you explain …

Why did I ever let myself get friendly with anyone here? Why didn’t I keep to myself? How can I explain my actions if I’m found out?

I can’t be discovered. If I were ever found, I’d be the most hated woman on the planet. I’d go from being the beautiful, kind, doomed, pregnant victim of a selfish, cheating bastard to being the bitter bitch who exploited the good hearts of all America’s citizens. Ellen Abbott would devote show after show to me, angry callers venting their hate: ‘This is just another example of a spoiled rich girl doing what she wants, when she wants and not thinking of anyone else’s feelings, Ellen. I think she should disappear for life – in prison!’ Like that, it would go like that. I’ve read conflicting Internet information on the penalties for faking a death, or framing a spouse for said death, but I know the public opinion would be brutal. No matter what I do after that – feed orphans, cuddle lepers – when I died, I’d be known as That Woman Who Faked Her Death and Framed Her Husband, You Remember.

I can’t allow it.

Hours later, I am still awake, thinking in the dark, when my door rattles, a gentle bang, Jeff’s bang. I debate, then open it, ready to apologize for my rudeness before. He’s tugging on his beard, staring at my doormat, then looks up with amber eyes.

‘Dorothy said you were looking for work,’ he said.

‘Yeah. I guess. I am.’

‘I got something tonight, pay you fifty bucks.’

Amy Elliott Dunne wouldn’t leave her cabin for fifty bucks, but Lydia and/or Nancy needs work. I have to say yes.

‘Coupla hours, fifty dollars.’ He shrugs. ‘Doesn’t make any difference to me, just thought I’d offer.’

‘What is it?’

‘Fishing.’

I was positive Jeff would drive a pickup, but he guides me to a shiny Ford hatchback, a heartbreaking car, the car of the new college grad with big plans and a modest budget, not the car a grown man should be driving. I am wearing my swimsuit under my sundress, as instructed (‘Not the bikini, the full one, the one you can really swim in,’ Jeff intoned; I’d never noticed him anywhere near the pool, but he knew my swimwear cold, which was flattering and alarming at the same time).

He leaves the windows down as we drive through the forested hills, the gravel dust coating my stubby hair. It feels like something from a country-music video: the girl in the sundress leaning out to catch the breeze of a red-state summer night. I can see stars. Jeff hums off and on.

He parks down the road from a restaurant that hangs out on stilts over the lake, a barbecue place known for its giant souvenir cups of boozy drinks with bad names: Gator Juice and Bassmouth Blitz. I know this from the discarded cups that float along all the shores of the lake, cracked and neon-colored with the restaurant’s logo: Catfish Carl’s. Catfish Carl’s has a deck that overhangs the water – diners can load up on handfuls of kitty kibble from the crank machines and drop them into the gaping mouths of hundreds of giant catfish that wait below.

‘What exactly are we going to do, Jeff?’

‘You net ’em, I kill ’em.’ He gets out of the car, and I follow him around to the hatchback, which is filled with coolers. ‘We put ’em in here, on ice, resell them.’

‘Resell them. Who buys stolen fish?’

Jeff smiles that lazy-cat smile. ‘I got a clientele of sorts.’

And then I realize: He isn’t a Grizzly Adams, guitar-playing, peace-loving granola guy at all. He is a redneck thief who wants to believe that he’s more complicated than that.

He pulls out a net, a box of Nine Lives, and a stained plastic bucket.

I have absolutely no intention of being part of this illicit piscine economy, but ‘I’ am fairly interested. How many women can say they were part of a fish-smuggling ring? ‘I’ am game. I have become game again since I died. All the things I disliked or feared, all the limits I had, they’ve slid off me. ‘I’ can do pretty much anything. A ghost has that freedom.

We walk down the hill, under the deck of Catfish Carl’s, and onto the docks, which float slurpily on the wakes of a passing motorboat, Jimmy Buffett blaring.

Jeff hands me a net. ‘We need this to be quick – you just jump in the water, scoop the net in, nab the fish, then tilt the net up to me. It’ll be heavy, though, and squirmy, so be prepared. And don’t scream or nothing.’

‘I won’t scream. But I don’t want to go in the water. I can do it from the deck.’

‘You should take off your dress, at least, you’ll ruin it.’

‘I’m okay.’

He looks annoyed for a moment – he’s the boss, I’m the employee, and so far I’m not listening to him – but then he turns around modestly and tugs off his shirt and hands me the box of cat food without fully facing me, as if he’s shy. I hold the box with its narrow mouth over the water, and immediately, a hundred shiny arched backs roll toward me, a mob of serpents, the tails cutting across the surface furiously, and then the mouths are below me, the fish roiling over each other to swallow the pellets and then, like trained pets, aiming their faces up toward me for more.

I scoop the net into the middle of the pack and sit down hard on the dock to get leverage to pull the harvest up. When I yank, the net is full of half a dozen whiskery, slick catfish, all frantically trying to get back in the water, their gaping lips opening and shutting between the squares of nylon, their collective tugging making the net wobble up and down.

‘Lift it up, lift it up, girl!’

I push a knee below the net’s handle and let it dangle there, Jeff reaching in, grabbing a fish with two hands, each encased in terrycloth manicure gloves for a better grip. He moves his hands down around the tail, then swings the fish like a cudgel, smashing its head on the side of the dock. Blood explodes. A brief sharp pelt of it streaks across my legs, a hard chunk of meat hits my hair. Jeff throws the fish in the bucket and grabs another with assembly-line smoothness.

We work in grunts and wheezes for half an hour, four nets full, until my arms turn rubbery and the ice chests are full. Jeff takes the empty pail and fills it with water from the lake, pours it across the messy entrails and into the fish pens. The catfish gobble up the guts of their fallen brethren. The dock is left clean. He pours one last pail of water across our bloody feet.

‘Why do you have to smash them?’ I ask.

‘Can’t stand to watch something suffer,’ he says. ‘Quick dunk?’

‘I’m okay,’ I say.

‘Not in my car, you’re not – come on, quick dunk, you have more crap on you than you realize.’

We run off the dock toward the rocky beach nearby. While I wade ankle-deep in the water, Jeff runs with giant splashy footsteps and throws himself forward, arms wild. As soon as he’s far enough out, I unhook my money belt and fold my sundress around it, leave it at the water’s edge with my glasses on top. I lower myself until I feel the warm water hit my thighs, my belly, my neck, and then I hold my breath and go under.

I swim far and fast, stay underwater longer than I should to remind myself what it would feel like to drown – I know I could do it if I needed to – and when I come up with a single disciplined gasp, I see Jeff lapping rapidly toward shore, and I have to swim fast as a porpoise back to my money belt and scramble onto the rocks just ahead of him.

NICK DUNNE

EIGHT DAYS GONE

As soon as I hung up with Tommy, I phoned Hilary Handy. If my ‘murder’ of Amy was a lie, and Tommy O’Hara’s ‘rape’ of Amy was a lie, why not Hilary Handy’s ‘stalking’ of Amy? A sociopath must cut her teeth somewhere, like the austere marble halls of Wickshire Academy.

When she picked up, I blurted: ‘This is Nick Dunne, Amy Elliott’s husband. I really need to talk to you.’

‘Why.’

‘I really, really need more information. About your—’

‘Don’t say friendship.’ I heard an angry grin in her voice.

‘No. I wouldn’t. I just want to hear your side. I am not calling because I think you’ve got anything – anything – to do with my wife, her situation, currently. But I would really like to hear what happened. The truth. Because I think you may be able to shed light on a … pattern of behavior of Amy’s.’

‘What kind of pattern?’

‘When very bad things happen to people who upset her.’

She breathed heavily into the phone. ‘Two days ago, I wouldn’t have talked to you,’ she started. ‘But then I was having a drink with some friends, and the TV was on, and you came on, and it was about Amy being pregnant. Everyone I was with, they were so angry at you. They hated you. And I thought, I know how that feels. Because she’s not dead, right? I mean, she’s still just missing? No body?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So let me tell you. About Amy. And high school. And what happened. Hold on.’ On her end, I could hear cartoons playing – rubbery voices and calliope music – then suddenly not. Then whining voices. Go watch downstairs. Downstairs, please.

‘So, freshman year. I’m the kid from Memphis. Everyone else is East Coast, I swear. It felt weird, different, you know? All the girls at Wickshire, it was like they’d been raised communally – the lingo, the clothes, the hair. And it wasn’t like I was a pariah, I was just … insecure, for sure. Amy was already The Girl. Like, first day, I remember, everyone knew her, everyone was talking about her. She was Amazing Amy – we’d all read those books growing up – plus, she was just gorgeous. I mean, she was—’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Right. And pretty soon she was showing an interest in me, like, taking me under her wing or whatever. She had this joke that she was Amazing Amy, so I was her sidekick Suzy, and she started calling me Suzy, and pretty soon everyone else did, too. Which was fine by me. I mean, I was a little toadie: Get Amy a drink if she was thirsty, throw in a load of laundry if she needed clean underwear. Hold on.’

Again I could hear the shuffle of her hair against the receiver. Marybeth had brought every Elliott photo album with her in case we needed more pictures. She’d shown me a photo of Amy and Hilary, cheek-to-cheek grins. So I could picture Hilary now, the same butter-blond hair as my wife, framing a plainer face, with muddy hazel eyes.

‘Jason, I am on the phone – just give them a few Popsicles, it’s not that dang hard.

‘Sorry. Our kids are out of school, and my husband never ever takes care of them, so he seems a little confused about what to do for the ten minutes I’m on the phone with you. Sorry. So … so, right, I was little Suzy, and we had this game going, and for a few months – August, September, October – it was great. Like intense friendship, we were together all the time. And then a few weird things happened at once that I knew kind of bothered her.’

‘What?’

‘A guy from our brother school, he meets us both at the fall dance, and the next day he calls me instead of Amy. Which I’m sure he did because Amy was too intimidating, but whatever … and then a few days later, our midterm grades come, and mine are slightly better, like, four-point-one versus four-point. And not long after, one of our friends, she invites me to spend Thanksgiving with her family. Me, not Amy. Again, I’m sure this was because Amy intimidated people. She wasn’t easy to be around, you felt all the time like you had to impress. But I can feel things change just a little. I can tell she’s really irritated, even though she doesn’t admit it.

‘Instead, she starts getting me to do things. I don’t realize it at the time, but she starts setting me up. She asks if she can color my hair the same blond as hers, because mine’s mousy, and it’ll look so nice a brighter shade. And she starts complaining about her parents. I mean she’s always complained about her parents, but now she really gets going on them – how they only love her as an idea and not really for who she is – so she says she wants to mess with her parents. She has me start prank-calling her house, telling her parents I’m the new Amazing Amy. We’d take the train into New York some weekends, and she’d tell me to stand outside their house – one time she had me run up to her mom and tell her I was going to get rid of Amy and be her new Amy or some crap like that.’

‘And you did it?’

‘It was just dumb stuff girls do. Back before cell phones and cyber-bullying. A way to kill time. We did prank stuff like that all the time, just dumb stuff. Try to one-up each other on how daring and freaky we could be.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then she starts distancing herself. She gets cold. And I think – I think that she doesn’t like me anymore. Girls at school start looking at me funny. I’m shut out of the cool circle. Fine. But then one day I’m called into the principal’s office. Amy has had a horrible accident – twisted ankle, fractured arm, cracked ribs. Amy has fallen down this long set of stairs, and she says it was me who pushed her. Hold on. ‘Go back downstairs now. Go. Down. Stairs. Goooo downstairs. Sorry, I’m back. Never have kids. So Amy said you pushed her?’

‘Yeah, because I was craaaazy. I was obsessed with her, and I wanted to be Suzy, and then being Suzy wasn’t enough – I had to be Amy. And she had all this evidence that she’d had me create over the past few months. Her parents, obviously, had seen me lurking around the house. I theoretically accosted her mom. My hair dyed blond and the clothes I’d bought that matched Amy’s – clothes I bought while shopping with her, but I couldn’t prove that. All her friends came in, explained how Amy for the past month had been so frightened of me. All this shit. I looked totally insane. Completely insane. Her parents got a restraining order on me. And I kept swearing it wasn’t me, but by then I was so miserable that I wanted to leave school anyway. So we didn’t fight the expulsion. I wanted to get away from her by that time. I mean, the girl cracked her own ribs. I was scared – this little fifteen-year-old, she’d pulled this off. Fooled friends, parents, teachers.’

‘And this was all because of a boy and some grades and a Thanksgiving invitation?’

‘About a month after I moved back to Memphis, I got a letter. It wasn’t signed, it was typed, but it was obviously Amy. It was a list of all the ways I’d let her down. Crazy stuff: Forgot to wait for me after English, twice. Forgot I am allergic to strawberries, twice.’

‘Jesus.’

‘But I feel like the real reason wasn’t even on there.’

‘What was the real reason?’

‘I feel like Amy wanted people to believe she really was perfect. And as we got to be friends, I got to know her. And she wasn’t perfect. You know? She was brilliant and charming and all that, but she was also controlling and OCD and a drama queen and a bit of a liar. Which was fine by me. It just wasn’t fine by her. She got rid of me because I knew she wasn’t perfect. It made me wonder about you.’

‘About me? Why?’

‘Friends see most of each other’s flaws. Spouses see every awful last bit. If she punished a friend of a few months by throwing herself down a flight of stairs, what would she do to a man who was dumb enough to marry her?’

I hung up as one of Hilary’s kids picked up the second extension and began singing a nursery rhyme. I immediately phoned Tanner and relayed my conversations with Hilary and Tommy.

‘So we have a couple of stories, great,’ Tanner said, ‘this’ll really be great!’ in a way that told me it wasn’t that great. ‘Have you heard from Andie?’

I hadn’t.

‘I have one of my people waiting for her at her apartment building,’ he said. ‘Discreet.’

‘I didn’t know you had people.’

‘What we really need is to find Amy,’ he said, ignoring me. ‘Girl like that, I can’t imagine she’d be able to stay hidden for too long. You have any thoughts?’

I kept picturing her on a posh hotel balcony near the ocean, wrapped in a white robe thick as a rug, sipping a very good Montrachet, while she tracked my ruin on the Internet, on cable, in the tabloids. While she enjoyed the endless coverage and exultation of Amy Elliott Dunne. Attending her own funeral. I wondered if she was self-aware enough to realize: She’d stolen a page from Mark Twain.

‘I picture her near the ocean,’ I said. Then I stopped, feeling like a boardwalk psychic. ‘No. I have no ideas. She could literally be anywhere. I don’t think we’ll see her unless she decides to come back.’

‘That seems unlikely,’ Tanner breathed, annoyed. ‘So let’s try to find Andie and see where her head is. We’re running out of wiggle room here.’

Then it was dinnertime, and then the sun set, and I was alone again in my haunted house. I was thinking about all of Amy’s lies and whether the pregnancy was one of them. I’d done the math. Amy and I had sex sporadically enough it was possible. But then she would know I’d do the math.

Truth or lie? If it was a lie, it was designed to gut me.

I’d always assumed that Amy and I would have children. It was one of the reasons I knew I would marry Amy, because I pictured us having kids together. I remember the first time I imagined it, not two months after we began dating: I was walking from my apartment in Kips Bay to a favorite pocket park along the East River, a path that took me past the giant LEGO block of the United Nations headquarters, the flags of myriad countries fluttering in the wind. A kid would like this, I thought. All the different colors, the busy memory game of matching each flag to its country. There’s Finland, and there’s New Zealand. The one-eyed smile of Mauritania. And then I realized it wasn’t a kid, but our kid, mine and Amy’s, who would like this. Our kid, sprawled on the floor with an old encyclopedia, just like I’d done, but our kid wouldn’t be alone, I’d be sprawled next to him. Aiding him in his budding vexillology, which sounds less like a study of flags than a study in annoyance, which would have suited my father’s attitude toward me. But not mine toward my son’s. I pictured Amy joining us on the floor, flat on her stomach, her feet kicked up in the air, pointing out Palau, the yellow dot just left of center on the crisp blue background, which I was sure would be her favorite.

From then on, the boy was real (and sometimes a girl, but mostly a boy). He was inevitable. I suffered from regular, insistent paternal aches. Months after the wedding, I had a strange moment in front of the medicine cabinet, floss between my teeth, when I thought: She wants kids, right? I should ask. Of course I should ask. When I posed the question – roundabout, vague – she said, Of course, of course, someday, but every morning she still perched in front of the sink and swallowed her pill. For three years she did this every morning, while I fluttered near the topic but failed to actually say the words: I want us to have a baby.

After the layoffs, it seemed like it might happen. Suddenly, there was an uncontestable space in our lives, and one day over breakfast, Amy looked up from her toast and said, I’m off the pill. Just like that. She was off the pill three months, and nothing happened, and not long after the move to Missouri, she made an appointment for us to start the medical intervention. Once Amy started a project, she didn’t like to dilly-dally: ‘We’ll tell them we’ve been trying a year,’ she said. Foolishly I agreed – we were barely ever touching each other by then, but we still thought a kid made sense. Sure.

‘You’ll have to do your part too, you know,’ she said on the drive to St. Louis. ‘You’ll have to give semen.’

‘I know. Why do you say it like that?’

‘I just figured you’d be too proud. Self-conscious and proud.’

I was a rather nasty cocktail of both those traits, but at the fertility center, I dutifully entered the strange small room dedicated to self-abuse: a place where hundreds of men had entered for no other purpose than to crank the shank, clean the rifle, jerk the gherkin, make the bald man cry, pound the flounder, sail the mayonnaise seas, wiggle the walrus, whitewash with Tom and Huck.

(I sometimes use humor as self-defense.)

The room contained a vinyl-covered armchair, a TV, and a table that held a grab bag of porn and a box of tissues. The porn was early ’90s, judging from the women’s hair (yes: top and bottom), and the action was midcore. (Another good essay: Who selects the porn for fertility centers? Who judges what will get men off yet not be too degrading to all the women outside the cum-room, the nurses and doctors and hopeful, hormone addled wives?)

I visited the room on three separate occasions – they like to have a lot of backup – while Amy did nothing. She was supposed to begin taking pills, but she didn’t, and then she didn’t some more. She was the one who’d be pregnant, the one who’d turn over her body to the baby, so I postponed nudging her for a few months, keeping an eye on the pill bottle to see if the level went down. Finally, after a few beers one winter night, I crunched up the steps of our home, shed my snow-crusted clothes, and curled up next to her in bed, my face near her shoulder, breathing her in, warming the tip of my nose on her skin. I whispered the words – Let’s do this, Amy, let’s have a baby – and she said no. I was expecting nervousness, caution, worry – Nick, will I be a good mom? – but I got a clipped, cold no. A no without loopholes. Nothing dramatic, no big deal, just not something she was interested in anymore. ‘Because I realized I’d be stuck doing all the hard stuff,’ she reasoned. ‘All the diapers and doctors’ appointments and discipline, and you’d just breeze in and be Fun Daddy. I’d do all the work to make them good people, and you’d undo it anyway, and they’d love you and hate me.’

I told Amy it wasn’t true, but she didn’t believe me. I told her I didn’t just want a child, I needed a child. I had to know I could love a person unconditionally, that I could make a little creature feel constantly welcome and wanted no matter what. That I could be a different kind of father than my dad was. That I could raise a boy who wasn’t like me.

I begged her. Amy remained unmoved.

A year later, I got a notice in the mail: The clinic would dispose of my semen unless they heard from us. I left the letter on the dining room table, an open rebuke. Three days later, I saw it in the trash. That was our final communication on the subject.

By then I’d already been secretly dating Andie for months, so I had no right to be upset. But that didn’t stop my aching, and it didn’t stop me from daydreaming about our boy, mine and Amy’s. I’d gotten attached to him. The fact was, Amy and I would make a great child.

The marionettes were watching me with alarmed black eyes. I peered out my window, saw that the news trucks had packed it in, so I went out into the warm night. Time to walk. Maybe a lone tabloid writer was trailing me; if so, I didn’t care. I headed through our complex, then forty-five minutes out along River Road, then onto the highway that shot right through the middle of Carthage. Thirty loud, fumy minutes – past car dealerships with trucks displayed appealingly like desserts, past fast-food chains and liquor stores and mini-marts and gas stations – until I reached the turnoff for downtown. I had encountered not a single other person on foot the entire time, only faceless blurs whizzing past me in cars.

It was close to midnight. I passed The Bar, tempted to go in but put off by the crowds. A reporter or two had to be camped out in there. It’s what I would do. But I wanted to be in a bar. I wanted to be surrounded by people, having fun, blowing off steam. I walked another fifteen minutes to the other end of downtown, to a cheesier, rowdier, younger bar where the bathrooms were always laced with vomit on Saturday nights. It was a bar that Andie’s crowd would go to, and perhaps, who knew, drag along Andie. It would be a nice bit of luck to see her there. At least gauge her mood from across the room. And if she wasn’t there then I’d have a fucking drink.

I went as deep into the bar as I could – no Andie, no Andie. My face was partially covered by a baseball cap. Even so, I felt a few pings as I moved past crowds of drinkers: heads abruptly turning toward me, the wide eyes of identification. That guy! Right?

Mid-July. I wondered if I’d become so nefarious come October, I’d be some frat boy’s tasteless Halloween costume: mop of blond hair, an Amazing Amy book tucked under an armpit. Go said she’d received half a dozen phone calls asking if The Bar had an official T-shirt for sale. (We didn’t, thank God.)

I sat down and ordered a Scotch from the bartender, a guy about my age who stared at me a beat too long, deciding whether he would serve me. He finally, grudgingly, set down a small tumbler in front of me, his nostrils flared. When I got out my wallet, he aimed an alarmed palm up at me. ‘I do not want your money, man. Not at all.’

I left cash anyway. Asshole.

When I tried to flag him for another drink, he glanced my way, shook his head, and leaned in toward the woman he was chatting up. A few seconds later, she discreetly looked toward me, pretending she was stretching. Her mouth turned down as she nodded. That’s him. Nick Dunne. The bartender never came back.

You can’t yell, you can’t strong-arm: Hey, jackass, will you get me a goddamn drink or what? You can’t be the asshole they believe you are. You just have to sit and take it. But I wasn’t leaving. I sat with my empty glass in front of me and pretended I was thinking very hard. I checked my cell, just in case Andie had called. No. Then I pulled out my real phone and played a round of solitaire, pretending to be engrossed. My wife had done this to me, turned me into a man who couldn’t get a drink in his own hometown. God, I hated her.

‘Was it Scotch?’

A girl about Andie’s age was standing in front of me. Asian, black shoulder-length hair, cubicle-cute.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What you were drinking? Scotch?’

‘Yeah. Having trouble getting—’

She was gone, to the end of the bar, and she was nosing into the bartender’s line of vision with a big help me smile, a girl used to making her presence known, and then she was back with a Scotch in an actual big-boy tumbler.

‘Take it,’ she nudged, and I did. ‘Cheers.’ She held up her own clear, fizzing drink. We clinked glasses. ‘Can I sit?’ ‘I’m not staying long, actually—’ I looked around, making sure no one was aiming a cameraphone at us.

‘So, okay,’ she said with a shruggy smile. ‘I could pretend I don’t know you’re Nick Dunne, but I’m not going to insult you. I’m rooting for you, by the way. You’ve been getting a bad rap.’

‘Thanks. It’s, uh, it’s a weird time.’

‘I’m serious. You know how, in court, they talk about the CSI effect? Like, everyone on the jury has watched so much CSI that they believe science can prove anything?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, I think there’s an Evil Husband effect. Everyone has seen too many true-crime shows where the husband is always, always the killer, so people automatically assume the husband’s the bad guy.’

‘That’s exactly it,’ I said. ‘Thank you. That is exactly it. And Ellen Abbott—’

‘Fuck Ellen Abbott,’ my new friend said. ‘She’s a one-woman walking, talking, man-hating perversion of the justice system.’ She raised her glass again.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Another Scotch?’

‘That’s a gorgeous name.’

Her name, as it turned out, was Rebecca. She had a ready credit card and a hollow leg. (Another? Another? Another?) She was from Muscatine, Iowa (another Mississippi River town), and had moved to New York after undergrad to be a writer (also like me). She’d been an editorial assistant at three different magazines – a bridal magazine, a working-mom magazine, a teen-girl magazine – all of which had shuttered in the past few years, so she was now working for a crime blog called Whodunnit, and she was (giggle) in town to try to get an interview with me. Hell, I had to love her hungry-kid chutzpah: Just fly me to Carthage – the major networks haven’t gotten him, but I’m sure I can!

‘I’ve been waiting outside your house with the rest of the world, and then at the police station, and then I decided I needed a drink. And here you walk in. It’s just too perfect. Too weird, right?’ she said. She had little gold hoop earrings that she kept playing with, her hair tucked behind her ears.

‘I should go,’ I said. My words were sticky around the edges, the beginnings of a slur.

‘But you never told me why you’re here,’ Rebecca said. ‘I have to say, it takes a lot of courage, I think, for you to head out without a friend or some sort of backup. I bet you get a lot of shitty looks.’

I shrugged: No big deal.

‘People judging everything you do without even knowing you. Like you with the cell phone photo at the park. I mean, you were probably like me: You were raised to be polite. But no one wants the real story. They just want to … gotcha. You know?’

‘I’m just tired of people judging me because I fit into a certain mold.’

She raised her eyebrows; her earrings jittered.

I thought of Amy sitting in her mystery control center, wherever the fuck she was, judging me from every angle, finding me wanting even from afar. Was there anything she could see that would make her call off this madness?

I went on, ‘I mean, people think we were in a rocky marriage, but actually, right before she disappeared, she put together a treasure hunt for me.’

Amy would want one of two things: for me to learn my lesson and fry like the bad boy I was; or for me to learn my lesson and love her the way she deserved and be a good, obedient, chastised, dickless little boy.

‘This wonderful treasure hunt.’ I smiled. Rebecca shook her head with a little-V frown. ‘My wife, she always did a treasure hunt for our anniversary. One clue leads to a special place where I find the next clue, and so on. Amy …’ I tried to get my eyes to fill, settled for wiping them. The clock above the door read 12:37 a.m. ‘Before she went missing, she hid all the clues. For this year.’

‘Before she disappeared on your anniversary.’

‘And it’s been all that’s kept me together. It made me feel closer to her.’

Rebecca pulled out a Flip camera. ‘Let me interview you. On camera.’

‘Bad idea.’

‘I’ll give it context,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what you need, Nick, I swear. Context. You need it bad. Come on, just a few words.’

I shook my head. ‘Too dangerous.’

‘Say what you just said. I’m serious, Nick. I’m the opposite of Ellen Abbott. The anti–Ellen Abbott. You need me in your life.’ She held up the camera, its tiny red light eyeing me.

‘Seriously, turn it off.’

‘Help a girl out. I get the Nick Dunne interview? My career is made. You’ve done your good deed for the year. Pleeease? No harm, Nick, one minute. Just one minute. I swear I will only make you look good.’

She motioned to a nearby booth where we’d be tucked out of view of any gawkers. I nodded and we resettled, that little red light aimed at me the whole time.

‘What do you want to know?’ I asked.

‘Tell me about the treasure hunt. It sounds romantic. Like, quirky, awesome, romantic.’

Take control of the story, Nick. For both the capital-P public and the capital-C wife. Right now, I thought, I am a man who loves his wife and will find her. I am a man who loves his wife, and I am the good guy. I am the one to root for. I am a man who isn’t perfect, but my wife is, and I will be very, very obedient from now on.

I could do this more easily than feign sadness. Like I said, I can operate in sunlight. Still, I felt my throat tighten as I got ready to say the words.

‘My wife, she just happens to be the coolest girl I’ve ever met. How many guys can say that? I married the coolest girl I ever met.’

Youfuckingbitchyoufuckingbitchyoufuckingbitch. Come home so I can kill you.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

NINE DAYS GONE

I wake up feeling immediately nervous. Off. I cannot be found here, that’s what I wake up thinking, a burst of words, like a flash in my brain. The investigation is not going fast enough, and my money situation is just the opposite, and Jeff and Greta’s greedy antennae are up. And I smell like fish.

There was something about Jeff and that race to the shoreline, toward my bundled dress and my money belt. Something about the way Greta keeps alighting on Ellen Abbott. It makes me nervous. Or am I being paranoid? I sound like Diary Amy: Is my husband going to kill me or am I imagining!?!? For the first time I actually feel sorry for her.

I make two calls to the Amy Dunne tip line, and speak to two different people, and offer two different tips. It’s hard to tell how quickly they’ll reach the police – the volunteers seem utterly disinterested. I drive to the library in a dark mood. I need to pack up and leave. Clean my cabin with bleach, wipe my fingerprints off everything, vacuum for any hairs. Erase Amy (and Lydia and Nancy) and go. If I go, I’ll be safe. Even if Greta and Jeff do suspect who I am, as long as I’m not caught in the flesh, I’m okay. Amy Elliott Dunne is like a yeti – coveted and folkloric – and they are two Ozarks grifters whose blurry story will be immediately debunked. I will leave today. That’s what I decide when I walk with my head bowed into the chilly, mostly uninhabited library with its three vacant computers and I go online to catch up on Nick.

Since the vigil, the news about Nick has been on repeat – the same facts on a circuit, over and over, getting louder and louder, but with no new information. But today something is different. I type Nick’s name into the search engine, and the blogs are going nuts, because my husband has gotten drunk and done an insane interview, in a bar, with a random girl wielding a Flip camera. God, the idiot never learns.

NICK DUNNE’S VIDEO CONFESSION!!!

NICK DUNNE, DRUNKEN DECLARATIONS!!!

My heart jumps so high, my uvula begins pulsing. My husband has fucked himself again.

The video loads, and there is Nick. He has the sleepy eyes he gets when he’s drunk, the heavy lids, and he’s got his sideways grin, and he’s talking about me, and he looks like a human being. He looks happy. ‘My wife, she just happens to be the coolest girl I’ve ever met,’ he says. ‘How many guys can say that? I married the coolest girl I ever met.’

My stomach flutters delicately. I was not expecting this. I almost smile. ‘What’s so cool about her?’ the girl asks off-screen. Her voice is high, sorority-cheery.

Nick launches into the treasure hunt, how it was our tradition, how I always remembered hilarious inside jokes, and right now this was all he had left of me, so he had to complete the treasure hunt. It was his mission.

‘I just reached the end this morning,’ he says. His voice is husky. He has been talking over the crowd. He’ll go home and gargle with warm salt water, like his mother always made him do. If I were at home with him, he’d ask me to heat the water and make it for him, because he never got the right amount of salt. ‘And it made me … realize a lot. She is the only person in the world who has the power to surprise me, you know? Everyone else, I always know what they’re going to say, because everyone says the same thing. We all watch the same shows, we read the same stuff, we recycle everything. But Amy, she is her own perfect person. She just has this power over me.’

‘Where do you think she is now, Nick?’

My husband looks down at his wedding band and twirls it twice.

‘Are you okay, Nick?’

‘The truth? No. I failed my wife so entirely. I have been so wrong. I just hope it’s not too late. For me. For us.’

‘You’re at the end of your rope. Emotionally.’

Nick looks right at the camera. ‘I want my wife. I want her to be right here.’ He takes a breath. ‘I’m not the best at showing emotion. I know that. But I love her. I need her to be okay. She has to be okay. I have so much to make up to her.’

‘Like what?’

He laughs, the chagrined laugh that even now I find appealing. In better days, I used to call it the talk-show laugh: It was the quick downward glance, the scratching of a corner of the mouth with a casual thumb, the inhaled chuckle that a charming movie star always deploys right before telling a killer story.

‘Like, none of your business.’ He smiles. ‘I just have a lot to make up to her. I wasn’t the husband I could have been. We had a few hard years, and I … I lost my shit. I stopped trying. I mean, I’ve heard that phrase a thousand times: We stopped trying. Everyone knows it means the end of a marriage – it’s textbook. But I stopped trying. It was me. I wasn’t the man I needed to be.’ Nick’s lids are heavy, his speech off-kilter enough that his twang is showing. He is past tipsy, one drink before drunk. His cheeks are pink with alcohol. My fingertips glow, remembering the heat of his skin when he had a few cocktails in him.

‘So how would you make it up to her?’ The camera wobbles for a second; the girl is grabbing her cocktail.

‘How will I make it up to her. First I’m going to find her and bring her home. You can bet on that. Then? Whatever she needs from me, I’ll give her. From now on. Because I reached the end of the treasure hunt, and I was brought to my knees. Humbled. My wife has never been more clear to me than she is now. I’ve never been so sure of what I needed to do.’

‘If you could talk to Amy right now, what would you tell her?’

‘I love you. I will find you. I will …’

I can tell he is about to do the Daniel Day-Lewis line from The Last of the Mohicans: ‘Stay alive … I will find you.’ He can’t resist deflecting any sincerity with a quick line of movie dialogue. I can feel him teetering right on the edge of it. He stops himself.

‘I love you forever, Amy.’

How heartfelt. How unlike my husband.

Three morbidly obese hill people on motorized scooters are between me and my morning coffee. Their asses mushroom over the sides of the contraptions, but they still need another Egg McMuffin. There are literally three people, parked in front of me, in line, inside the McDonald’s.

I actually don’t care. I’m curiously cheerful despite this twist in the plan. Online, the video is already spiral-viraling away, and the reaction is surprisingly positive. Cautiously optimistic: Maybe this guy didn’t kill his wife after all. That is, word for word, the most common refrain. Because once Nick lets his guard down and shows some emotion, it’s all there. No one could watch that video and believe he was putting up an act. It was no swallow-the-pain sort of amateur theater. My husband loves me. Or at least last night he loved me. While I was plotting his doom in my crummy little cabin that smells of moldy towel, he loved me.

It’s not enough. I know that, of course. I can’t change my plan. But it gives me pause. My husband has finished the treasure hunt and he is in love. He is also deeply distressed: on one cheek I swear I could spot a hive.

I pull up to my cabin to find Dorothy knocking on my door. Her hair is wet from the heat, brushed straight back like a Wall Street slickster’s. She is in the habit of swiping her upper lip, then licking the sweat off her fingers, so she has her index finger in her mouth like a buttery corncob as she turns to me.

‘There she is,’ she says. ‘The truant.’

I am late on my cabin payment. Two days. It almost makes me laugh: I am late on rent.

‘I’m so sorry, Dorothy. I’ll come by with it in ten minutes.’

‘I’ll wait, if you don’t mind.’ ‘I’m not sure if I’m going to stay. I might have to head on.’

‘Then you’d still owe me the two days. Eighty dollars, please.’

I duck into my cabin, undo my flimsy money belt. I counted my cash on my bed this morning, taking a good long time doling out each bill, a teasing economic striptease, and the big reveal was that I have, somehow, I have only $8,849 left. It costs a lot to live.

When I open the door to hand Dorothy the cash ($8,769 left), I see Greta and Jeff hanging out on Greta’s porch, watching the cash exchange hands. Jeff isn’t playing his guitar, Greta isn’t smoking. They seem to be standing on her porch just to get a better look at me. They both wave at me, hey, sweetie, and I wave limply back. I close the door and start packing.

It’s strange how little I own in this world when I used to own so much. I don’t own an eggbeater or a soup bowl. I own sheets and towels, but I don’t own a decent blanket. I own a pair of scissors so I can keep my hair butchered. It makes me smile because Nick didn’t own a pair of scissors when we moved in together. No scissors, no iron, no stapler, and I remember asking him how he thought he was possibly civilized without a pair of scissors, and he said of course he wasn’t and swooped me up in his arms and threw me on the bed and pounced on top of me, and I laughed because I was still Cool Girl. I laughed instead of thinking about what it meant.

One should never marry a man who doesn’t own a decent set of scissors. That would be my advice. It leads to bad things.

I fold and pack my clothes in my tiny backpack – the same three outfits I bought and kept in my getaway car a month ago so I didn’t have to take anything from home. Toss in my travel toothbrush, calendar, comb, lotion, the sleeping pills I bought back when I was going to drug and drown myself. My cheap swimsuits. It takes such little time, the whole thing.

I put on my latex gloves and wipe down everything. I pull out the drains to get any trapped hair. I don’t really think Greta and Jeff know who I am, but if they do, I don’t want to leave any proof, and the whole time I say to myself, This is what you get for relaxing, this is what you get for not thinking all the time, all the time. You deserve to get caught, a girl who acts so stupidly, and what if you left hairs in the front office, then what, and what if there are fingerprints in Jeff’s car or Greta’s kitchen, what then, why did you ever think you could be someone who didn’t worry? I picture the police scouring the cabins, finding nothing, and then, like a movie, I go in for a close-up of one lone mousy hair of mine, drifting along the concrete floor of the pool, waiting to damn me.

Then my mind swings the other way: Of course no one is going to show up to look for you here. All the police have to go on is the claim of a few grifters that they saw the real Amy Elliott Dunne at a cheap broke-down cabin court in the middle of nowhere. Little people wanting to feel bigger, that’s what they’d assume.

An assertive knock at the door. The kind a parent gives right before swinging the door wide: I own this place. I stand in the middle of my room and debate not answering. Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device – the mysterious knock on the door – because it has the weight of a nightmare. You don’t know what’s out there, yet you know you’ll open it. You’ll think what I think: No one bad ever knocks.

Hey, sweetheart, we know you’re home, open up!

I strip off my latex gloves, open the door, and Jeff and Greta are standing on my porch, the sun to their backs, their features in shadow.

‘Hey, pretty lady, we come in?’ Jeff asks.

‘I actually – I was going to come see you guys,’ I say, trying to sound flippant, harried. ‘I’m leaving tonight – tomorrow or tonight. Got a call from back home, got to get going back home.’

‘Home Louisiana or home Savannah?’ Greta says. She and Jeff have been talking about me.

‘Louisi—’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jeff says, ‘let us in for a second, we come to say goodbye.’

He steps toward me, and I think about screaming or slamming the door, but I don’t think either will go well. Better to pretend everything is fine and hope that is true.

Greta closes the door behind them and leans against it as Jeff wanders into the tiny bedroom, then the kitchen, chatting about the weather. Opening doors and cabinets.

‘You got to clear everything out; Dorothy will keep your deposit if you don’t,’ he says. ‘She’s a stickler.’ He opens the refrigerator, peers into the crisper, the freezer. ‘Not even a jar of ketchup can you leave. I always thought that was weird. Ketchup doesn’t go bad.’

He opens the closet and lifts up the cabin bedding I’ve folded, shakes out the sheets. ‘I always, always shake out the sheets,’ he says. ‘Just to make sure nothing is inside – a sock or underwear or what have you.’

He opens the drawer of my bedside table, kneels down, and looks all the way to the back. ‘Looks like you’ve done a good job,’ he says, standing up and smiling, brushing his hands off on his jeans. ‘Got everything.’

He scans me, neck to foot and back up. ‘Where is it, sweetheart?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Your money.’ He shrugs. ‘Don’t make it hard. Me ’n her really need it.’

Greta is silent behind me.

‘I have about twenty bucks.’

‘Lie,’ Jeff said. ‘You pay for everything, even rent, in cash. Greta saw you with that big wad of money. So hand it over, and you can leave, and we all never have to see each other again.’

‘I’ll call the police.’

‘Go ahead! My guest.’ Jeff waits, arms crossed, thumbs in his armpits.

‘Your glasses are fake,’ Greta says. ‘They’re just glass.’

I say nothing, stare at her, hoping she’ll back down. These two seem just nervous enough they may change their minds, say they’re screwing with me, and the three of us will laugh and know otherwise but all agree to pretend.

‘And your hair, the roots are coming in, and they’re blond, a lot prettier than whatever color you dyed it – hamster – and that haircut is awful, by the way,’ Greta says. ‘You’re hiding – from whatever. I don’t know if it really is a guy or what, but you’re not going to call the police. So just give us the money.’

‘Jeff talk you into this?’ I ask.

‘I talked Jeff into it.’

I start toward the door that Greta’s blocking. ‘Let me out.’

‘Give us the money.’

I make a grab for the door, and Greta swings toward me, shoves me against the wall, one hand smashed over my face, and with the other, she pulls up my dress, yanks off the money belt.

‘Don’t, Greta, I’m serious! Stop!’

Her hot, salty palm is all over my face, jamming my nose; one of her fingernails scrapes my eye. Then she pushes me back against the wall, my head banging, my teeth coming down on the tip of my tongue. The whole scuffle is very quiet.

I have the buckle end of the belt in my hand, but I can’t see to fight her, my eye is watering too much, and she soon rips away my grip, leaving a burning scrape of fingernails on my knuckles. She shoves me again and opens the zipper, fingers through the money.

‘Holy shit,’ she says. ‘This is like’ – she counts – ‘more’n a thousand, two or three. Holy shit. Damn, girl! You rob a bank?’

‘She may have,’ Jeff says. ‘Embezzlement.’

In a movie, one of Nick’s movies, I would upthrust my palm into Greta’s nose, drop her to the floor bloody and unconscious, then roundhouse Jeff. But the truth is, I don’t know how to fight, and there are two of them, and it doesn’t seem worth it. I will run at them, and they will grab me by the wrists while I pat and fuss at them like a child, or they will get really angry and beat the crap out of me. I’ve never been hit. I’m scared of getting hurt by someone else.

‘You going to call the police, go ahead and call them,’ Jeff says again.

‘Fuck you,’ I whisper.

‘Sorry about this,’ Greta says. ‘Next place you go, be more careful, okay? You gotta not look like a girl traveling by herself, hiding out.’

‘You’ll be okay,’ Jeff says.

He pats me on the arm as they leave.

A quarter and a dime sit on the bedside table. It’s all my money in the world.

NICK DUNNE

NINE DAYS GONE

Good morning!

I sat in bed with my laptop by my side, enjoying the online reviews of my impromptu interview. My left eyeball was throbbing a bit, a light hangover from the cheap Scotch, but the rest of me was feeling pretty satisfied. Last night I cast the first line to lure my wife back in. I’m sorry, I will make it up to you, I will do whatever you want from now on, I will let the world know how special you are.

Because I was fucked unless Amy decided to show herself. Tanner’s detective (a wiry, clean-cut guy, not the boozy noir gumshoe I’d hoped for) had come up with nothing so far – my wife had disappeared herself perfectly. I had to convince Amy to come back to me, flush her out with compliments and capitulation.

If the reviews were any indication, I made the right call, because the reviews were good. They were very good:

The Iceman Melteth!

I KNEW he was a good guy.

In vino veritas!

Maybe he didn’t kill her after all.

Maybe he didn’t kill her after all.

Maybe he didn’t kill her after all.

And they’d stopped calling me Lance.

Outside my house, the cameramen and journalists were restless, they wanted a statement from the guy who Maybe Didn’t Kill Her After All. They were yelling at my drawn blinds: Hey, Nick, come on out, tell us about Amy. Hey, Nick, tell us about your treasure hunt. For them it was just a new wrinkle in a ratings bonanza, but it was much better than Nick, did you kill your wife?

And then, suddenly, they were yelling Go’s name – they loved Go, she had no poker face, you knew if Go was sad, angry, worried; stick a caption underneath, and you had a whole story. Margo, is your brother innocent? Margo, tell us about … Tanner, is your client innocent? Tanner—

The doorbell rang, and I opened the door while hiding behind it because I was still disheveled; my spiky hair and wilted boxers would tell their own story. Last night, on camera, I was adorably smitten, a tad tipsy, in vino veritastic. Now I just looked like a drunk. I closed the door and waited for two more glowing reviews of my performance.

‘You don’t ever – ever – do something like that again,’ Tanner started. ‘What the hell is wrong with you, Nick? I feel like I need to put one of those toddler leashes on you. How stupid can you be?’

‘Have you seen all the comments online? People love it. I’m turning around public opinion, like you told me to.’

‘You don’t do that kind of thing in an uncontrolled environment,’ he said. ‘What if she worked for Ellen Abbott? What if she started asking you questions that were harder than What do you want to say to your wife, cutie-pumpkin-pie?’ He said this is a girlish singsong. His face under the orange spray tan was red, giving him a radioactive palette.

‘I trusted my instincts. I’m a journalist, Tanner, you have to give me some credit that I can smell bullshit. She was genuinely sweet.’

He sat down on the sofa, put his feet on the ottoman that would never have flipped over on its own. ‘Yeah, well, so was your wife once,’ he said. ‘So was Andie once. How’s your cheek?’

It still hurt; the bite seemed to throb as he reminded me of it. I turned to Go for support.

‘It wasn’t smart, Nick,’ she said, sitting down across from Tanner. ‘You were really, really lucky – it turned out really well, but it might not have.’

‘You guys are really overreacting. Can we enjoy a small moment of good news? Just thirty seconds of good news in the past nine days? Please?’

Tanner pointedly looked at his watch. ‘Okay, go.’

When I started to talk, he popped his index finger, made the uhp-uhp noise that grown-ups make when children try to interrupt. Slowly, his index finger lowered, then landed on the watch face.

‘Okay, thirty seconds. Did you enjoy it?’ He paused to see if I’d say anything – the pointed silence a teacher allows after asking the disruptive student: Are you done talking? ‘Now we need to talk. We are in a place where excellent timing is absolutely key.’

‘I agree.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ He arched an eyebrow at me. ‘I want to go to the police very, very soon with the contents of the woodshed. While the hoi polloi is—’

Just hoi polloi, I thought, not the hoi polloi. It was something Amy had taught me.

‘—all loving on you again. Or, excuse me, not again. Finally. The reporters have found Go’s house, and I don’t feel secure leaving that woodshed, its contents, undisclosed much longer. The Elliotts are …?’

‘We can’t count on the Elliotts’ support anymore,’ I said. ‘Not at all.’ Another pause. Tanner decided not to lecture me, or even ask what happened.

‘So we need offense,’ I said, feeling untouchable, angry, ready.

‘Nick, don’t let one good turn make you feel indestructible,’ Go said. She pressed some extra-strengths from her purse into my hand. ‘Get rid of your hangover. You need to be on today.’ ‘It’s going to be okay,’ I told her. I popped the pills, turned to Tanner. ‘What do we do? Let’s make a plan.’

‘Great, here’s the deal,’ Tanner said. ‘This is incredibly unorthodox, but that’s me. Tomorrow we are doing an interview with Sharon Schieber.’

‘Wow, that’s … for sure?’ Sharon Schieber was as good as I could ask for: the top-rated (ages 30–55) network (broader reach than cable) newswoman (to prove I could have respectful relations with people who have vaginas) working today. She was known for dabbling very occasionally in the impure waters of true-crime journalism, but when she did, she got freakin’ righteous. Two years ago, she took under her silken wing a young mother who had been imprisoned for shaking her infant to death. Sharon Schieber presented a whole legal – and very emotional – defense case over a series of nights. The woman is now back home in Nebraska, remarried and expecting a child.

‘That’s for sure. She got in touch after the video went viral.’

‘So the video did help.’ I couldn’t resist.

‘It gave you an interesting wrinkle: Before the video, it was clear you did it. Now there’s a slight chance you didn’t. I don’t know how it is you finally seemed genuine—’

‘Because last night it served an actual purpose: Get Amy back,’ Go said. ‘It was an offensive maneuver. Where before it would just be indulgent, undeserved, disingenuous emotion.’

I gave her a thank-you smile.

‘Well, keep remembering that it is serving a purpose,’ Tanner said. ‘Nick, I’m not fucking around here: This is beyond unorthodox. Most lawyers would be shutting you up. But it’s something I’ve been wanting to try. The media has saturated the legal environment. With the Internet, Facebook, YouTube, there’s no such thing as an unbiased jury anymore. No clean slate. Eighty, ninety percent of a case is decided before you get in the courtroom. So why not use it – control the story. But it’s a risk. I want every word, every gesture, every bit of information planned out ahead of time. But you have to be natural, likable, or this will all backfire.’

‘Oh, that sounds simple,’ I said. ‘One hundred percent canned yet totally genuine.’

‘You have to be extremely careful with your wording, and we will tell Sharon that you won’t answer certain questions. She’ll ask you anyway, but we’ll teach you how to say, Because of certain prejudicial actions by the police involved in this case, I really, unfortunately, can’t answer that right now, as much as I’d like to – and say it convincingly.’

‘Like a talking dog.’

‘Sure, like a talking dog who doesn’t want to go to prison. We get Sharon Schieber to take you on as a cause, Nick, and we are golden. This is all incredibly unorthodox, but that’s me,’ Tanner said again. He liked the line; it was his theme music. He paused and furrowed his brow, doing his pretend-thinking gesture. He was going to add something I wouldn’t like.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You need to tell Sharon Schieber about Andie – because it’s going to come out, the affair, it just will.’

‘Right when people are finally starting to like me. You want me to undo that?’

‘I swear to you, Nick – how many cases have I handled? It always – somehow, some way, always comes out. This way we have control. You tell her about Andie and you apologize. Apologize literally as if your life depends on it. You had an affair, you are a man, a weak, stupid man. But you love your wife, and you will make it up to her. You do the interview, it’ll air the next night. All content is embargoed – so they can’t tease the Andie affair in their ads. They can just use the word bombshell.’

‘So you already told them about Andie?’

‘Good God, no,’ he said. ‘I told them: We have a nice bombshell for you. So you do the interview, and we have about twenty-four hours. Just before it hits TV, we tell Boney and Gilpin about Andie and about our discovery in the woodshed. Oh my gosh, we’ve put it all together for you: Amy is alive and she’s framing Nick! She’s crazy, jealous, and she is framing Nick! Oh, the humanity!’

‘Why not tell Sharon Schieber, then? About Amy framing me?’

‘Reason one. You come clean about Andie, you beg forgiveness, the nation is primed to forgive you, they’ll feel sorry for you – Americans love to see sinners apologize. But you can reveal nothing to make your wife look bad; no one wants to see the cheating husband blame the wife for anything. Let someone else do it sometime the next day: Sources close to the police reveal that Nick’s wife – the one he swore he loved with all his heart – is framing him! It’s great TV.’

‘What’s reason two?’

‘It’s too complicated to explain exactly how Amy is framing you. You can’t do it in a sound bite. It’s bad TV.’

‘I feel sick,’ I said.

‘Nick, it’s—’ Go started.

‘I know, I know, it has to be done. But can you imagine, your biggest secret and you have to tell the world about it? I know I have to do it. And it works for us, ultimately, I think. It’s the only way Amy might come back,’ I said. ‘She wants me to be publicly humiliated—’

‘Chastened,’ Tanner interrupted. ‘Humiliated makes it sound like you feel sorry for yourself.’

‘—and to publicly apologize,’ I continued. ‘But it’s going to be fucking awful.’

‘Before we go forward, I want to be honest here,’ Tanner said. ‘Telling the police the whole story – Amy’s framing Nick – it is a risk. Most cops, they decide on a suspect and they don’t want to veer at all. They’re not open to any other options. So there’s the risk that we tell them and they laugh us out of the station and they arrest you – and then theoretically we’ve just given them a preview of our defense. So they can plan exactly how to destroy it at trial.’

‘Okay, wait, that sounds really, really bad, Tanner,’ Go said. ‘Like, bad, inadvisable bad.’

‘Let me finish,’ Tanner said. ‘One, I think you’re right, Nick. I think Boney isn’t convinced you’re a killer. I think she would be open to an alternate theory. She has a good reputation as a cop who’s actually fair. As a cop who has good instincts. I talked with her. I got a good vibe. I think the evidence is leading her in your direction, but I think her gut is telling her something’s off. More important, if we do go to trial, I wouldn’t use the Amy frame-up as your defense, anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like I said, it’s too complicated, a jury wouldn’t be able to follow. If it’s not good TV, believe me, it’s not for a jury. We’d go with more of an O.J. thing. A simple story line: The cops are incompetent and out to get you, it’s all circumstantial, if the glove doesn’t fit, blah blah, blah.’

‘Blah blah blah, that gives me a lot of confidence,’ I said.

Tanner flashed a smile. ‘Juries love me, Nick. I’m one of them.’

‘You’re the opposite of one of them, Tanner.’

‘Reverse that: They’d like to think they’re one of me.’

Everything we did now, we did in front of small brambles of flashing paparazzi, so Go, Tanner, and I left the house under pops of light and pings of noise (‘Don’t look down,’ Tanner advised, ‘don’t smile, but don’t look ashamed. Don’t rush either, just walk, let them take their shots, and shut the door before you call them names. Then you can call them whatever you want.’) We were headed down to St. Louis, where the interview would take place, so I could prep with Tanner’s wife, Betsy, a former TV news anchor turned lawyer. She was the other Bolt in Bolt & Bolt.

It was a creepy tailgate party: Tanner and I, followed by Go, followed by a half-dozen news vans, but by the time the Arch crept over the skyline, I was no longer thinking of the paparazzi.

By the time we reached Tanner’s penthouse hotel suite, I was ready to do the work I needed to nail the interview. Again I longed for my own theme music: the montage of me getting ready for the big fight.

What’s the mental equivalent of a speed bag?

A gorgeous six-foot-tall black woman answered the door.

‘Hi, Nick, I’m Betsy Bolt.’

In my mind Betsy Bolt was a diminutive blond Southern-belle white girl.

‘Don’t worry, everyone is surprised when they meet me.’ Betsy laughed, catching my look, shaking my hand. ‘Tanner and Betsy, we sound like we should be on the cover of The Official Preppy Guide, right?’

‘Preppy Handbook,’ Tanner corrected as he kissed her on the cheek.

‘See? He actually knows,’ she said.

She ushered us into an impressive penthouse suite – a living room sunlit by wall-to-wall windows, with bedrooms shooting off each side. Tanner had sworn he couldn’t stay in Carthage, at the Days Inn, out of respect for Amy’s parents, but Go and I both suspected he couldn’t stay in Carthage because the closest five-star hotel was in St. Louis.

We engaged in the preliminaries: small talk about Betsy’s family, college, career (all stellar, A-list, awesome), and drinks dispersed for everyone (soda pops and Clamato, which Go and I had come to believe was an affectation of Tanner’s, a quirk he thought would give him character, like my wearing fake glasses in college). Then Go and I sank down into the leather sofa, Betsy sitting across from us, her legs pressed together to one side, like a slash mark. Pretty/professional. Tanner paced behind us, listening.

‘Okay. So, Nick,’ Betsy said. ‘I’ll be frank, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘You and TV. Aside from your bar-blog thingie, the Whodunnit. com thingie last night, you’re awful.’

‘There was a reason I went to print journalism,’ I said. ‘I see a camera, and my face freezes.’

‘Exactly,’ Betsy said. ‘You look like a mortician, so stiff. I got a trick to fix that, though.’

‘Booze?’ I asked. ‘That worked for me on the blog thingie.’

‘That won’t work here,’ Betsy said. She began setting up a video camera. ‘Thought we’d do a dry run first. I’ll be Sharon. I’ll ask the questions she’ll probably ask, and you answer the way you normally would. That way we can know how far off the mark you are.’ She laughed again. ‘Hold on.’ She was wearing a blue sheath dress, and from an oversize leather purse, she pulled a string of pearls. The Sharon Schieber uniform. ‘Tanner?’

Her husband fastened the pearls for her, and when they were in place, Betsy grinned. ‘I aim for absolute authenticity. Aside from my Georgia accent. And being black.’

‘I see only Sharon Schieber before me,’ I said.

She turned the camera on, sat down across from me, let out a breath, looked down, and then looked up. ‘Nick, there have been many discrepancies in this case,’ Betsy said in Sharon’s plummy broadcast voice. ‘To begin with, can you walk our audience through the day your wife went missing?’

‘Here, Nick, you only discuss the anniversary breakfast you two had,’ Tanner interrupted. ‘Since that is already out there. But you don’t give time lines, you don’t discuss before and after breakfast. You are emphasizing only this wonderful last breakfast you had. Okay, go.’

‘Yes.’ I cleared my throat. The camera was blinking red; Betsy had her quizzical-journalist expression on. ‘Uh, as you know, it was our five-year anniversary, and Amy got up early and was making crepes—’

Betsy’s arm shot out, and my cheek suddenly stung.

‘What the hell?’ I said, trying to figure out what had happened. A cherry-red jellybean was in my lap. I held it up.

‘Every time you tense up, every time you turn that handsome face into an undertaker’s mask, I am going to hit you with a jellybean,’ Betsy explained, as if the whole thing were quite reasonable.

‘And that’s supposed to make me less tense?’

‘It works,’ Tanner said. ‘It’s how she taught me. I think she used rocks with me, though.’ They exchanged oh, you! married smiles. I could tell already: They were one of those couples who always seemed to be starring in their own morning talk show.

‘Now start again, but linger over the crepes,’ Betsy said. ‘Were they your favorites? Or hers? And what were you doing that morning for your wife while she was making crepes for you?’

‘I was sleeping.’

‘What had you bought her for a gift?’

‘I hadn’t yet.’

‘Oh, boy.’ She rolled her eyes over to her husband. ‘Then be really, really, really complimentary about those crepes, okay? And about what you were going to get her that day for a present. Because I know you were not coming back to that house without a present.’

We started again, and I described our crepe tradition that wasn’t really, and I described how careful and wonderful Amy was with picking out gifts (here another jellybean smacked just right of my nose, and I immediately loosened my jaw) and how I, dumb guy (‘Definitely play up the doofus-husband stuff,’ Betsy advised) was still trying to come up with something dazzling.

‘It wasn’t like she even liked expensive or fancy presents,’ I began, and was hit with a paper ball from Tanner.

‘What?’

‘Past tense. Stop using fucking past tense about your wife.’

‘I understand you and your wife had some bumps,’ Betsy continued.

‘It had been a rough few years. We’d both lost our jobs.’

‘Good, yes!’ Tanner called. ‘You both had.’

‘We’d moved back here to help care for my dad, who has Alzheimer’s, and my late mother, who had cancer, and on top of that I was working very hard at my new job.’

‘Good, Nick, good,’ Tanner said.

‘Be sure to mention how close you were with your mom,’ Betsy said, even though I’d never mentioned my mom to her. ‘No one will pop up to deny that, right? No Mommy Dearest or Sonny Dearest stories out there?’

‘No, my mom and I were very close.’

‘Good,’ said Betsy. ‘Mention her a lot, then. And that you own the bar with your sister – always mention your sister when you mention the bar. If you own a bar on your own, you’re a player; if you own it with your beloved twin sister, you’re—’

‘Irish.’

‘Go on.’

‘And so it all built up—’ I started.

‘No,’ Tanner said. ‘Implies building up to an explosion.’

‘So we had gotten off track a little, but I was considering our five-year anniversary as a time to revive our relationship—’

‘Recommit to our relationship,’ Tanner called. ‘Revive means something was dead.’

‘Recommit to our relationship—’

‘And so how does fucking a twenty-three-year-old figure in to this rejuvenative picture?’ Betsy asked.

Tanner lobbed a jellybean her way. ‘A little out of character, Bets.’

‘I’m sorry, guys, but I’m a woman, and that smells like bullshit, like mile-away bullshit. Recommit to the relationship, please. That girl was still in the picture when Amy went missing. Women are going to hate you, Nick, unless you suck it up. Be up-front, don’t stall. You can add it on: We lost our jobs, we moved, my parents were dying. Then I fucked up. I fucked up huge. I lost track of who I was, and unfortunately, it took losing Amy to realize it. You have to admit you’re a jerk and that everything was all your fault.’

‘So, like, what men are supposed to do in general,’ I said.

Betsy flung an annoyed look at the ceiling. ‘And that’s an attitude, Nick, you should be real careful on.’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

NINE DAYS GONE

I am penniless and on the run. How fucking noir. Except that I am sitting in my Festiva at the far end of the parking lot of a vast fast-food complex on the banks of the Mississippi River, the smell of salt and factory-farm meat floating on the warm breezes. It is evening now – I’ve wasted hours – but I can’t move. I don’t know where to move to. The car gets smaller by the hour – I am forced to curl up like a fetus or my legs fall asleep. I certainly won’t sleep tonight. The door is locked, but I still await the tap on the window, and I know I will peek up and see either a crooked-toothed, sweet-talking serial killer (wouldn’t that be ironic, for me to actually be murdered?) or a stern, ID-demanding cop (wouldn’t that be worse, for me to be discovered in a parking lot looking like a hobo?). The glowing restaurant signs never go off here; the parking lot is lit like a football field – I think of suicide again, how a prisoner on suicide watch spends twenty-four hours a day under lights, an awful thought. My gas tank is below the quarter mark, an even more awful thought: I can drive only about an hour in any direction, so I must choose the direction carefully. South is Arkansas, north is Iowa, west is back to the Ozarks. Or I could go east, cross the river into Illinois. Everywhere I go is the river. I’m following it or it’s following me.

I know, suddenly, what I must do.

NICK DUNNE

TEN DAYS GONE

We spent the day of the interview huddled in the spare bedroom of Tanner’s suite, prepping my lines, fixing my look. Betsy fussed over my clothes, then Go trimmed the hair above my ears with nail scissors while Betsy tried to talk me into using makeup – powder – to cut down on shine. We all spoke in low voices because Sharon’s crew was setting up outside; the interview would be in the suite’s living room, overlooking the St. Louis Arch. Gateway to the West. I’m not sure what the point of the landmark was except to serve as a vague symbol of the middle of the country: You Are Here.

‘You need at least a little powder, Nick,’ Betsy finally said, coming at me with the puff. ‘Your nose sweats when you get nervous. Nixon lost an election on nose sweat.’ Tanner oversaw it all like a conductor. ‘Not too much off that side, Go,’ he’d call. ‘Bets, be very careful with that powder, better too little than too much.’

‘We should have Botoxed him,’ she said. Apparently, Botox fights sweat as well as wrinkles – some of their clients got a series of underarm shots before a trial, and they were already suggesting such a thing for me. Gently, subtly suggesting, should we go to trial.

‘Yeah, I really need the press to get wind that I was having Botox treatments while my wife was missing,’ I said. ‘Is missing.’ I knew Amy wasn’t dead, but I also knew she was so far out of my reach that she might as well be. She was a wife in past tense.

‘Good catch,’ Tanner said. ‘Next time do it before it comes out of your mouth.’

At five p.m., Tanner’s phone rang, and he looked at the display. ‘Boney.’ He sent it to voice mail. ‘I’ll call her after.’ He didn’t want any new bit of information, interrogation, gossip to force us to reformulate our message. I agreed: I didn’t want Boney in my head just then.

‘You sure we shouldn’t see what she wants?’ Go said.

‘She wants to fuck with me some more,’ I said. ‘We’ll call her. A few hours. She can wait.’

We all rearranged ourselves, a mass group reassurance that the call was nothing to worry about. The room stayed silent for half a minute.

‘I have to say, I’m strangely excited to get to meet Sharon Schieber,’ Go finally said. ‘Very classy lady. Not like that Connie Chung.’

I laughed, which was the intention. Our mother had loved Sharon Schieber and hated Connie Chung – she’d never forgiven her for embarrassing Newt Gingrich’s mother on TV, something about Newt calling Hilary Clinton a b-i-t-c-h. I don’t remember the actual interview, just our mom’s outrage over it.

At six p.m. we entered the room, where two chairs were set up facing each other, the Arch in the background, the timing picked precisely so the Arch would glow but there would be no sunset glare on the windows. One of the most important moments of my life, I thought, dictated by the angle of the sun. A producer whose name I wouldn’t remember clicked toward us on dangerously high heels and explained to me what I should expect. Questions could be asked several times, to make the interview seem as smooth as possible, and to allow for Sharon’s reaction shots. I could not speak to my lawyer before giving an answer. I could rephrase an answer but not change the substance of the answer. Here’s some water, let’s get you miked.

We started to move over to the chair, and Betsy nudged my arm. When I looked down, she showed me a pocket of jellybeans. ‘Remember …’ she said, and tsked her finger at me.

Suddenly, the suite door swung wide and Sharon Schieber entered, as smooth as if she were being borne by a team of swans. She was a beautiful woman, a woman who had probably never looked girlish. A woman whose nose probably never sweated. She had thick dark hair and giant brown eyes that could look doelike or wicked.

‘It’s Sharon!’ Go said, a thrilled whisper to imitate our mom.

Sharon turned to Go and nodded majestically, came over to greet us. ‘I’m Sharon,’ she said in a warm, deep voice, taking both of Go’s hands.

‘Our mother loved you,’ Go said.

‘I’m so glad,’ Sharon said, managing to sound warm. She turned to me and was about to speak when her producer clicked up on high heels and whispered in her ear. Then waited for Sharon’s reaction, then whispered again.

‘Oh. Oh my God,’ Sharon said. When she turned back to me, she wasn’t smiling at all.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

TEN DAYS GONE

I have made a call: to make a call. The meeting can’t happen until this evening – there are predictable complications – so I kill the day by primping and prepping.

I clean myself in a McDonald’s bathroom – green gel on wet paper towels – and change into a cheap, papery sundress. I think about what I’ll say. I am surprisingly eager. The shithole life was wearing on me: the communal washing machine with someone’s wet underwear always stuck in the rungs at the top, to be peeled out by hesitant pincered fingers; the corner of my cabin rug that was forever mysteriously damp; the dripping faucet in the bathroom.

At 5 o’clock, I begin driving north to the meeting spot, a river casino called Horseshoe Alley. It appears out of nowhere, a blinking neon clump in the middle of a scrawny forest. I roll in on fumes – a cliché I’ve never put to practice – park the car, and take in the view: a migration of the elderly, scuttling like broken insects on walkers and canes, jerking oxygen tanks toward the bright lights. Sliding in and out of the groups of octogenarians are hustling, overdressed boys who’ve watched too many Vegas movies and don’t know how poignant they are, trying to imitate Rat Pack cool in cheap suits in the Missouri woods.

I enter under a glowing billboard promoting – for two nights only – the reunion of a ’50s doo-wop group. Inside, the casino is frigid and close. The penny slots clink and clang, joyful electronic chirps that don’t match the dull, drooping faces of the people sitting in front of the machines, smoking cigarettes above dangling oxygen masks. Penny in penny in penny in penny in penny in ding-ding-ding! penny in penny in. The money that they waste goes to the underfunded public schools that their bored, blinking grandchildren attend. Penny in penny in. A group of wasted boys stumble past, a bachelor party, the boys’ lips wet from shots; they don’t even notice me, husky and Hamill-haired. They are talking about girls, get us some girls, but besides me, the only girls I see are golden. The boys will drink away their disappointment and try not to kill fellow motorists on the way home.

I wait in a pocket bar to the far left of the casino entrance, as planned, and watch the aged boy band sing to a large snowy-haired audience, snapping and clapping along, shuffling gnarled fingers through bowls of complimentary peanuts. The skeletal singers, withered beneath bedazzled tuxes, spin slowly, carefully, on replaced hips, the dance of the moribund.

The casino seemed like a good idea at first – right off the highway, filled with drunks and elderly, neither of whom are known for eyesight. But I am feeling crowded and fidgety, aware of the cameras in every corner, the doors that could snap shut.

I am about to leave when he ambles up.

‘Amy.’

I’ve called devoted Desi to my aid (and abet). Desi, with whom I’ve never entirely lost touch, and who – despite what I’ve told Nick, my parents – doesn’t unnerve me in the slightest. Desi, another man along the Mississippi. I always knew he might come in handy. It’s good to have at least one man you can use for anything. Desi is a white-knight type. He loves troubled women. Over the years, after Wickshire, when we’d talk, I’d ask after his latest girlfriend, and no matter the girl, he would always say: ‘Oh, she’s not doing very well, unfortunately.’ But I know it is fortunate for Desi – the eating disorders, the painkiller addictions, the crippling depressions. He is never happier than when he’s at a bedside. Not in bed, just perched nearby with broth and juice and a gently starched voice. Poor darling.

Now he is here, dashing in a white midsummer suit (Desi changes wardrobes monthly – what was appropriate for June would not work for July – I’ve always admired the discipline, the precision of the Collings’s costuming). He looks good. I don’t. I am too aware of my humid glasses, the extra roll of flesh at my waist.

‘Amy.’ He touches my cheek, then pulls me in for an embrace.

Not a hug, Desi doesn’t hug, it’s more like being encased by something tailored just to you. ‘Sweetheart. You can’t imagine. That call. I thought I’d gone insane. I thought I was making you up! I’d daydreamed about it, that somehow you were alive, and then. That call. Are you okay?’

‘I am now,’ I say. ‘I feel safe now. It’s been awful.’ And then I burst into tears, actual tears, which hadn’t been the plan, but they feel so relieving, and they fit the moment so perfectly, that I let myself unravel entirely. The stress drips off me: the nerve of enacting the plan, the fear of being caught, the loss of my money, the betrayal, the manhandling, the pure wildness of being on my own for the first time in my life.

I look quite pretty after a cry of about two minutes – longer than that and the nose goes runny, the puffiness sets in, but up to that, my lips gets fuller, my eyes bigger, my cheeks flushed. I count as I cry into Desi’s crisp shoulder, one Mississippi, two Mississippi – that river again – and I curb the tears at one minute and forty-eight seconds.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, sweetheart,’ Desi says.

‘I know how full Jacqueline keeps your schedule,’ I demur. Desi’s mom is a touchy subject in our relationship.

He studies me. ‘You look very … different,’ he says. ‘So full in the face, especially. And your poor hair is—’ He catches himself. ‘Amy. I just never thought I could be so grateful for anything. Tell me what’s happened.’

I tell a Gothic tale of possessiveness and rage, of Midwest steak-and-potato brutality, barefoot pregnancy, animalistic dominance. Of rape and pills and liquor and fists. Pointed cowboy boots in the ribs, fear and betrayal, parental apathy, isolation, and Nick’s final telling words: ‘You can never leave me. I will kill you. I will find you no matter what. You are mine.’

How I had to disappear for my own safety and the safety of my unborn child, and how I needed Desi’s help. My savior. My story would satisfy Desi’s craving for ruined women – I was now the most damaged of them all. Long ago, back in boarding school, I’d told him about my father’s nightly visits to my bedroom, me in a ruffly pink nightgown, staring at the ceiling until he was done. Desi has loved me ever since the lie, I know he pictures making love to me, how gentle and reassuring he would be as he plunged into me, stroking my hair. I know he pictures me crying softly as I give myself to him.

‘I can’t ever go back to my old life, Desi. Nick will kill me. I’ll never feel safe. But I can’t let him go to prison. I just wanted to disappear. I didn’t realize the police would think he did it.’

I glance prettily toward the band onstage, where a skeletal septuagenarian is singing about love. Not far from our table, a straight-backed guy with a trim mustache tosses his cup toward a trash can near us and bricks (a term I learned from Nick). I wish I’d picked a more picturesque spot. And now the guy is looking at me, tilting his head toward the side, in exaggerated confusion. If he were a cartoon, he’d scratch his head, and it would make a rubbery wiik-wiik sound. For some reason, I think: He looks like a cop. I turn my back to him.

‘Nick is the last thing for you to worry about,’ Desi said. ‘Give that worry to me and I’ll take care of it.’ He holds out his hand, an old gesture. He is my worry-keeper; it is a ritual game we played as teens. I pretend to place something in his palm and he closes his fingers over it and I actually feel better.

‘No, I won’t take care of it. I do hope Nick dies for what he did to you,’ he said. ‘In a sane society, he would.’

‘Well, we’re in an insane society, so I need to stay hidden,’ I said. ‘Do you think that’s horrible of me?’ I already know the answer.

‘Sweetheart, of course not. You are doing what you’ve been forced to do. It would be madness to do anything else.’

He doesn’t ask anything about the pregnancy. I knew he wouldn’t.

‘You’re the only one who knows,’ I say.

‘I’ll take care of you. What can I do?’

I pretend to balk, chew the edge of my lip, look away and then back to Desi. ‘I need money to live on for a bit. I thought about getting a job, but—’

‘Oh, no, don’t do that. You are everywhere, Amy – on all the newscasts, all the magazines. Someone would recognize you. Even with this’ – he touches my hair – ‘new sporty cut of yours. You’re a beautiful woman, and it’s difficult for beautiful women to disappear.’

‘Unfortunately, I think you’re right,’ I say. ‘I just don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage. I just didn’t know where else to—’

The waitress, a plain brunette disguised as a pretty brunette, drops by, sets our drinks on the table. I turn my face from her and see that the mustached curious guy is standing a little closer, watching me with a half smile. I am off my game. Old Amy never would have come here. My mind is addled by Diet Coke and my own body odor.

‘I ordered you a gin and tonic,’ I say.

Desi gives a delicate grimace.

‘What?’ I ask, but I already know.

‘That’s my spring drink. I’m Jack and gingers now.’

‘Then we’ll get you one of those, and I’ll have your gin.’

‘No, it’s fine, don’t worry.’

The lookiloo appears again in my peripheral. ‘Is that guy, that guy with the mustache – don’t look now – is he staring at me?’

Desi gives a flick of a glance, shakes his head. ‘He’s watching the … singers.’ He says the word dubiously. ‘You don’t just want a little bit of cash. You’ll get tired of this subterfuge. Not being able to look people in the face. Living among’ – he spread his arms out to include the whole casino – ‘people with whom I assume you don’t have much in common. Living below your means.’

‘That’s what it is for the next ten years. Until I’ve aged enough and the story has gone away and I can feel comfortable.’

‘Ha! You’re willing to do that for ten years? Amy?’

‘Sh, don’t say the name.’

‘Cathy or Jenny or Megan or whatever, don’t be ludicrous.’

The waitress returns, and Desi hands her a twenty and dismisses her. She walks away grinning. Holding the twenty up like it is novel. I take a sip of my drink. The baby won’t mind.

‘I don’t think Nick would press charges if you return,’ Desi says.

‘What?’

‘He came by to see me. I think he knows that he’s to blame—’

‘He went to see you? When?’

‘Last week. Before I’d talked to you, thank God.’

Nick has shown more interest in me these past ten days than he has in the past few years. I’ve always wanted a man to get in a fight over me – a brutal, bloody fight. Nick going to interrogate Desi, that’s a nice start.

‘What did he say?’ I ask. ‘How did he seem?’

‘He seemed like a top-drawer asshole. He wanted to pin it on me. Told me some insane story about how I—’

I’d always liked that lie about Desi trying to kill himself over me. He had truly been devastated by our breakup, and he’d been really annoying, creepy, hanging around campus, hoping I’d take him back.

So he might as well have attempted suicide.

‘What did Nick say about me?’

‘I think he knows that he can never hurt you now that the world knows and cares about who you are. He’d have to let you come back safely, and you could divorce him and marry the right man.’ He took a sip. ‘At long last.’

‘I can’t come back, Desi. Even if people believed everything about Nick’s abuse. I’d still be the one they hated – I was the one who tricked them. I’d be the biggest pariah in the world.’

‘You’d be my pariah, and I’d love you no matter what, and I’d shield you from everything,’ Desi said. ‘You would never have to deal with any of it.’

‘We’d never be able to socialize with anyone again.’

‘We could leave the country if you want. Live in Spain, Italy, wherever you like, spend our days eating mangoes in the sun. Sleep late, play Scrabble, flip through books aimlessly, swim in the ocean.’

‘And when I died, I’d be some bizarre footnote – a freak show. No. I do have pride, Desi.’

‘I’m not letting you go back to the trailer-park life. I’m not. Come with me, we’ll set you up in the lake house. It’s very secluded. I’ll bring groceries and anything you need, anytime. You can hide out, all alone, until we decide what to do.’

Desi’s lake house was a mansion, and bringing groceries was becoming my lover. I could feel the need coming off him like heat. He was squirming a little under his suit, wanting to make it happen. Desi was a collector: He had four cars, three houses, suites of suits and shoes. He would like knowing I was stowed away under glass. The ultimate white-knight fantasy: He steals the abused princess from her squalid circumstances and places her under his gilded protection in a castle that no one can breach but him.

‘I can’t do that. What if the police find out somehow and they come to search?’

‘Amy, the police think you’re dead.’

‘No, I should be on my own for now. Can I just have a little cash from you?’

‘What if I say no?’

‘Then I’ll know your offer to help me isn’t genuine. That you’re like Nick and you just want control over me, however you can get it.’

Desi was silent, swallowing his drink with a tight jaw. ‘That’s a rather monstrous thing to say.’

‘It’s a rather monstrous way to act.’

‘I’m not acting that way,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about you. Try the lake house. If you feel cramped by me, if you feel uncomfortable, you leave. The worst that can happen is you get a few days’ rest and relaxation.’

The mustached guy is suddenly at our table, a flickering smile on his face. ‘Ma’am, I don’t suppose you’re any relation to the Enloe family, are you?’ he asks.

‘No,’ I say, and turn away.

‘Sorry, you just look like some—’

‘We’re from Canada, now excuse us,’ Desi snaps, and the guy rolls his eyes, mutters a jeez, and strolls back to the bar. But he keeps glancing at me.

‘We should leave,’ Desi says. ‘Come to the lake house. I’ll take you there now.’ He stands.

Desi’s lake house would have a grand kitchen, it would have rooms I could traipse around in – I could ‘hills are alive’ twirl in them, the rooms would be so massive. The house would have Wi-Fi and cable – for all my command-center needs – and a gaping bathtub and plush robes and a bed that didn’t threaten to collapse.

It would have Desi too, but Desi could be managed.

At the bar, the guy is still staring at me, less benevolently.

I lean over and kiss Desi gently on the lips. It has to seem like my decision. ‘You’re such a wonderful man. I’m sorry to put you in this situation.’

‘I want to be in this situation, Amy.’

We are on our way out, walking past a particularly depressing bar, TVs buzzing in all corners, when I see the Slut.

The Slut is holding a press conference.

Andie looks tiny and harmless. She looks like a babysitter, and not a sexy porn babysitter but the girl from down the road, the one who actually plays with the kids. I know this is not the real Andie, because I have followed her in real life. In real life she wears snug tops that show off her breasts, and clingy jeans, and her hair long and wavy. In real life she looks fuckable.

Now she is wearing a ruffled shirtdress with her hair tucked behind her ears, and she looks like she’s been crying, you can tell by the small pink pads beneath her eyes. She looks exhausted and nervous but very pretty. Prettier than I’d thought before. I never saw her this close up. She has freckles.

‘Ohhhh, shit,’ says one woman to her friend, a cheap-cabernet redhead.

‘Oh noooo, I was actually starting to feel bad for the guy,’ says the friend.

‘I have crap in my fridge older than that girl. What an asshole.’

Andie stands behind the mike and looks down with dark eyelashes at a statement that leaf-shakes in her hand. Her upper lip is damp; it shines under the camera lights. She swipes an index finger to blot the sweat. ‘Um. My statement is this: I did engage in an affair with Nick Dunne from April 2011 until July of this year, when his wife, Amy Dunne, went missing. Nick was my professor at North Carthage Junior College, and we became friendly, and then the relationship became more.’

Andie stops to clear her throat. A dark-haired woman behind her, not much older than I am, hands her a glass of water, which she slurps quickly, the glass shaking.

‘I am deeply ashamed of having been involved with a married man. It goes against all my values. I truly believed I was in love’ – she begins crying; her voice shivers – ‘with Nick Dunne and that he was in love with me. He told me that his relationship with his wife was over and that they would be divorcing soon. I did not know that Amy Dunne was pregnant. I am cooperating with the police in their investigation in the disappearance of Amy Dunne, and I will do everything in my power to help.’

Her voice is tiny, childish. She looks up at the wall of cameras in front of her and seems shocked, looks back down. Two apples turn red on her round cheeks.

‘I … I.’ She begins sobbing, and her mother – that woman has to be her mother, they have the same oversize anime eyes – puts an arm on her shoulder. Andie continues reading. ‘I am so sorry and ashamed for what I have done. And I want to apologize to Amy’s family for any role I played in their pain. I am cooperating with the police in their investi—Oh, I said that already.’

She smiles a weak, embarrassed smile, and the press corps chuckle encouragingly.

‘Poor little thing,’ says the redhead.

She is a little slut, she is not to be pitied. I cannot believe anyone would feel sorry for Andie. I literally refuse to believe it.

‘I am a twenty-three-year-old student,’ she continues. ‘I ask only for some privacy to heal during this very painful time.’

‘Good luck with that,’ I mutter as Andie backs away and a police officer declines to take any questions and they walk off camera. I catch myself leaning to the left as if I could follow them.

‘Poor little lamb,’ says the older woman. ‘She seemed terrified.’

‘I guess he did do it after all.’

‘Over a year he was with her.’

‘Slimebag.’

Desi gives me a nudge and widens his eyes in a question: Did I know about the affair? Was I okay? My face is a mask of fury – poor little lamb, my ass – but I can pretend it is because of this betrayal. I nod, smile weakly. I am okay. We are about to leave when I see my parents, holding hands as always, stepping up to the mike in tandem. My mother looks like she’s just gotten her hair cut. I wonder if I should be annoyed that she paused in the middle of my disappearance for personal grooming. When someone dies and the relatives carry on, you always hear them say so-and-so would have wanted it that way. I don’t want it that way.

My mother speaks. ‘Our statement is brief, and we will take no questions afterward. First, thank you for the tremendous outpouring for our family. It seems the world loves Amy as much as we do. Amy: We miss your warm voice and your good humor, and your quick wit and your good heart. You are indeed amazing. We will return you to our family. I know we will. Second, we did not know that our son-in-law, Nick Dunne, was having an affair until this morning. He has been, since the beginning of this nightmare, less involved, less interested, less concerned than he should be. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, we attributed this behavior to shock. With our new knowledge, we no longer feel this way. We have withdrawn our support from Nick accordingly. As we move forward with the investigation, we can only hope that Amy comes back to us. Her story must continue. The world is ready for a new chapter.’

Amen, says someone.

NICK DUNNE

TEN DAYS GONE

The show was over, Andie and the Elliotts gone from view. Sharon’s producer kicked the TV off with the point of her heel. Everyone in the room was watching me, waiting for an explanation, the party guest who just shat on the floor. Sharon gave me a too-bright smile, an angry smile that strained her Botox. Her face folded in the wrong spots.

‘Well?’ she said in her calm, plummy voice. ‘What the fuck was that?’

Tanner stepped in. ‘That was the bombshell. Nick was and is fully prepared to disclose and discuss his actions. I’m sorry about the timing, but in a way, it’s better for you, Sharon. You’ll get the first react from Nick.’

‘You’d better have some goddamn interesting things to say, Nick.’ She breezed away, calling, ‘Mike him, we do this now’ to no one in particular.

Sharon Schieber, it turned out, fucking adored me. In New York I’d always heard rumors that she’d been a cheat herself and returned to her husband, a very hush-hush inside-journalism story. That was almost ten years ago, but I figured the urge to absolve might still be there. It was. She beamed, she coddled, she cajoled and teased. She pursed those full, glossy lips at me in deep sincerity – a knuckled hand under her chin – and asked me her hard questions, and for once I answered them well. I am not a liar of Amy’s dazzling caliber, but I’m not bad when I have to be. I looked like a man who loved his wife, who was shamed by his infidelities and ready to do right. The night before, sleepless and nervy, I’d gone online and watched Hugh Grant on Leno, 1995, apologizing to the nation for getting lewd with a hooker. Stuttering, stammering, squirming as if his skin were two sizes too small. But no excuses: ‘I think you know in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad thing, and I did a bad thing … and there you have it.’ Damn, the guy was good – he looked sheepish, nervous, so shaky you wanted to take his hand and say, Buddy, it’s not that big a deal, don’t beat yourself up. Which was the effect I was going for. I watched that clip so many times, I was in danger of borrowing a British accent.

I was the ultimate hollow man: the husband that Amy always claimed couldn’t apologize finally did, using words and emotions borrowed from an actor.

But it worked. Sharon, I did a bad thing, an unforgivable thing. I can’t make any excuses for it. I let myself down – I’ve never thought of myself as a cheater. It’s inexcusable, it’s unforgivable, and I just want Amy to come home so I can spend the rest of my life making it up to her, treating her how she deserves.

Oh, I’d definitely like to treat her how she deserves.

But here’s the thing, Sharon: I did not kill Amy. I would never hurt her. I think what’s happening here is what I’ve been calling [a chuckle] in my mind the Ellen Abbott effect. This embarrassing, irresponsible brand of journalism. We are so used to seeing these murders of women packaged as entertainment, which is disgusting, and in these shows, who is guilty? It’s always the husband. So I think the public and, to an extent, even the police have been hammered into believing that’s always the case. From the beginning, it was practically assumed I had killed my wife – because that’s the story we are told time after time – and that’s wrong, that’s morally wrong. I did not kill my wife. I want her to come home.

I knew Sharon would like an opportunity to paint Ellen Abbott as a sensationalistic ratings whore. I knew regal Sharon with her twenty years in journalism, her interviews with Arafat and Sarkozy and Obama, would be offended by the very idea of Ellen Abbott. I am (was) a journalist, I know the drill, and so when I said those words – the Ellen Abbott effect – I recognized Sharon’s mouth twitch, the delicately raised eyebrows, the lightening of her whole visage. It was the look when you realize: I got my angle.

At the end of the interview, Sharon took both my hands in hers – cool, a bit callused, I’d read she was an avid golfer – and wished me well. ‘I will be keeping a close eye on you, my friend,’ she said, and then she was kissing Go on the cheek and swishing away from us, the back of her dress a battlefield of stickpins to keep the material in front from slouching.

‘You fucking did that perfectly,’ Go pronounced as she headed to the door. ‘You seem totally different than before. In charge but not cocky. Even your jaw is less … dickish.’

‘I unclefted my chin.’

‘Almost, yeah. See you back home.’ She actually gave me a go-champ punch to the shoulder.

I followed the Sharon Schieber interview with two quickies – one cable and one network. Tomorrow the Schieber interview would air, and then the others would roll out, a domino of apologetics and remorse. I was taking control. I was no longer going to settle for being the possibly guilty husband or the emotionally removed husband or the heartlessly cheating husband. I was the guy everyone knew – the guy many men (and women) have been: I cheated, I feel like shit, I will do what needs to be done to fix the situation because I am a real man.

‘We are in decent shape,’ Tanner pronounced as we wrapped up. ‘The thing with Andie, it won’t be as awful as it might have been, thanks to the interview with Sharon. We just need to stay ahead of everything else from now on.’

Go phoned, and I picked up. Her voice was thin and high.

‘The cops are here with a warrant for the woodshed … they’re at Dad’s house too. They’re … I’m scared.’

Go was in the kitchen smoking a cigarette when we arrived, and judging from the overflow in the kitschy ’70s ashtray, she was on her second pack. An awkward, shoulderless kid with a crew cut and a police officer’s uniform sat next to her on one of the bar stools.

‘This is Tyler,’ she said. ‘He grew up in Tennessee, he has a horse named Custard—’

‘Custer,’ Tyler said.

‘Custer, and he’s allergic to peanuts. Not the horse but Tyler. Oh, and he has a torn labrum, which is the same injury baseball pitchers get, but he’s not sure how he got it.’ She took a drag on the cigarette. Her eyes watered. ‘He’s been here a long time.’

Tyler tried to give me a tough look, ended up watching his well-shined shoes.

Boney appeared through the sliding glass doors at the back of the house. ‘Big day, boys,’ she said. ‘Wish you’d bothered letting us know, Nick, that you have a girlfriend. Would have saved us all a lot of time.’

‘We’re happy to discuss that, as well as the contents of the shed, both of which we were on our way to tell you about,’ Tanner said. ‘Frankly, if you had given us the courtesy of telling us about Andie, a lot of pain could have been forestalled. But you needed the press conference, you had to have the publicity. How disgusting, to put that girl up there like that.’

‘Right,’ Boney said. ‘So, the woodshed. You all want to come with me?’ She turned her back on us, leading the way over the patchy end-of-summer grass to the woodshed. A cobweb trailed from her hair like a wedding veil. She motioned impatiently when she saw me not following. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Not gonna bite you.’

The woodshed was lit up by several portable lights, making it look even more ominous.

‘When’s the last time you been in here, Nick?’

‘I came in here very recently, when my wife’s treasure hunt led me here. But it’s not my stuff, and I did not touch anything—’

Tanner cut me off: ‘My client and I have an explosive new theory—’ Tanner began, then caught himself. The phony TV-speak was so incredibly awful and inappropriate, we all cringed.

‘Oh, explosive, how exciting,’ Boney said.

‘We were about to inform you—’

‘Really? What convenient timing,’ she said. ‘Stay there, please.’ The door hung loose on its hinges, a broken lock dangling to the side. Gilpin was inside, cataloging the goods.

‘These the golf clubs you don’t play with?’ Gilpin said, jostling the glinting irons.

‘None of this is mine – none of this was put there by me.’

‘That’s funny, because everything in here corresponds with purchases made on the credit cards that aren’t yours either,’ Boney snapped. ‘This is, like, what do they call it, a man cave? A man cave in the making, just waiting for the wife to go away for good. Got yourself some nice pastimes, Nick.’ She pulled out three large cardboard boxes and set them at my feet.

‘What’s this?’

Boney opened them with fingertip disgust despite her gloved hands. Inside were dozens of porn DVDs, flesh of all colors and sizes on display on the covers.

Gilpin chuckled. ‘I gotta hand it to you, Nick, I mean, a man has his needs—’

‘Men are highly visual, that’s what my ex always said when I caught him,’ Boney said.

‘Men are highly visual, but Nick, this shit made me blush,’ Gilpin said. ‘It made me a little sick, too, some of it, and I don’t get sick too easy.’ He spread out a few of the DVDs like an ugly deck of cards. Most of the titles implied violence: Brutal Anal, Brutal Blowjobs, Humiliated Whores, Sadistic Slut Fucking, Gang-raped Sluts, and a series called Hurt the Bitch, volumes 1–18, each featuring photos of women writhing in pain while leering, laughing men inserted objects into them.

I turned away.

‘Oh, now he’s embarrassed.’ Gilpin grinned.

But I didn’t respond because I saw Go being helped into the back of a police car.

We met an hour later at the police station. Tanner advised against it – I insisted. I appealed to his iconoclast, millionaire rodeo-cowboy ego. We were going to tell the cops the truth. It was time.

I could handle them fucking with me – but not my sister.

‘I’m agreeing to this because I think your arrest is inevitable, Nick, no matter what we do,’ he said. ‘If we let them know we’re up for talking, we may get some more information on the case they’ve got against you. Without a body, they’ll really want a confession. So they’ll try to overwhelm you with the evidence. And they may give us enough to really jumpstart our defense.’

‘And we give them everything, right?’ I said. ‘We give them the clues and the marionettes and Amy.’ I was panicked, aching to go – I could picture the cops right now sweating my sister under a bare lightbulb.

‘As long as you let me talk,’ Tanner said. ‘If it’s me talking about the frame-up, they can’t use it against us at trial … if we go with a different defense.’

It concerned me that my lawyer found the truth to be so completely unbelievable.

Gilpin met us at the steps of the station, a Coke in his hand, late dinner. When he turned around to lead us in, I saw a sweat-soaked back. The sun had long set, but the humidity remained. He flapped his arms once, and the shirt fluttered and stuck right back to his skin.

‘Still hot,’ he said. ‘Supposed to get hotter overnight.’

Boney was waiting for us in the conference room, the one from the first night. The Night Of. She’d French-braided her limp hair and clipped it to the back of her head in a rather poignant updo, and she wore lipstick. I wondered if she had a date. A meet you after midnight situation.

‘You have kids?’ I asked her, pulling out a chair.

She looked startled and held up a finger. ‘One.’ She didn’t say a name or an age or anything else. Boney was in business mode. She tried to wait us out.

‘You first,’ Tanner said. ‘Tell us what you got.’

‘Sure,’ Boney said. ‘Okay.’ She turned on the tape recorder, dispensed with the preliminaries. ‘It is your contention, Nick, that you never bought or touched the items in the woodshed on your sister’s property.’

‘That is correct,’ Tanner replied for me.

‘Nick, your fingerprints are all over almost every item in the shed.’

‘That’s a lie! I touched nothing, not a thing in there! Except for my anniversary present, which Amy left inside.’

Tanner touched my arm: shut the fuck up.

‘Which we have brought here today,’ Tanner said.

‘Nick, your fingerprints are on the porn, on the golf clubs, on the watch cases, and even on the TV.’

And then I saw it, how much Amy would have enjoyed this: my deep, self-satisfied sleep (which I lorded over her, my belief that if she were only more laid-back, more like me, her insomnia would vanish) turned against me. I could see it: Amy down on her knees, my snores heating her cheeks, as she pressed a fingertip here and there over the course of months. She could have slipped me a mickey for all I knew. I remember her peering at me one morning as I woke up, sleep-wax gumming my lips, and she said, ‘You sleep the sleep of the damned, you know. Or the drugged.’ I was both and didn’t know it.

‘Do you want to explain about the fingerprints?’ Gilpin said.

‘Tell us the rest,’ Tanner said.

Boney set a biblically thick leather-covered binder on the table between us, charred all along the edges. ‘Recognize this?’

I shrugged, shook my head.

‘It’s your wife’s diary.’

‘Um, no. Amy didn’t do diaries.’

‘Actually, Nick, she did. She did about seven years’ worth of diaries,’ Boney said.

‘Okay.’

Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

TEN DAYS GONE

We drive my car across state lines into Illinois, to a particularly awful neighborhood of some busted river town, and we spend an hour wiping it down, and then we leave it with the keys in the ignition. Call it the circle of strife: The Arkansas couple who drove it before me were sketchy; Ozark Amy was obviously shady; hopefully, some Illinois down-and-outer will enjoy it for a bit too.

Then we drive back into Missouri over wavy hills until I can see, between the trees, Lake Hannafan glistening. Because Desi has family in St. Louis, he likes to believe the area is old, East Coast old, but he is wrong. Lake Hannafan is not named after a nineteenth-century statesman or a Civil War hero. It is a private lake, machine-forged in 2002 by an oily developer named Mike Hannafan who turned out to have a moonlighting job illegally disposing of hazardous waste. The kerfuffled community is scrambling to find a new name for their lake. Lake Collings, I’m sure, has been floated.

So despite the well-planned lake – upon which a few select residents can sail but not motor – and Desi’s tastefully grand house – a Swiss château on an American scale – I remain unwooed. That was always the problem with Desi. Be from Missouri or don’t, but don’t pretend Lake ‘Collings’ is Lake Como.

He leans against his Jaguar and aims his gaze up at the house so that I have to pause for appreciation also.

‘We modeled it after this wonderful little chalet my mother and I stayed at in Brienzersee,’ he says. ‘All we’re missing is the mountain range.’

A rather big miss, I think, but I put my hand on his arm and say, ‘Show me the inside. It must be fabulous.’

He gives me the nickel tour, laughing at the idea of a nickel. A cathedral kitchen – all granite and chrome – a living room with his-and-hers fireplaces that flows onto an outdoor space (what midwesterners call a deck) overlooking the woods and the lake. A basement entertainment room with a snooker table, darts, surround sound, a wet bar, and its own outdoor space (what midwesterners call another deck). A sauna off the entertainment room and next to it the wine cellar. Upstairs, five bedrooms, the second largest of which he bestows on me.

‘I had it repainted,’ he says. ‘I know you love dusty rose.’

I don’t love dusty rose anymore; that was high school. ‘You are so lovely, Desi, thank you,’ I say, my most heartfelt. My thank-yous always come out rather labored. I often don’t give them at all. People do what they’re supposed to do and then wait for you to pile on the appreciation – they’re like frozen-yogurt employees who put out cups for tips.

But Desi takes to thank-yous like a cat being brushed; his back almost arches with the pleasure. For now it’s a worthwhile gesture.

I set my bag down in my room, trying to signal my retirement for the evening – I need to see how people are reacting to Andie’s confession and whether Nick has been arrested – but it seems I am far from through with the thank-yous. Desi has ensured I will be forever indebted to him. He smiles a special-surprise smile and takes my hand (I have something else to show you) and pulls me back downstairs (I really hope you like this) onto a hallway off the kitchen (it took a lot of work, but it’s so worth it).

‘I really hope you like this,’ he says again, and flings open the door.

It’s a glass room, a greenhouse, I realize. Within are tulips, hundreds, of all colors. Tulips bloom in the middle of July in Desi’s lake house. In their own special room for a very special girl.

‘I know tulips are your favorite, but the season is so short,’ Desi said. ‘So I fixed that for you. They’ll bloom year-round.’

He puts his arm around my waist and aims me toward the flowers so I can appreciate them fully.

‘Tulips any day of the year,’ I say, and try to get my eyes to glisten. Tulips were my favorite in high school. They were everyone’s favorite, the gerbera daisy of the late ’80s. Now I like orchids, which are basically the opposite of tulips.

‘Would Nick ever have thought of something like this for you?’ Desi breathes into my ear as the tulips sway under a mechanized dusting of water from above.

‘Nick never even remembered I liked tulips,’ I say, the correct answer.

It is sweet, beyond sweet, the gesture. My own flower room, like a fairy tale. And yet I feel a lilt of nerves: I called Desi only twenty-four hours ago, and these are not newly planted tulips, and the bedroom did not smell of fresh paint. It makes me wonder: the uptick in his letters the past year, their wooful tone … how long has he been wanting to bring me here? And how long does he think I will stay? Long enough to enjoy blooming tulips every day for a year.

‘My goodness, Desi,’ I say. ‘It’s like a fairy tale.’

‘Your fairy tale,’ he says. ‘I want you to see what life can be like.’

In fairy tales, there is always gold. I wait for him to give me a stack of bills, a slim credit card, something of use. The tour loops back around through all the rooms so I can ooh and ahh about details I missed the first time, and then we return to my bedroom, a satin-and-silk, pink-and-plush, marshmallow-and-cotton-candy girl’s room. As I peer out a window, I notice the high wall that surrounds the house.

I blurt, nervously, ‘Desi, would you be able to leave me with some money?’

He actually pretends to be surprised. ‘You don’t need money now, do you?’ he says. ‘You have no rent to pay anymore; the house will be stocked with food. I can bring new clothes for you. Not that I don’t like you in bait-shop chic.’

‘I guess a little cash would just make me feel more comfortable. Should something happen. Should I need to get out of here quickly.’

He opens his wallet and pulls out two twenty-dollar bills. Presses them gently in my hand. ‘There you are,’ he says indulgently.

I wonder then if I have made a very big mistake.

NICK DUNNE

TEN DAYS GONE

I made a mistake, feeling so cocky. Whatever the hell this diary was, it was going to ruin me. I could already see the cover of the true-crime novel: the black-and-white photo of us on our wedding day, the blood-red background, the jacket copy: including sixteen pages of never-seen photos and Amy Elliott Dunne’s actual diary entries – a voice from beyond the grave … I’d found it strange and kind of cute, Amy’s guilty pleasures, those cheesy true-crime books I’d discovered here and there around our house. I thought maybe she was loosening up, allowing herself some beach reading.

Nope. She was just studying.

Gilpin pulled over a chair, sat on it backward, and leaned toward me on crossed arms – his movie-cop look. It was almost midnight; it felt later.

‘Tell us about your wife’s illness these past few months,’ he said.

‘Illness? Amy never got sick. Once a year she’d get a cold, maybe.’

Boney picked up the book, turned to a marked page. ‘Last month you made Amy and yourself some drinks, sat on your back porch. She writes here that the drinks were impossibly sweet and describes what she thinks is an allergic reaction: My heart was racing, my tongue was slabbed, stuck to the bottom of my mouth. My legs turned to meat as Nick walked me up the stairs.’ She put a finger down to hold her place in the diary, looked up as if I might not be paying attention. ‘When she woke the next morning: My head ached and my stomach was oily, but weirder, my fingernails were light blue, and when I looked in the mirror, so were my lips. I didn’t pee for two days after. I felt so weak.’

I shook my head in disgust. I’d become attached to Boney; I expected better of her.

‘Is this your wife’s handwriting?’ Boney tilted the book toward me, and I saw deep black ink and Amy’s cursive, jagged as a fever chart.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘So does our handwriting expert.’

Boney said the words with a certain pride, and I realized: This was the first case these two had ever had that required outside experts, that demanded they get in touch with professionals who did exotic things like analyze handwriting.

‘You know what else we learned, Nick, when we showed this entry to our medical expert?’

‘Poisoning,’ I blurted. Tanner frowned at me: steady.

Boney stuttered for a second; this was not information I was supposed to provide.

‘Yeah, Nick, thank you: antifreeze poisoning,’ she said. ‘Textbook. She’s lucky she survived.’

‘She didn’t survive, because that never happened,’ I said. ‘Like you said, it’s textbook – it’s made up from an Internet search.’

Boney frowned but refused to bite. ‘The diary isn’t a pretty picture of you, Nick,’ she continued, one finger tracing her braid. ‘Abuse – you pushed her around. Stress – you were quick to anger. Sexual relations that bordered on rape. She was very frightened of you at the end there. It’s painful to read. That gun we were wondering about, she says she wanted it because she was afraid of you. Here’s her last entry: This man might kill me. This man might kill me, in her own words.’

My throat clenched. I felt like I might throw up. Fear, mostly, and then a surge of rage. Fucking bitch, fucking bitch, cunt, cunt, cunt.

‘What a smart, convenient note for her to end on,’ I said. Tanner put a hand on mine to hush me.

‘You look like you want to kill her again, right now,’ Boney said.

‘You’ve done nothing but lie to us, Nick,’ Gilpin said. ‘You say you were at the beach that morning. Everyone we talk to says you hate the beach. You say you have no idea what all these purchases are on your maxed-out credit cards. Now we have a shed full of exactly those items, and they have your fingerprints all over them. We have a wife suffering from what sounds like antifreeze poisoning weeks before she disappears. I mean, come on.’ He paused for effect.

‘Anything else of note?’ Tanner asked.

‘We can place you in Hannibal, where your wife’s purse shows up a few days later,’ Boney said. ‘We have a neighbor who overheard you two arguing the night before. A pregnancy you didn’t want. A bar borrowed on your wife’s money that would revert to her in case of a divorce. And of course, of course: a secret girlfriend of more than a year.’

‘We can help you right now, Nick,’ Gilpin said. ‘Once we arrest you, we can’t.’

‘Where did you find the diary? At Nick’s father’s house?’ Tanner asked.

‘Yes,’ Boney said.

Tanner nodded to me: That’s what we didn’t find. ‘Let me guess: anonymous tip.’

Neither cop said a thing.

‘Can I ask where in the house you found it?’ I asked.

‘In the furnace. I know you thought you burned it. It caught fire, but the pilot light was too weak; it got smothered. So only the outer edges burned,’ Gilpin said. ‘Extremely good luck for us.’

The furnace – another inside joke from Amy! She’d always proclaimed amazement at how little I understood the things men are supposed to understand. During our search, I’d even glanced at my dad’s old furnace, with its pipes and wires and spigots, and backed away, intimidated.

‘It wasn’t luck. You were meant to find it,’ I said.

Boney let the left side of her mouth slide into a smile. She leaned back and waited, relaxed as the star of an iced-tea commercial. I gave Tanner an angry nod: Go ahead.

‘Amy Elliott Dunne is alive, and she is framing Nick Dunne for her murder,’ he said. I clasped my hands and sat up straight, tried to do anything that would lend me an air of reason. Boney stared at me. I needed a pipe, eyeglasses I could swiftly remove for effect, a set of encyclopedias at my elbow. I felt giddy. Do not laugh.

Boney frowned. ‘What’s that again?’

‘Amy is alive and very well, and she is framing Nick,’ my proxy repeated.

They exchanged a look, hunched over the table: Can you believe this guy?

‘Why would she do that?’ Gilpin asked, rubbing his eyes.

‘Because she hates him. Obviously. He was a shitty husband.’

Boney looked down at the floor, let out a breath. ‘I’d certainly agree with you there.’

At the same time, Gilpin said: ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Is she crazy, Nick?’ Boney said, leaning in. ‘What you’re talking about, it’s crazy. You hear me? It would have taken, what, six months, a year, to set all this up. She would have had to hate you, to wish you harm – ultimate, serious, horrific harm – for a year. Do you know how hard it is to sustain that kind of hatred for that long?’

She could do it. Amy could do it.

‘Why not just divorce your ass?’ Boney snapped.

‘That wouldn’t appeal to her … sense of justice,’ I replied. Tanner gave me another look.

‘Jesus Christ, Nick, aren’t you tired of all this?’ Gilpin said. ‘We have it in your wife’s own words: I think he may kill me.’

Someone had told them at some point: Use the suspect’s name a lot, it will make him feel comfortable, known. Same idea as in sales.

‘You been in your dad’s house lately, Nick?’ Boney asked. ‘Like on July ninth?’

Fuck. That’s why Amy changed the alarm code. I battled a new wave of disgust at myself: that my wife played me twice. Not only did she dupe me into believing she still loved me, she actually forced me to implicate myself. Wicked, wicked girl. I almost laughed. Good Lord, I hated her, but you had to admire the bitch.

Tanner began: ‘Amy used her clues to force my client to go to these various venues, where she’d left evidence – Hannibal, his father’s house – so he’d incriminate himself. My client and I have brought these clues with us. As a courtesy.’

He pulled out the clues and the love notes, fanned them in front of the cops like a card trick. I sweated while they read them, willing them to look up and tell me all was clear now.

‘Okay. You say Amy hated you so much that she spent months framing you for her murder?’ Boney asked, in the quiet, measured voice of a disappointed parent.

I gave her a blank face.

‘This does not sound like an angry woman, Nick,’ she said. ‘She’s falling all over herself to apologize to you, to suggest that you both start again, to let you know how much she loves you: You are warm – you are my sun. You are brilliant, you are witty.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

‘Once again, Nick, an incredibly strange reaction for an innocent man,’ Boney said. ‘Here we are, reading sweet words, maybe your wife’s last words to you, and you actually look angry. I still remember that very first night: Amy’s missing, you come in here, we park you in this very room for forty-five minutes, and you look bored. We watched you on surveillance, you practically fell asleep.’

‘That has nothing to do with anything—’ Tanner started.

‘I was trying to stay calm.’

‘You looked very, very calm,’ Boney said. ‘All along, you’ve acted … inappropriately. Unemotional, flippant.’

‘That’s just how I am, don’t you see? I’m stoic. To a fault. Amy knows this … She complained about it all the time. That I wasn’t sympathetic enough, that I retreated into myself, that I couldn’t handle difficult emotions – sadness, guilt. She knew I’d look suspicious as hell. Jesus fucking Christ! Talk to Hilary Handy, will you? Talk to Tommy O’Hara. I talked to them! They’ll tell you what she’s like.’

‘We have talked to them,’ Gilpin said.

‘And?’

‘Hilary Handy has made two suicide attempts in the years since high school. Tommy O’Hara has been in rehab twice.’

‘Probably because of Amy.’

‘Or because they’re deeply unstable, guilt-ridden human beings,’ Boney said. ‘Let’s go back to the treasure hunt.’

Gilpin read aloud Clue 2 in a deliberate monotone.

You took me here so I could hear you chat

About your boyhood adventures: crummy jeans and visor hat

Screw everyone else, for us they’re all ditched

And let’s sneak a kiss … pretend we just got hitched.

‘You say this was written to force you to go to Hannibal?’ Boney said.

I nodded.

‘It doesn’t say Hannibal anywhere here,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t even imply it.’

‘The visor hat, that’s an old inside joke between us about—’

‘Oh, an inside joke,’ Gilpin said.

‘What about the next clue, the little brown house?’ Boney asked.

‘To go to my dad’s,’ I said.

Boney’s face grew stern again. ‘Nick, your dad’s house is blue.’ She turned to Tanner with rolling eyes: This is what you’re giving me?

‘It sounds to me like you’re making up “inside jokes” in these clues,’ Boney said. ‘I mean, you want to talk about convenient: We find out you’ve been to Hannibal, whaddaya know, this clue secretly means go to Hannibal.’

‘The final present here,’ Tanner said, pulling the box onto the table, ‘is a not-so-subtle hint. Punch and Judy dolls. As you know, I’m sure, Punch kills Judy and her baby. This was discovered by my client. We wanted to make sure you have it.’

Boney pulled the box over, put on latex gloves, and lifted the puppets out. ‘Heavy,’ she said, ‘solid.’ She examined the lace of the woman’s dress, the male’s motley. She picked up the male, examined the thick wooden handle with the finger grooves.

She froze, frowning, the male puppet in her hands. Then she turned the female upside down so the skirt flew up.

‘No handle for this one.’ She turned to me. ‘Did there used to be a handle?’

‘How should I know?’

‘A handle like a two-by-four, very thick and heavy, with built-in grooves to get a really good grip?’ she snapped. ‘A handle like a goddamn club?’

She stared at me and I could tell what she was thinking: You are a gameplayer. You are a sociopath. You are a killer.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

ELEVEN DAYS GONE

Tonight is Nick’s much touted interview with Sharon Schieber. I was going to watch with a bottle of good wine after a hot bath, recording at the same time, so I can take notes on his lies. I want to write down every exaggeration, half truth, fib, and bald-facer he utters, so I can gird my fury against him. It slipped after the blog interview – one drunken, random interview! – and I can’t allow that to happen. I’m not going to soften. I’m not a chump. Still, I am eager to hear his thoughts on Andie now that she has broken. His spin.

I want to watch alone, but Desi hovers around me all day, floating in and out of whatever room I retreat to, like a sudden patch of bad weather, unavoidable. I can’t tell him to leave, because it’s his house. I’ve tried this already, and it doesn’t work. He’ll say he wants to check the basement plumbing or he wants to peer into the fridge to see what food items need purchasing.

This will go on, I think. This is how my life will be. He will show up when he wants and stay as long as he wants, he’ll shamble around making conversation, and then he’ll sit, and beckon me to sit, and he’ll open a bottle of wine and we’ll suddenly be sharing a meal and there’s no way to stop it.

‘I really am exhausted,’ I say.

‘Indulge your benefactor a little bit longer,’ he responds, and runs a finger down the crease of his pant legs.

He knows about Nick’s interview tonight, so he leaves and returns with all my favorite foods: Manchego cheese and chocolate truffles and a bottle of cold Sancerre and, with a wry eyebrow, he even produces the chili-cheese Fritos I got hooked on back when I was Ozark Amy. He pours the wine. We have an unspoken agreement not to get into details about the baby, we both know how miscarriages run in my family, how awful it would be for me to have to speak of it.

‘I’ll be interested to hear what the swine has to say for himself,’ he says. Desi rarely says jackfuck or shitbag; he says swine, which sounds more poisonous on his lips.

An hour later, we have eaten a light dinner that Desi cooked, and sipped the wine that Desi brought. He has given me one bite of cheese and split a truffle with me. He has given me exactly ten Fritos and then secreted away the bag. He doesn’t like the smell; it offends him, he says, but what he really doesn’t like is my weight. Now we are side by side on the sofa, a spun-soft blanket over us, because Desi has cranked up the air-conditioning so that it is autumn in July. I think he has done it so he can crackle a fire and force us together under the blankets; he seems to have an October vision of the two of us. He even brought me a gift – a heathery violet turtleneck sweater to wear – and I notice it complements both the blanket and Desi’s deep green sweater.

‘You know, all through the centuries, pathetic men have abused strong women who threaten their masculinity,’ Desi is saying. ‘They have such fragile psyches, they need that control …’

I am thinking of a different kind of control. I am thinking about control in the guise of caring: Here is a sweater for the cold, my sweet, now wear it and match my vision.

Nick, at least, didn’t do this. Nick let me do what I wanted.

I just want Desi to sit still and be quiet. He’s fidgety and nervous, as if his rival is in the room with us.

‘Shhh,’ I say as my pretty face comes on the screen, then another photo and another, like falling leaves, an Amy collage.

‘She was the girl that every girl wanted to be,’ said Sharon’s voiceover. ‘Beautiful, brilliant, inspiring, and very wealthy.’

‘He was the guy that all men admired …’

‘Not this man,’ Desi muttered.

‘… handsome, funny, bright, and charming.’

‘But on July fifth, their seemingly perfect world came crashing in when Amy Elliott Dunne disappeared on their fifth wedding anniversary.’

Recap recap recap. Photos of me, Andie, Nick. Stock photos of a pregnancy test and unpaid bills. I really did do a nice job. It’s like painting a mural and stepping back and thinking: Perfect.

‘Now, exclusively, Nick Dunne breaks his silence, not only on his wife’s disappearance but on his infidelity and all those rumors.’

I feel a gust of warmth toward Nick because he’s wearing my favorite tie that I bought for him, that he thinks, or thought, was too girly-bright. It’s a peacocky purple that turns his eyes almost violet. He’s lost his satisfied-asshole paunch over the last month: His belly is gone, the fleshiness of his face has vanished, his chin is less clefty. His hair has been trimmed but not cut – I have an image of Go hacking away at him just before he went on camera, slipping into Mama Mo’s role, fussing over him, doing the saliva-thumb rubdown on some spot near his chin. He is wearing my tie and when he lifts his hand to make a gesture, I see he is wearing my watch, the vintage Bulova Spaceview that I got him for his thirty-third birthday, that he never wore because it wasn’t him, even though it was completely him.

‘He’s wonderfully well groomed for a man who thinks his wife is missing,’ Desi snipes. ‘Glad he didn’t skip a manicure.’

‘Nick would never get a manicure,’ I say, glancing at Desi’s buffed nails.

‘Let’s get right to it, Nick,’ Sharon says. ‘Did you have anything to do with your wife’s disappearance?’

‘No. No. Absolutely, one hundred percent not,’ Nick says, keeping well-coached eye contact. ‘But let me say, Sharon, I am far, far from being innocent, or blameless, or a good husband. If I weren’t so afraid for Amy, I would say this was a good thing, in a way, her disappearing—’

‘Excuse me, Nick, but I think a lot of people will find it hard to believe you just said that when your wife is missing.’

‘It’s the most awful, horrible feeling in the world, and I want her back more than anything. All I am saying is that it has been the most brutal eye-opener for me. You hate to believe that you are such an awful man that it takes something like this to pull you out of your selfishness spiral and wake you up to the fact that you are the luckiest bastard in the world. I mean, I had this woman who was my equal, my better, in every way, and I let my insecurities – about losing my job, about not being able to care for my family, about getting older – cloud all that.’

‘Oh, please—’ Desi starts, and I shush him. For Nick to admit to the world that he is not a good guy – it’s a small death, and not of the petite mort variety.

‘And Sharon, let me say it. Let me say it right now: I cheated. I disrespected my wife. I didn’t want to be the man that I had become, but instead of working on myself, I took the easy way out. I cheated with a young woman who barely knew me. So I could pretend to be the big man. I could pretend to be the man I wanted to be – smart and confident and successful – because this young woman didn’t know any different. This young girl, she hadn’t seen me crying into a towel in the bathroom in the middle of the night because I lost my job. She didn’t know all my foibles and shortcomings. I was a fool who believed if I wasn’t perfect, my wife wouldn’t love me. I wanted to be Amy’s hero, and when I lost my job, I lost my self-respect. I couldn’t be that hero anymore. Sharon, I know right from wrong. And I just – I just did wrong.’

‘What would you say to your wife, if she is possibly out there, able to see and hear you tonight?’

‘I’d say: Amy, I love you. You are the best woman I have ever known. You are more than I deserve, and if you come back, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. We will find a way to put all this horror behind us, and I will be the best man in the world to you. Please come home to me, Amy.’

Just for a second, he places the pad of his index finger in the cleft of his chin, our old secret code, the one we did back in the day to swear we weren’t bullshitting each other – the dress really did look nice, that article really was solid. I am absolutely, one hundred percent sincere right now – I have your back, and I wouldn’t fuck with you.

Desi leans in front of me to break my contact with the screen and reaches for the Sancerre. ‘More wine, sweetheart?’ he says.

‘Shhhh.’

He pauses the show. ‘Amy, you are a good-hearted woman. I know you are susceptible to … pleas. But everything he is saying is lies.’

Nick is saying exactly what I want to hear. Finally.

Desi moves around so he is staring at me full-face, completely obstructing my vision. ‘Nick is putting on a pageant. He wants to come off as a good, repentant guy. I’ll admit he’s doing a bang-up job. But it’s not real – he hasn’t even mentioned beating you, violating you. I don’t know what kind of hold this guy has on you. It must be a Stockholm-syndrome thing.’

‘I know,’ I say. I know exactly what I am supposed to say to Desi. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I haven’t felt so safe in so long, Desi, but I am still … I see him and … I’m fighting this, but he hurt me … for years.’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t watch any more,’ he says, twirling my hair, leaning too close.

‘No, leave it on,’ I say. ‘I have to face this. With you. I can do it with you.’ I put my hand in his. Now shut the fuck up.

I just want Amy to come home so I can spend the rest of my life making it up to her, treating her how she deserves.

Nick forgives me – I screwed you over, you screwed me over, let’s make up. What if his code is true? Nick wants me back. Nick wants me back so he can treat me right. So he can spend the rest of his life treating me the way he should. It sounds rather lovely. We could go back to New York. Sales for the Amazing Amy books have skyrocketed since my disappearance – three generations of readers have remembered how much they love me. My greedy, stupid, irresponsible parents can finally pay back my trust fund. With interest.

Because I want to go back to my old life. Or my old life with my old money and my New Nick. Love-Honor-and-Obey Nick. Maybe he’s learned his lesson. Maybe he’ll be like he was before. Because I’ve been daydreaming – trapped in my Ozarks cabin, trapped in Desi’s mansion compound, I have a lot of time to daydream and what I’ve been daydreaming of is Nick, in those early days. I thought I would daydream more about Nick getting ass-raped in prison, but I haven’t so much, not so much, lately. I think about those early, early days, when we would lie in bed next to each other, naked flesh on cool cotton, and he would just stare at me, one finger tracing my jaw from my chin to my ear, making me wriggle, that light tickling on my lobe, and then through all the seashell curves of my ear and into my hairline, and then he’d take hold of one lock of hair, like he did that very first time we kissed, and pull it all the way to the end and tug twice, gently, like he was ringing a bell. And he’d say, ‘You are better than any storybook, you are better than anything anyone could make up.’

Nick fastened me to the earth. Nick wasn’t like Desi, who brought me things I wanted (tulips, wine) to make me do the things he wanted (love him). Nick just wanted me to be happy, that’s all, very pure. Maybe I mistook that for laziness. I just want you to be happy, Amy. How many times did he say that and I took it to mean: I just want you to be happy, Amy, because that’s less work for me. But maybe I was unfair. Well, not unfair but confused. No one I’ve loved has ever not had an agenda. So how could I know?

It really is true. It took this awful situation for us to realize it. Nick and I fit together. I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them.

I need to get home to him.

NICK DUNNE

FOURTEEN DAYS GONE

I woke up on my sister’s couch with a raging hangover and an urge to kill my wife. This was fairly common in the days after the Diary Interview with the police. I’d imagine finding Amy tucked away in some spa on the West Coast, sipping pineapple juice on a divan, her cares floating way, far away, above a perfect blue sky, and me, dirty, smelly from an urgent cross-country drive, standing in front of her, blocking the sun until she looks up, and then my hands around her perfect throat, with its cords and hollows and the pulse thumping first urgently and then slowly as we look into each other’s eyes and at last have some understanding.

I was going to be arrested. If not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, the next day. I had taken the fact that they let me walk out of the station as a good sign, but Tanner had shut me down: ‘Without a body, a conviction is incredibly tough. They’re just dotting the I’s, crossing the T’s. Spend these days doing whatever you need to do, because once the arrest happens, we’ll be busy.’

Just outside the window, I could hear the rumbling of camera crews – men greeting each other good morning, as if they were clocking in at the factory. Cameras click-click-clicked like restless locusts, shooting the front of Go’s house. Someone had leaked the discovery of my ‘man cave’ of goods on my sister’s property, my imminent arrest. Neither of us had dared to so much as flick at a curtain.

Go walked into the room in flannel boxers and her high school Butthole Surfers T-shirt, her laptop in the crook of an arm. ‘Every one hates you again,’ she said.

‘Fickle fucks.’

‘Last night someone leaked the information about the shed, about Amy’s purse and the diary. Now it’s all: Nick Is a Liar, Nick Is a Killer, Nick Is a Lying Killer. Sharon Schieber just released a statement saying she was very shocked and disappointed with the direction the case was taking. Oh, and everyone knows all about the porn – Kill the Bitches.’

‘Hurt the Bitch.’

‘Oh, excuse me,’ she said. ‘Hurt the Bitch. So Nick Is a Lying Killer-slash-Sexual Sadist. Ellen Abbott is going to go fucking rabid. She’s crazy anti-porn lady.’

‘Of course she is,’ I said. ‘I’m sure Amy is very aware of that.’

‘Nick?’ she said in her wake up voice. ‘This is bad.’

‘Go, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, we need to remember that,’ I said. ‘What matters right now is what Amy is thinking. If she’s softening toward me.’

‘Nick. You really think she can go that fast from hating you so much to falling in love with you again?’

It was the fifth anniversary of our conversation on this topic.

‘Go, yeah, I do. Amy was never a person with any sort of bullshit detector. If you said she looked beautiful, she knew that was a fact. If you said she was brilliant, it wasn’t flattery, it was her due. So yeah, I think a good chunk of her truly believes that if I can only see the error of my ways, of course I’ll be in love with her again. Because why in God’s name wouldn’t I be?’

‘And if it turns out she’s developed a bullshit detector?’

‘You know Amy; she needs to win. She’s less pissed off that I cheated than that I picked someone else over her. She’ll want me back just to prove that she’s the winner. Don’t you agree? Just seeing me begging her to come back so I can worship her properly, it will be hard for her to resist. Don’t you think?’

‘I think it’s a decent idea,’ she said in the way you might wish someone good luck on the lottery.

‘Hey, if you’ve got something better, by all fucking means.’

We snapped like that at each other now. We’d never done that before. After the police found the woodshed, they grilled Go, hard, just as Tanner had predicted: Did she know? Did she help?

I’d expected her to come home that night, brimming with curse words and fury, but all I got was an embarrassed smile as she slipped past me to her room in the house she had double-mortgaged to cover Tanner’s retainer.

I had put my sister in financial and legal jeopardy because of my shitty decisions. The whole situation made Go feel resentful and me ashamed, a lethal combination for two people trapped in small confines.

I tried a different subject: ‘I’ve been thinking about phoning Andie now that—’

‘Yeah, that would be genius-smart, Nick. Then she can go back on Ellen Abbott—’

‘She didn’t go on Ellen Abbott. She had a press conference that Ellen Abbott carried. She’s not evil, Go.’

‘She gave the press conference because she was pissed at you. I sorta wish you’d just kept fucking her.’

‘Nice.’

‘What would you even say to her?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You are definitely fucking sorry,’ she muttered.

‘I just – I hate how it ended.’

‘The last time you saw Andie, she bit you,’ Go said in an overly patient voice. ‘I don’t think the two of you have anything else to say. You are the prime suspect in a murder investigation. You have forfeited the right to a smooth breakup. For fuck’s sake, Nick.’

We were growing sick of each other, something I never thought could happen. It was more than basic stress, more than the danger I’d deposited on Go’s doorstep. Those ten seconds just a week ago, when I’d opened the door of the woodshed, expecting Go to read my mind as always, and what Go had read was that I’d killed my wife: I couldn’t get over that, and neither could she. I caught her looking at me now and then with the same steeled chill with which she looked at our father: just another shitty male taking up space. I’m sure I looked at her through our father’s miserable eyes sometimes: just another petty woman resenting me.

I let out a gust of air, stood up, and squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

‘I think I should head home,’ I said. I felt a wave of nausea. ‘I can’t stand this anymore. Waiting to be arrested, I can’t stand it.’

Before she could stop me, I grabbed my keys, swung open the door, and the cameras began blasting, the shouts exploded from a crowd that was even larger than I’d feared: Hey, Nick, did you kill your wife? Hey, Margo, did you help your brother hide evidence?

‘Fucking shitbags,’ Go spat. She stood next to me in solidarity, in her Butthole Surfers T-shirt and boxers. A few protesters carried signs. A woman with stringy blond hair and sunglasses shook a poster board: Nick, where is AMY?

The shouts got louder, frantic, baiting my sister: Margo, is your brother a wife killer? Did Nick kill his wife and baby? Margo, are you a suspect? Did Nick kill his wife? Did Nick kill his baby?

I stood, trying to hold my ground, refusing to let myself step back into the house. Suddenly, Go was crouching behind me, cranking the spigot near the steps. She turned on the hose full-bore – a hard, steady jet – and blasted all those cameramen and protesters and pretty journalists in their TV-ready suits, sprayed them like animals.

She was giving me covering fire. I shot into my car and tore off, leaving them dripping on the front lawn, Go laughing shrilly.

It took ten minutes for me to nudge my car from my driveway into my garage, inching my way slowly, slowly forward, parting the angry ocean of human beings – there were at least twenty protesters in front of my home, in addition to the camera crews. My neighbor Jan Teverer was one of them. She and I made eye contact, and she aimed her poster at me: WHERE IS AMY, NICK?

Finally, I was inside, and the garage door came buzzing down. I sat in the heat of the concrete space, breathing.

Everywhere felt like a jail now – doors opening and closing and opening and closing, and me never feeling safe.

I spent the rest of my day picturing how I’d kill Amy. It was all I could think of: finding a way to end her. Me smashing in Amy’s busy, busy brain. I had to give Amy her due: I may have been dozing the past few years, but I was fucking wide awake now. I was electric again, like I had been in the early days of our marriage.

I wanted to do something, make something happen, but there was nothing to be done. By late evening, the camera crews were all gone, though I couldn’t risk leaving the house. I wanted to walk. I settled for pacing. I was wired dangerously tight.

Andie had screwed me over, Marybeth had turned against me, Go had lost a crucial measure of faith. Boney had trapped me. Amy had destroyed me. I poured a drink. I took a slug, tightened my fingers around the curves of the tumbler, then hurled it at the wall, watched the glass burst into fireworks, heard the tremendous shatter, smelled the cloud of bourbon. Rage in all five senses. Those fucking bitches.

I’d tried all my life to be a decent guy, a man who loved and respected women, a guy without hang-ups. And here I was, thinking nasty thoughts about my twin, about my mother-in-law, about my mistress. I was imagining bashing in my wife’s skull.

A knock came at the door, a loud, furious bang-bang-bang that rattled me out of my nightmare brain.

I opened the door, flung it wide, greeting fury with fury.

It was my father, standing on my doorstep like some awful specter summoned by my hatefulness. He was breathing heavily and sweating. His shirtsleeve was torn and his hair was wild, but his eyes had their usual dark alertness that made him seem viciously sane.

‘Is she here?’ he snapped.

‘Who, Dad, who are you looking for?’

‘You know who.’ He pushed past me, started marching through the living room, trailing mud, his hands balled, his gravity far forward, forcing him to keep walking or fall down, muttering bitchbitchbitch. He smelled of mint. Real mint, not manufactured, and I saw a smear of green on his trousers, as if he’d been stomping through someone’s garden.

Little bitch that little bitch, he kept muttering. Through the dining room, into the kitchen, flipping on lights. A waterbug scuttled up the wall.

I followed him, trying to get him to calm down, Dad, Dad, why don’t you sit down, Dad, do you want a glass of water, Dad … He stomped downstairs, clumps of mud falling off his shoes. My hands turtled into fists. Of course this bastard would show up and actually make things worse.

‘Dad! Goddammit, Dad! No one is here but me. Just me.’ He flung open the guest room door, then went back up to the living room, ignoring me – ‘Dad!’

I didn’t want to touch him. I was afraid I’d hit him. I was afraid I’d cry.

I blocked him as he tried to go upstairs to the bedroom. I placed one hand on the wall, one on the banister – human barricade. ‘Dad! Look at me.’

His words came out in a furious spittle.

‘You tell her, you tell that little ugly bitch it’s not over. She’s not better than me, you tell her. She’s not too good for me. She doesn’t get to have a say. That ugly bitch will have to learn—’

I swear I saw a blank whiteness for just a second, a moment of complete, jarring clarity. I stopped trying to block my father’s voice for once and let it throb in my ears. I was not that man: I didn’t hate and fear all women. I was a one-woman misogynist. If I despised only Amy, focused all my fury and rage and venom on the one woman who deserved it, that didn’t make me my father. That made me sane.

Little bitch little bitch little bitch.

I had never hated my father more for making me truly love those words.

Fucking bitch fucking bitch.

I grabbed him by the arm, hard, and herded him into the car, slammed the door. He repeated the incantation all the way to Comfort Hill. I pulled up to the home in the entry reserved for ambulances, and I went to his side, swung open the door, yanked him out by the arm, and walked him just inside the doors.

Then I turned my back and went home.

Fucking bitch fucking bitch.

But there was nothing I could do except beg. My bitch wife had left me with nothing but my sorry dick in my hand, begging her to come home. Print, online, TV, wherever, all I could do was hope my wife saw me playing good husband, saying the words she wanted me to say: capitulation, complete. You are right and I am wrong, always. Come home to me (you fucking cunt). Come home so I can kill you.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

TWENTY-SIX DAYS GONE

Desi is here again. He is here almost every day now, simpering around the house, standing in the kitchen as the setting sun lights up his profile so I can admire it, pulling me by the hand into the tulip room so I can thank him again, reminding me how safe and loved I am.

He says I’m safe and loved even though he won’t let me leave, which doesn’t make me feel safe and loved. He’s left me no car keys. Nor house keys nor the gate security code. I am literally a prisoner – the gate is fifteen feet high, and there are no ladders in the house (I’ve looked). I could, I suppose, drag several pieces of furniture over to the wall, pile them up, and climb over, drop to the other side, limp or crawl away, but that’s not the point. The point is, I am his valued, beloved guest, and a guest should be able to leave when she wants. I brought this up a few days ago. ‘What if I need to leave. Immediately?’

‘Maybe I should move in here,’ he counters. ‘Then I could be here all the time and keep you safe, and if anything happens, we could leave together.’

‘What if your mom gets suspicious and comes up here and you’re found hiding me? It would be awful.’

His mother. I would die if his mother came up here, because she would report me immediately. The woman despises me, all because of that incident back in high school – so long ago, and she still holds a grudge. I scratched up my face and told Desi she attacked me (the woman was so possessive, and so cold to me, she might as well have). They didn’t talk for a month. Clearly, they’ve made up.

‘Jacqueline doesn’t know the code,’ he says. ‘This is my lake house.’ He pauses and pretends to think. ‘I really should move up here. It’s not healthy for you to spend so many hours by yourself.’

But I’m not by myself, not that much. We have a bit of a routine established in just two weeks. It’s a routine mandated by Desi, my posh jailer, my spoiled courtier. Desi arrives just after noon, always smelling of some expensive lunch he’s devoured with Jacqueline at some white-linened restaurant, the kind of restaurant he could take me to if we moved to Greece. (This is the other option he repeatedly presents: We could move to Greece. For some reason, he believes I will never be identified in a tiny little fishing village in Greece where he has summered many times, and where I know he pictures us sipping the wine, making lazy sunset love, our bellies full of octopus.) He smells of lunch as he enters, he wafts it. He must dab goose liver behind his ears (the way his mother always smelled vaguely vaginal – food and sex, the Collings reek of, not a bad strategy).

He enters, and he makes my mouth water. The smell. He brings me something nice to eat, but not as nice as what he’s had: He’s thinning me up, he always preferred his women waify. So he brings me lovely green star fruit and spiky artichokes and spiny crab, anything that takes elaborate preparation and yields little in return. I am almost my normal weight again, and my hair is growing out. I wear it back in a headband he brought me, and I have colored it back to my blond, thanks to hair dye he also brought me: ‘I think you will feel better about yourself when you start looking more like yourself, sweetheart,’ he says. Yes, it’s all about my well-being, not the fact that he wants me to look exactly like I did before. Amy circa 1987.

I eat lunch as he hovers near me, waiting for the compliments. (To never have to say those words – thank you – again. I don’t remember Nick ever pausing to allow me – force me – to thank him.) I finish lunch, and he tidies up as best as he knows how. We are two people unaccustomed to cleaning up after ourselves; the place is beginning to look lived in – strange stains on countertops, dust on windowsills.

Lunch concluded, Desi fiddles with me for a while: my hair, my skin, my clothes, my mind.

‘Look at you,’ he’ll say, tucking my hair behind my ears the way he likes it, unbuttoning my shirt one notch and loosening it at the neck so he can look at the hollow of my clavicle. He puts a finger in the little indentation, filling the gap. It is obscene. ‘How can Nick have hurt you, have not loved you, have cheated on you?’ He continually hits these points, verbally poking a bruise. ‘Wouldn’t it be so lovely to just forget about Nick, those awful five years, and move on? You have that chance, you know, to completely start over with the right man. How many people can say that?’

I do want to start over with the right man, the New Nick. Things are looking bad for him, dire. Only I can save Nick from me. But I am trapped.

‘If you ever left here and I didn’t know where you were, I’d have to go to the police,’ he says. ‘I’d have no choice. I’d need to make sure you were safe, that Nick wasn’t … holding you somewhere against your will. Violating you.’

A threat disguised as concern.

I look at Desi with outright disgust now. Sometimes I feel my skin must be hot with repulsion and with the effort to keep that repulsion hidden. I’d forgotten about him. The manipulation, the purring persuasion, the delicate bullying. A man who finds guilt erotic. And if he doesn’t get his way, he’ll pull his little levers and set his punishment in motion. At least Nick was man enough to go stick his dick in something. Desi will push and push with his waxy, tapered fingers until I give him what he wants.

I thought I could control Desi, but I can’t. I feel like something very bad is going to happen.

NICK DUNNE

THIRTY-THREE DAYS GONE

The days were loose and long, and then they smashed into a wall. I went out to get groceries one August morning, and I came home to find Tanner in my living room with Boney and Gilpin. On the table, inside a plastic evidence bag, was a long thick club with delicate grooves for fingers.

‘We found this just down the river from your home on that first search,’ Boney said. ‘Didn’t look like anything at the time, really. Just some of the weird flotsam on a river bank, but we keep everything in a search like that. After you showed us your Punch and Judy dolls, it clicked. So we got the lab to check it out.’

‘And?’ I said. Toneless.

Boney stood up, looked me right in the eye. She sounded sad. ‘We were able to detect Amy’s blood on it. This case is now classified as a homicide. And we believe this to be the murder weapon.’

‘Rhonda, come on!’

‘It’s time, Nick,’ she said. ‘It’s time.’

The next part was starting.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

FORTY DAYS GONE

I have found a piece of old twine and an empty wine bottle, and I’ve been using them for my project. Also some vermouth, of course. I am ready.

Discipline. This will take discipline and focus. I am up to the task.

I array myself in Desi’s favorite look: delicate flower. My hair in loose waves, perfumed. My skin has paled after a month inside. I am almost without makeup: a flip of mascara, pink-pink cheeks, and clear lip gloss. I wear a clingy pink dress he bought me. No bra. No panties. No shoes, despite the air-conditioned chill. I have a fire crackling and perfume in the air, and when he arrives after lunch without invitation, I greet him with pleasure. I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. I rub my cheek against his. I have been increasingly sweeter to him the past few weeks, but this is new, this clinging.

‘What’s this, sweetheart?’ he says, surprised and so pleased that I almost feel ashamed.

‘I had the worst nightmare last night,’ I whisper. ‘About Nick. I woke up, and all I wanted was to have you here. And in the morning … I’ve spent all day wishing you were here.’

‘I can always be here, if you like.’

‘I would,’ I say, and I turn my face up to him and let him kiss me. His kiss disgusts me; it’s nibbly and hesitant, like a fish. It’s Desi being respectful of his raped, abused woman. He nibbles again, wet cold lips, his hands barely on me, and I just want this all over, I want it done, so I pull him to me and push his lips open with my tongue. I want to bite him.

He pulls back. ‘Amy,’ he says. ‘You’ve been through a lot. This is fast. I don’t want you to do this fast if you don’t want to. If you’re not sure.’

I know he’s going to have to touch my breasts, I know he’s going to have to push himself inside me, and I want it over, I can barely restrain myself from scratching him: the idea of doing this slowly.

‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I guess I’ve been sure since we were sixteen. I was just afraid.’

This means nothing, but I know it will get him hard.

I kiss him again, and then I ask him if he will take me into our bedroom.

In the bedroom, he begins undressing me slowly, kissing parts of my body that have nothing to do with sex – my shoulder, my ear – while I delicately guide him away from my wrists and ankles. Just fuck me, for Christ’s sake. Ten minutes in and I grab his hand and thrust it between my legs.

‘Are you sure?’ he says, pulling back from me, flushed, a loop of his hair falling over his forehead, just like in high school. We could be back in my dorm room, for all the progress Desi has made.

‘Yes, darling,’ I say, and I reach modestly for his cock.

Another ten minutes and he’s finally between my legs, pumping gently, slowly, slowly, making love. Pausing for kisses and caresses until I grab him by the buttocks and begin pushing him. ‘Fuck me,’ I whisper, ‘fuck me hard.’

He stops. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Amy. I’m not Nick.’

Very true. ‘I know, darling, I just want you to … to fill me. I feel so empty.’

That gets him. I grimace over his shoulder as he thrusts a few more times and comes, me realizing it almost too late – Oh, this is his pathetic cum-sound – and faking quick oohs and ahhs, gentle kittenish noises. I try to work up some tears because I know he imagines me crying with him the first time.

‘Darling, you’re crying,’ he says as he slips out of me. He kisses a tear.

‘I’m just happy,’ I say. Because that’s what those kinds of women say.

I have mixed up some martinis, I announce – Desi loves a decadent afternoon drink – and when he makes a move to put on his shirt and fetch them, I insist he stay in bed.

‘I want to do something for you for a change,’ I say.

So I scamper into the kitchen and get two big martini glasses, and into mine I put gin and a single olive. Into his I put three olives, gin, olive juice, vermouth, and the last of my sleeping pills, three of them, crushed.

I bring the martinis, and there is snuggling and nuzzling, and I slurp my gin while this happens. I have an edge that must be dulled.

‘Don’t you like my martini?’ I ask when he has only a sip. ‘I always pictured being your wife and making you martinis. I know that’s silly.’

I begin a pout.

‘Oh, darling, not silly at all. I was just taking my time, enjoying. But—’ He guzzles the whole thing down. ‘If it makes you feel better!’

He is giddy, triumphant. His cock is slick with conquest. He is, basically, like all men. Soon he is sleepy, and after that he is snoring.

And I can begin.

BOY GETS GIRL BACK

(OR VICE VERSA)

NICK DUNNE

FORTY DAYS GONE

Out on bond, awaiting trial. I’d been processed and released – the depersonalized in-and-outing of jail, the bond hearing, the fingerprints and photos, the rotating and the shuffling and the handling, it didn’t make me feel like an animal, it made me feel like a product, something created on an assembly line. What they were creating was Nick Dunne, Killer. It would be months until we’d begin my trial (my trial: the word still threatened to undo me completely, turn me into a high-pitched giggler, a madman). I was supposed to feel privileged to be out on bond: I had stayed put even when it was clear I was going to be arrested, so I was deemed no flight risk. Boney might have put a good word in for me, too. So I got to be in my own home for a few more months before I was carted off to prison and killed by the state.

Yes, I was a lucky, lucky man.

It was mid-August, which I found continually strange: It’s still summer, I’d think. How can so much have happened and it’s not even autumn? It was brutally warm. Shirtsleeve weather, was how my mom would have described it, forever more concerned with her children’s comfort than the actual Fahrenheit. Shirtsleeve weather, jacket weather, overcoat weather, parka weather – the Year in Outerwear. For me this year, it would be handcuff weather, then possibly prison-jumpsuit weather. Or funeral-suit weather, because I didn’t plan on going to prison. I’d kill myself first.

Tanner had a team of five detectives trying to track Amy down. So far, nothing. Like trying to catch water. Every day for weeks, I’d done my little shitty part: videotape a message to Amy and post it on young Rebecca’s Whodunnit blog. (Rebecca, at least, had remained loyal.) In the videos, I wore clothes Amy had bought me, and I brushed my hair the way she liked, and I tried to read her mind. My anger toward her was like heated wire.

The camera crews parked themselves on my lawn most mornings. We were like rival soldiers, rooted in shooting distance for months, eyeing each other across no-man’s-land, achieving some sort of perverted fraternity. There was one guy with a voice like a cartoon strongman whom I’d become attached to, sight unseen. He was dating a girl he really, really liked. Every morning his voice boomed in through my windows as he analyzed their dates; things seemed to be going very well. I wanted to hear how the story ended.

I finished my evening taping to Amy. I was wearing a green shirt she liked on me, and I’d been telling her the story of how we first met, the party in Brooklyn, my awful opening line, just one olive, that embarrassed me every time Amy mentioned it. I talked about our exit from the oversteamed apartment out into the crackling cold, with her hand in mine, the kiss in the cloud of sugar. It was one of the few stories we told the same way. I said it all in the cadence of a bedtime tale: soothing and familiar and repetitive. Always ending with Come home to me, Amy.

I turned off the camera and sat back on the couch (I always filmed while sitting on the couch under her pernicious, unpredictable cuckoo clock, because I knew if I didn’t show her cuckoo clock, she’d wonder whether I had finally gotten rid of her cuckoo clock, and then she’d stop wondering whether I had finally gotten rid of her cuckoo clock and simply come to believe it was true, and then no matter what sweet words came out of my mouth, she’d silently counter with: ‘and yet he tossed out my cuckoo clock’). The cuckoo was, in fact, soon to pop out, its grinding windup beginning over my head – a sound that inevitably made my jaw tense – when the camera crews outside emitted a loud, collective, oceanic wushing. Somebody was here. I heard the seagull cries of a few female news anchors.

Something is wrong, I thought.

The doorbell rang three times in a row: Nick-nick! Nick-nick! Nick-nick!

I didn’t hesitate. I had stopped hesitating over the past month: Bring on the trouble posthaste.

I opened the door.

It was my wife.

Back.

Amy Elliott Dunne stood barefoot on my doorstep in a thin pink dress that clung to her as if it were wet. Her ankles were ringed in dark violet. From one limp wrist dangled a piece of twine. Her hair was short and frayed at the ends, as if it had been carelessly chopped by dull scissors. Her face was bruised, her lips swollen. She was sobbing.

When she flung her arms out toward me, I could see her entire midsection was stained with dried blood. She tried to speak; her mouth opened, once, twice, silent, a mermaid washed ashore.

‘Nick!’ she finally keened – a wail that echoed against all the empty houses – and fell into my arms.

I wanted to kill her.

Had we been alone, my hands might have found their place around her neck, my fingers locating perfect grooves in her flesh. To feel that strong pulse under my fingers … but we weren’t alone, we were in front of cameras, and they were realizing who this strange woman was, they were coming to life as sure as the cuckoo clock inside, a few clicks, a few questions, then an avalanche of noise and light. The cameras were blasting us, the reporters closing in with microphones, everyone yelling Amy’s name, screaming, literally screaming. So I did the right thing, I held her to me and howled her name right back: ‘Amy! My God! My God! My darling!’ and buried my face in her neck, my arms wrapped tight around her, and let the cameras get their fifteen seconds, and I whispered deep inside her ear, ‘You fucking bitch.’ Then I stroked her hair, I cupped her face in my two loving hands, and I yanked her inside.

Outside our door, a rock concert was demanding its encore: Amy! Amy! Amy! Someone threw a scattering of pebbles at our window. Amy! Amy! Amy!

My wife took it all as her due, fluttering a dismissive hand toward the rabble outside. She turned to me with a worn but triumphant smile – the smile on the rape victim, the abuse survivor, the bed burner in the old TV movies, the smile where the bastard has finally received due justice and we know our heroine will be able to move on with life! Freeze frame.

I gestured to the twine, the hacked hair, the dried blood. ‘So, what’s your story, wife?’

‘I’m back,’ she whimpered. ‘I made it back to you.’ She moved to put her arms around me. I moved away.

‘What is your story, Amy?’

‘Desi,’ she whispered, her lower lip trembling. ‘Desi Collings took me. It was the morning. Of. Of our anniversary. And the doorbell rang, and I thought … I don’t know, I thought maybe it was flowers from you.’

I flinched. Of course she’d find a way to work in a gripe: that I hardly ever sent her flowers, when her dad had sent her mom flowers each week since they’d been married. That’s 2,444 bouquets of flowers vs. 4.

‘Flowers or … something,’ she continued. ‘So I didn’t think, I just flung open the door. And there he stood, Desi, with this look on his face. Determined. As if he’d been girding himself up for this all along. And I was holding the handle … to the Judy puppet. Did you find the puppets?’ She smiled up at me tearily. She looked so sweet.

‘Oh, I found everything you left for me, Amy.’

‘I had just found the handle to the Judy puppet – it had fallen off – I was holding it when I opened the door, and I tried to hit him, and we struggled, and he clubbed me with it. Hard. And the next thing I knew …’

‘You had framed me for murder and disappeared.’

‘I can explain everything, Nick.’

I stared at her a long hard moment. I saw days under the hot sun stretched across the sand of the beach, her hand on my chest, and I saw family dinners at her parents’ house, with Rand always refilling my glass and patting me on the shoulder, and I saw us sprawled on the rug in my crummy New York apartment, talking while staring at the lazy ceiling fan, and I saw mother of my child and the stunning life I’d planned for us once. I had a moment that lasted two beats, one, two, when I wished violently that she were telling the truth.

‘I actually don’t think you can explain everything,’ I said. ‘But I am going to love watching you try.’

‘Try me now.’

She tried to take my hand, and I flung her off. I walked away from her, took a breath, and then turned to face her. My wife must always be faced.

‘Go ahead, Nick. Try me now.’

‘Okay, sure. Why was every clue of the treasure hunt hidden in a place where I had … relations with Andie?’

She sighed, looked at the floor. Her ankles were raw. ‘I didn’t even know about Andie until I saw it on TV … while I was tied to Desi’s bed, hidden away in his lake house.’

‘So that was all … coincidence?’

‘Those were all places that were meaningful to us,’ she said. A tear slid down her face. ‘Your office, where you reignited your passion for journalism.’

I snuffed.

‘Hannibal, where I finally understood how much this area means to you. Your father’s house –confronting the man who hurt you so much. Your mother’s house, which is now Go’s house, the two people who made you such a good man. But … I guess it doesn’t surprise me that you’d like to share those places with someone you’ – she bowed her head – ‘had fallen in love with. You always liked repeats.’

‘Why did each of those places end up including clues that implicated me in your murder? Women’s undies, your purse, your diary. Explain your diary, Amy, with all the lies.’

She just smiled and shook her head like she was sorry for me. ‘Everything, I can explain everything,’ she said.

I looked in that sweet tear-stained face. Then I looked down at all the blood. ‘Amy. Where’s Desi?’

She shook her head again, a sad little smile.

I moved to call the police, but a knock on our door told me they were already here.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN

I still have Desi’s semen inside me from the last time he raped me, so the medical examination goes fine. My rope-wreathed wrists, my damaged vagina, my bruises – the body I present them is textbook. An older male doctor with humid breath and thick fingers performs the pelvic exam – scraping and wheezing in time – while Detective Rhonda Boney holds my hand. It is like being clutched by a cold bird claw. Not comforting at all. Once she breaks into a grin when she thinks I’m not looking. She is absolutely thrilled that Nick isn’t a bad guy after all. Yes, the women of America are collectively sighing.

Police have been dispatched to Desi’s home, where they’ll find him naked and drained, a stunned look on his face, a few strands of my hair in his clutches, the bed soaked in blood. The knife I used on him, and on my bonds, will be nearby on the floor where I dropped it, dazed, and walked barefoot, carrying nothing out of the house but his keys – to the car, to the gate – and climbed, still slick with his blood, into his vintage Jaguar and returned like some long-lost faithful pet, straight back home to my husband. I’d been reduced to an animal state; I didn’t think of anything but getting back to Nick.

The old doctor tells me the good news; no permanent damage and no need for a D&C – I miscarried too early. Boney keeps clutching my hand and murmuring, My God, what you’ve been through do you think you feel up to answering a few questions? That fast, from condolences to brass tacks. I find ugly women are usually overly deferential or incredibly rude.

You are Amazing Amy, and you’ve survived a brutal kidnapping involving repeated assaults. You’ve killed your captor, and you’ve made it back to a husband you’ve discovered was cheating. You:

a) Put yourself first and demand some time alone to collect yourself.

b) Hold it together just a little longer so you can help the police.

c) Decide which interview to give first – you might as well get something out of the ordeal, like a book deal.

Answer: B. Amazing Amy always puts others first.

I’m allowed to clean myself up in a private room in the hospital, and I change into a set of clothes Nick put together for me from the house – jeans with creases from being folded too long, a pretty blouse that smells of dust. Boney and I drive from the hospital to the police station in near silence. I ask weakly after my parents.

‘They’re waiting for you at the station,’ Boney says. ‘They wept when I told them. With joy. Absolute joy and relief. We’ll let them get some good hugs in with you before we do our questions, don’t worry.’

The cameras are already at the station. The parking lot has that hopeful, overlit look of a sports stadium. There is no underground parking, so we have to pull right up front as the madding crowd closes in: I see wet lips and spittle as everyone screams questions, the pops of flashbulbs and camera lights. The crowd pushes and pulls en masse, jerking a few inches to the right, then the left as everyone tries to reach me.

‘I can’t do this,’ I say to Boney. A man’s meaty palm smacks against the car window as a photographer tries to keep his balance. I grab her cold hand. ‘It’s too much.’

She pats me and says, wait. The station doors open, and every officer in the building files down the stairs and forms a line on either side of me, holding the press back, creating an honor guard for me, and Rhonda and I run in holding hands like reverse newlyweds, rushing straight up to my parents who are waiting just inside the doorway, and everyone gets the photos of us clutching each other with my mom whispering sweetgirlsweetgirlsweetgirl and my dad sobbing so loudly he almost chokes.

There is more whisking away of me, as if I haven’t been whisked away quite enough already. I am deposited in a closet of a room with comfortable but cheap office chairs, the kind that always seem to have bits of old food woven into the fabric. A camera blinking up in the corner and no windows. It is not what I pictured. It is not designed to make me feel safe.

I am surrounded by Boney, her partner, Gilpin, and two FBI agents up from St. Louis who remain nearly silent. They give me water, and then Boney starts.

B: Okay, Amy, first we have to thank you sincerely for talking with us after what you’ve been through. In a case like this, it’s very important to get everything down while the memory is fresh. You can’t imagine how important that is. So it’s good to talk now. If we can get all these details down, we can close the case, and you and Nick can go back to your lives.

A: I’d definitely like that.

B: You deserve that. So if you’re ready to begin, can we start with the time line: What time did Desi arrive at your door? Do you remember?

A: About ten a.m. A little after, because I remember hearing the Teverers talking as they walked to their car for church.

B: What happened when you opened the door?

A: Something felt wrong immediately. First of all, Desi has written me letters all my life. But his obsession seemed to have become less intense over the years. He seemed to think of himself as just an old friend, and since the police couldn’t do anything about it, I made my peace with that. I never felt like he meant me active harm, although I really didn’t like being this close to him. Geographically. I think that’s what put him over the edge. Knowing I was so close. He walked into my house with … He was sweaty and sort of nervous but also determined-looking. I’d been upstairs, I’d been about to iron my dress when I noticed the big wooden handle of the Judy puppet on the floor – I guess it had fallen off. Bummer because I’d already hidden the puppets in the woodshed. So I grabbed the handle, and I had that in my hand when I opened the door.

B: Very good memory.

A: Thank you.

B: What happened next?

A: Desi barged in, and he was pacing around the living room, all flustered and kind of frantic, and he said, What are you doing for your anniversary? It frightened me, that he knew today was our anniversary, and he seemed angry about it, and then his arm flashed out and he had me by the wrist and was twisting it behind my back, and we struggled. I put up a real fight.

B: What next?

A: I kicked him and got away for a second and ran to the kitchen, and we struggled more and he clubbed me once with the big wooden Judy handle, and I went flying and then he hit me two or three more times. I remember not being able to see for a second, just dizzy, my head was throbbing and I tried to grab for the handle and he stabbed my arm with this pocketknife he was carrying. I still have the scar. See?

B: Yes, that was noted in your medical examination. You were lucky it was only a flesh wound.

A: It doesn’t feel like a flesh wound, believe me.

B: So he stabbed you? The angle is—

A: I’m not sure if he did it on purpose, or if I thrust myself onto the blade accidentally – I was so off balance. I remember the club falling to the floor, though, and I looked down and saw my blood from the stab wound pooling over the club. I think I passed out then.

B: Where were you when you woke up?

A: I woke up hog-tied in my living room.

B: Did you scream, try to get the neighbors’ attention?

A: Of course I screamed. I mean, did you hear me? I was beaten, stabbed, and hog-tied by a man who had been obsessed with me for decades, who once tried to kill himself in my dorm bedroom.

B: Okay, okay, Amy, I’m sorry, that question was not intended in the least to sound like we are blaming you, we just need to get a full picture here so we can close the investigation and you can get on with your life. Do you want another water, or coffee or something?

A: Something warm would be nice. I’m so cold.

B: No problem. Can you get her a coffee? So what happened then?

A: I think his original plan was to subdue me and kidnap me and let it look like a runaway-wife thing, because when I wake up, he’s just finished mopping the blood in the kitchen, and he’s straightened the table of little antique ornaments that fell over when I ran to the kitchen. He’s gotten rid of the club. But he’s running out of time, and I think what must have happened is: He sees this disheveled living room – and so he thinks, Leave it. Let it look like something bad happened here. So he throws the front door open, and then he knocks a few more things over in the living room. Overturns the ottoman. So that’s why the scene looked so weird: It was half true and half false.

B: Did Desi plant incriminating items at each of the treasure hunt sites: Nick’s office, Hannibal, his dad’s house, Go’s woodshed?

A: I don’t know what you mean?

B: There was a pair of women’s underwear, not your size, in Nick’s office.

A: I guess it must have been the girl he was … dating.

B: Not hers either.

A: Well, I can’t help on that one. Maybe he was seeing more than one girl.

B: Your diary was found in his father’s house. Partly burned in the furnace.

A: Did you read the diary? It’s awful. I’m sure Nick did want to get rid of it – I don’t blame him, considering you guys zeroed in on him so quickly.

B: I wonder why he would go to his father’s to burn it.

A: You should ask him. (Pause.) Nick went there a lot, to be alone. He likes his privacy. So I’m sure it didn’t feel that odd to him. I mean he couldn’t do it at our house, because it’s a crime scene – who knows if you guys will come back, find something in the ashes. At his dad’s, he has some discretion. I thought it was a smart move, considering you guys were basically railroading him.

B: The diary is very, very concerning. The diary alleges abuse and your fears that Nick didn’t want the baby, that he might want to kill you.

A: I really do wish that diary had burned. (Pause.) Let me be honest: The diary includes some of Nick’s and my struggles these past few years. It doesn’t paint the greatest picture of our marriage or of Nick, but I have to admit: I never wrote in the diary unless I was super-happy, or I was really, really unhappy and wanted to vent and then … I can get a little dramatic when it’s just me stewing on things. I mean, a lot of that is the ugly truth – he did shove me once, and he didn’t want a baby, and he did have money problems. But me being afraid of him? I have to admit, it pains me to admit, but that’s my dramatic streak. I think the problem is, I’ve been stalked several times – it’s been a lifelong issue – people getting obsessed with me – and so I get a little paranoid.

B: You tried to buy a gun.

A: I get a lot paranoid, okay? I’m sorry. If you had my history, you’d understand.

B: There’s an entry about a night of drinks when you suffered from what sounds like textbook antifreeze poisoning.

A: (Long silence.) That’s bizarre. Yes, I did get ill.

B: Okay, back to the treasure hunt. You did hide the Punch and Judy dolls in the woodshed?

A: I did.

B: A lot of our case has focused on Nick’s debt, some extensive credit-card purchases, and our discovery of all those items hidden in the woodshed. What did you think when you opened the woodshed and saw all this stuff?

A: I was on Go’s property, and Go and I aren’t especially close, so mostly, I felt like I was nosing around in something that wasn’t my business. I remember thinking at the time that it must have been her stuff from New York. And then I saw on the news – Desi made me watch everything – that it corresponded with Nick’s purchases, and … I knew Nick had some money troubles, he was a spender. I think he was probably embarrassed. Impulse purchases he couldn’t undo, so he hid them from me until he could sell them online.

B: The Punch and Judy puppets, they seem a little ominous for an anniversary present.

A: I know! Now I know. I didn’t remember the whole backstory of Punch and Judy. I was just seeing a husband and wife and a baby, and they were made of wood, and I was pregnant. I scanned the Internet and saw Punch’s line: That’s the way to do it! And I thought it was cute – I didn’t know what it meant.

B: So you were hog-tied. How did Desi get you to the car?

A: He pulled the car into the garage and lowered the garage door, dragged me in, threw me in the trunk, and drove away.

B: And did you yell then?

A: Yes, I fucking yelled. I am a complete coward. And if I’d known that, every night for the next month, Desi was going to rape me, then snuggle in next to me with a martini and a sleeping pill so he wouldn’t be awakened by my sobbing, and that the police were going to actually interview him and still not have a clue, still sit around with their thumbs up their asses, I might have yelled harder. Yes, I might have.

B: Again, my apologies. Can we get Ms Dunne some tissues, please? And where’s her coff—Thank you. Okay, where did you go from there, Amy?

A: We drove toward St. Louis, and I remember on the way there he stopped at Hannibal – I heard the steamboat whistle. He threw my purse out. It was the one other thing he did so it would look like foul play.

B: This is so interesting. There seem to be so many strange coincidences in this case. Like, that Desi would happen to toss out the purse right at Hannibal, where your clue would make Nick go – and we in turn would believe that Nick tossed the purse there. Or how you decided to hide a present in the very place where Nick was hiding goods he’d bought on secret credit cards.

A: Really? I have to tell you, none of this sounds like coincidence to me. It sounds like a bunch of cops who got hung up on my husband being guilty, and now that I am alive and he’s clearly not guilty, they look like giant idiots, and they’re scrambling to cover their asses. Instead of accepting responsibility for the fact that, if this case had been left in your extremely fucking incompetent hands, Nick would be on death row and I’d be chained to a bed, being raped every day from now until I died.

B: I’m sorry, it’s—

A: I saved myself, which saved Nick, which saved your sorry fucking asses.

B: That is an incredibly good point, Amy. I’m sorry, we’re so … We’ve spent so long on this case, we want to figure out every detail that we missed so we don’t repeat our mistakes. But you’re absolutely right, we’re missing the big picture, which is: You are a hero. You are an absolute hero.

A: Thank you. I appreciate you saying that.

NICK DUNNE

THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN

I went to the station to fetch my wife and was greeted by the press like a rock star – landslide president – first moonwalker all in one. I had to resist raising clasped hands above my head in the universal victory shake. I see, I thought, we’re all pretending to be friends now.

I entered a scene that felt like a holiday party gone awry – a few bottles of champagne rested on one desk, surrounded by tiny paper cups. Backslapping and cheers for all the cops, and then more cheers for me, as if these people hadn’t been my persecutors a day before. But I had to play along. Present the back for slapping. Oh yes, we’re all buddies now.

All that matters is that Amy is safe. I’d been practicing that line over and over. I had to look like the relieved, doting husband until I knew which way things were going to go. Until I was sure the police had sawed through all her sticky cobwebby lies. Until she is arrested – I’d get that far, until she is arrested, and then I could feel my brain expand and deflate simultaneously – my own cerebral Hitchcock zoom – and I’d think: My wife murdered a man.

‘Stabbed him,’ said the young police officer assigned as the family liaison. (I hoped never to be liaisoned again, with anyone, for any reason.) He was the same kid who’d yammered on to Go about his horse and torn labrum and peanut allergy. ‘Cut him right through the jugular. Cut like that, he bleeds out in, like, sixty seconds.’

Sixty seconds is a long time to know you are dying. I could picture Desi wrapping his hands around his neck, the feel of his own blood spurting between his fingers with each pulse, and Desi getting more frightened and the pulsing only quickening … and then slowing, and Desi knowing the slowing was worse. And all the time Amy standing just out of reach, studying him with the blameful, disgusted look of a high school biology student confronted with a dripping pig fetus. Her little scalpel still in hand.

‘Cut him with a big ole butcher knife,’ the kid was saying. ‘Guy used to sit right next to her on the bed, cut up her meat for her, and feed her.’ He sounded more disgusted by this than by the stabbing. ‘One day the knife slips off the plate, he never notices—’

‘How’d she use the knife if she was always tied up?’ I asked.

The kid looked at me as if I’d just told a joke about his mother. ‘I don’t know, Mr Dunne, I’m sure they’re getting the details right now. The point is, your wife is safe.’

Hurray. Kid stole my line.

I spotted Rand and Marybeth through the doorway of the room where we’d given our first press conference six weeks ago. They were leaning in to each other, as always, Rand kissing the top of Marybeth’s head, Marybeth nuzzling him back, and I felt such a keen sense of outrage that I almost threw a stapler at them. You two worshipful, adoring assholes created that thing down the hall and set her loose on the world. Lo, how jolly, what a perfect monster! And do they get punished? No, not a single person had come forth to question their characters; they’d experienced nothing but an outpouring of love and support, and Amy would be restored to them and everyone would love her more.

My wife was an insatiable sociopath before. What would she become now?

Step carefully, Nick, step very carefully.

Rand caught my eye and motioned me to join them. He shook my hand for a few exclusive reporters who’d been granted an audience. Marybeth held her ground: I was still the man who’d cheated on her daughter. She gave a curt nod and turned away.

Rand leaned in close to me so I could smell his spearmint gum. ‘I tell you, Nick, we are so relieved to have Amy back. We owe you an apology too. Big one. We’ll let Amy decide how she feels about your marriage, but I want to at least apologize for where things went. You’ve got to understand—’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I understand everything.’

Before Rand could apologize or engage further, Tanner and Betsy arrived together, looking like a Vogue spread – crisp slacks and jewel-toned shirts and gleaming gold watches and rings – and Tanner leaned toward my ear and whispered, Let me see where we are, and then Go was rushing in, all alarmed eyes and questions: What does this mean? What happened to Desi? She just showed up on your doorstep? What does this mean? Are you okay? What happens next?

It was a bizarre gathering – the feel of it: not quite reunion, not quite hospital waiting room, celebratory yet anxious, like some parlor game where no one had all the rules. Meanwhile, the two reporters the Elliotts had allowed into the inner sanctum kept snapping questions at me: How great does it feel to have Amy back? How wonderful do you feel right now? How relieved are you, Nick, that Amy has returned?

I’m extremely relieved and very happy, I was saying, crafting my own bland PR statement, when the doors parted and Jacqueline Collings entered, her lips a tight red scar, her face powder lined with tears.

‘Where is she?’ she said to me. ‘The lying little bitch, where is she? She killed my son. My son.’ She began crying as the reporter snapped a few photos.

How do you feel that your son was accused of kidnap and rape? one reporter asked in a stiff voice.

‘How do I feel?’ she snapped. ‘Are you actually serious? Do people really answer questions like that? That nasty, soulless girl manipulated my son his entire life – write this down – she manipulated and lied and finally murdered him, and now, even after he’s dead, she’s still using him—’

‘Ms Collings, we’re Amy’s parents,’ Marybeth was beginning. She tried to touch Jacqueline on the shoulder, and Jacqueline shook her off. ‘I am sorry for your pain.’

‘But not my loss.’ Jacqueline stood a good head taller than Marybeth; she glared down on her. ‘But not my loss,’ she reasserted.

‘I’m sorry about … everything,’ Marybeth said, and then Rand was next to her, a head taller than Jacqueline.

‘What are you going to do about your daughter?’ Jacqueline asked. She turned toward our young liaison officer, who tried to hold his ground. ‘What is being done about Amy? Because she is lying when she says my son kidnapped her. She is lying. She killed him, she murdered him in his sleep, and no one seems to be taking this seriously.’

‘It’s all being taken very, very seriously, ma’am,’ the young kid said.

‘Can I get a quote, Ms Collings?’ asked the reporter.

‘I just gave you my quote. Amy Elliott Dunne murdered my son. It was not self-defense. She murdered him.’

‘Do you have proof of that?’

Of course she didn’t.

The reporter’s story would chronicle my husbandly exhaustion (his drawn face telling of too many nights forfeited to fear) and the Elliotts’ relief (the two parents cling to each other as they wait for their only child to be officially returned to them). It would discuss the incompetence of the cops (it was a biased case, full of dead ends and wrong turns, with the police department focused doggedly on the wrong man). The article would dismiss Jacqueline Collings in a single line: After an awkward run-in with the Elliott parents, an embittered Jacqueline Collings was ushered out of the room, claiming her son was innocent.

Jacqueline was indeed ushered out of the room into another, where her statement would be recorded and she would be kept out of the way of the much better story: the Triumphant Return of Amazing Amy.

When Amy was released to us, it all began again. The photos and the tears, the hugging and the laughter, all for strangers who wanted to see and to know: What was it like? Amy, what does it feel like to escape your captor and return to your husband? Nick, what does it feel like to get your wife back, to get your freedom back, all at once?

I remained mostly silent. I was thinking my own questions, the same questions I’d thought for years, the ominous refrain of our marriage: What are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

It was a gracious, queenly act for Amy to want to come home to our marriage bed with her cheating husband. Everyone agreed. The media followed us as if we were a royal wedding procession, the two of us whizzing through the neon, fast-food-cluttered streets of Carthage to our McMansion on the river. What grace Amy has, what moxie. A storybook princess. And I, of course, was the lickspittle hunchback of a husband who would bow and scrape the rest of my days. Until she was arrested. If she ever got arrested.

That she was released at all was a concern. More than a concern, an utter shock. I saw them all filing out of the conference room where they questioned her for four hours and then let her go: two FBI guys with alarmingly short hair and blank faces; Gilpin, looking like he’d swallowed the greatest steak dinner of his life; and Boney, the only one with thin, tight lips and a little V of a frown. She glanced at me as she walked past, arched an eyebrow, and was gone.

Then, too quickly, Amy and I were back in our home, alone in the living room, Bleecker watching us with shiny eyes. Outside our curtains, the lights of the TV cameras remained, bathing our living room in a bizarrely lush orange glow. We looked candlelit, romantic. Amy was absolutely beautiful. I hated her. I was afraid of her.

‘We can’t really sleep in the same house—’ I began.

‘I want to stay here with you.’ She took my hand. ‘I want to be with my husband. I want to give you the chance to be the kind of husband you want to be. I forgive you.’

‘You forgive me? Amy, why did you come back? Because of what I said in the interviews? The videos?’

‘Wasn’t that what you wanted?’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that the point of the videos? They were perfect – they reminded me of what we used to have, how special it was.’

‘What I said, that was just me saying what you wanted to hear.’

‘I know – that’s how well you know me!’ Amy said. She beamed. Bleecker began figure-eighting between her legs. She picked him up and stroked him. His purr was deafening. ‘Think about it, Nick, we know each other. Better than anyone in the world now.’

It was true that I’d had this feeling too, in the past month, when I wasn’t wishing Amy harm. It would come to me at strange moments – in the middle of the night, up to take a piss, or in the morning pouring a bowl of cereal – I’d detect a nib of admiration, and more than that, fondness for my wife, right in the middle of me, right in the gut. To know exactly what I wanted to hear in those notes, to woo me back to her, even to predict all my wrong moves … the woman knew me cold. Better than anyone in the world, she knew me. All this time I’d thought we were strangers, and it turned out we knew each other intuitively, in our bones, in our blood.

It was kind of romantic. Catastrophically romantic.

‘We can’t just pick up where we were, Amy.’

‘No, not where we were,’ she said. ‘Where we are now. Where you love me and you’ll never do wrong again.’

‘You’re crazy, you’re literally crazy if you think I’m going to stay. You killed a man,’ I said. I turned my back to her, and then I pictured her with a knife in her hand and her mouth growing tight as I disobeyed her. I turned back around. Yes, my wife must always be faced.

‘To escape him.’

‘You killed Desi so you had a new story, so you could come back and be beloved Amy and not ever have to take the blame for what you did. Don’t you get it, Amy, the irony? It’s what you always hated about me – that I never dealt with the consequences of my actions, right? Well, my ass has been well and duly consequenced. So what about you? You murdered a man, a man I assume loved you and was helping you, and now you want me to step in his place and love you and help you, and … I can’t. I cannot do it. I won’t do it.’

‘Nick, I think you’ve gotten some bad information,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t surprise me, all the rumors that are going about. But we need to forget all that. If we are to go forward. And we will go forward. All of America wants us to go forward. It’s the story the world needs right now. Us. Desi’s the bad guy. No one wants two bad guys. They want to like you, Nick. The only way you can be loved again is to stay with me. It’s the only way.’

‘Tell me what happened, Amy. Was Desi helping you all along?’

She flared at that: She didn’t need a man’s help, even though she clearly had needed a man’s help. ‘Of course not!’ she snapped.

‘Tell me. What can it hurt, tell me everything, because you and I can’t go forward with this pretend story. I’ll fight you every step of the way. I know you’ve thought of everything. I’m not trying to get you to slip up – I’m tired of trying to outthink you, I don’t have it in me. I just want to know what happened. I was a step away from death row, Amy. You came back and saved me, and I thank you for that – do you hear me? I thank you, so don’t say I didn’t later on. I thank you. But I need to know. You know I need to know.’

‘Take off your clothes,’ she said.

She wanted to make sure I wasn’t wearing a wire. I undressed in front of her, removed every stitch, and then she surveyed me, ran a hand across my chin and my chest, down my back. She palmed my ass and slipped her hand between my legs, cupped my testicles and gripped my limp cock, held it in her hand for a moment to see if anything happened. Nothing happened.

‘You’re clean,’ she said. It was meant as a joke, a wisecrack, a movie reference we’d both laugh at. When I said nothing, she stepped back and said, ‘I always did like looking at you naked. That made me happy.’

‘Nothing made you happy. Can I put my clothes back on?’

‘No. I don’t want to worry about hidden wires in the cuffs or the hems. Also, we need to go in the bathroom and run the water. In case you bugged the house.’

‘You’ve seen too many movies,’ I said.

‘Ha! Never thought I’d hear you say that.’

We stood in the bathtub and turned on the shower. The water sprayed my naked back and misted the front of Amy’s shirt until she peeled it off. She pulled off all her clothes, a gleeful striptease, and tossed them over the shower stall in the same grinning, game manner she had when we first met – I’m up for anything! – and she turned to me, and I waited for her to swing her hair around her shoulders like she did when she flirted with me, but her hair was too short.

‘Now we’re even,’ she said. ‘Seemed rude to be the only one clothed.’

‘I think we’re past etiquette, Amy.’

Look only at her eyes, do not touch her, do not let her touch you.

She moved toward me, put a hand on my chest, let the water trickle between her breasts. She licked a shower teardrop off her upper lip and smiled. Amy hated shower spray. She didn’t like getting her face wet, didn’t like the feel of water pelleting her flesh. I knew this because I was married to her, and I’d pawed her and harassed her many times in the shower, always to be turned down. (I know it seems sexy, Nick, but it’s actually not, it’s something people only do in movies.) Now she was pretending just the opposite, as if she forgot that I knew her. I backed away.

‘Tell me everything, Amy. But first: Was there ever a baby?’

The baby was a lie. It was the most desolate part for me. My wife as a murderer was frightening, repulsive, but the baby as a lie was almost impossible to bear. The baby was a lie, the fear of blood was a lie – during the past year, my wife had been mostly a lie.

‘How did you set Desi up?’ I asked.

‘I found some twine in one corner of his basement. I used a steak knife to saw it into four pieces—’

‘He let you keep a knife?’

‘We were friends. You forget.’

She was right. I was thinking of the story she’d told the police: that Desi had held her captive. I did forget. She was that good a storyteller.

‘Whenever Desi wasn’t around, I’d tie the pieces as tight as I could around my wrists and ankles so they’d leave these grooves.’

She showed me the lurid lines on her wrists, like bracelets.

‘I took a wine bottle, and I abused myself with it every day, so the inside of my vagina looked … right. Right for a rape victim. Then today I let him have sex with me so I had his semen, and then I slipped some sleeping pills into his martini.’

‘He let you keep sleeping pills?’

She sighed: I wasn’t keeping up.

‘Right, you were friends.’

‘Then I—’ She pantomimed slicing his jugular.

‘That easy, huh?’

‘You just have to decide to do it and then do it,’ she said. ‘Discipline. Follow through. Like anything. You never understood that.’

I could feel her mood turning stony. I wasn’t appreciating her enough.

‘Tell me more,’ I said. ‘Tell me how you did it.’

An hour in, the water went cold, and Amy called an end to our discussion.

‘You have to admit, it’s pretty brilliant,’ she said.

I stared at her.

‘I mean, you have to admire it just a little,’ she prompted.

‘How long did it take for Desi to bleed to death?’

‘It’s time for bed,’ she said. ‘But we can talk more tomorrow if you want. Right now we should sleep. Together. I think it’s important. For closure. Actually, the opposite of closure.’

‘Amy, I’m going to stay tonight because I don’t want to deal with all the questions if I don’t stay. But I’ll sleep downstairs.’

She cocked her head to one side, studied me.

‘Nick, I can still do very bad things to you, remember that.’

‘Ha! Worse than what you’ve already done?’

She looked surprised. ‘Oh, definitely.’

‘I doubt that, Amy.’

I began walking out the door.

‘Attempted murder,’ she said.

I paused.

‘That was my original plan early on: I’d be a poor, sick wife with repeated episodes, sudden intense bouts of illness, and then it turns out that all those cocktails her husband prepared her …’

‘Like in the diary.’

‘But I decided attempted murder wasn’t good enough for you. It had to be bigger than that. Still, I couldn’t get the poisoning idea out of my head. I liked the idea of you working up to the murder. Trying the cowardly way first. So I went through with it.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘All that vomit, so shocking. An innocent, frightened wife might have saved some of that vomit, just in case. You can’t blame her, being a little paranoid.’ She gave a satisfied smile. ‘Always have a backup plan to the backup plan.’

‘You actually poisoned yourself.’

‘Nick, please, you’re shocked? I killed myself.’

‘I need a drink,’ I said. I left before she could speak.

I poured myself a Scotch and sat on the living room couch. Beyond the curtains, the strobes of the cameras were lighting up the yard. Soon it would no longer be night. I’d come to find the morning depressing, to know it would come again and again.

Tanner picked up on the first ring.

‘She killed him,’ I said. ‘She killed Desi because he was basically … he was annoying her, he was power-playing her, and she realized she could kill him, and it was her way back to her old life, and she could blame everything on him. She murdered him, Tanner, she just told me this. She confessed.’

‘I don’t suppose you were able to … record any of it somehow? Cell phone or something?’

‘We were naked with the shower running, and she whispered everything.’

‘I don’t even want to ask,’ he said. ‘You two are the most fucked-up people I have ever met, and I specialize in fucked-up people.’

‘What’s going on with the police?’

He sighed. ‘She foolproofed everything. It’s ludicrous, her story, but no more ludicrous than our story. Amy’s basically exploiting the sociopath’s most reliable maxim.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The bigger the lie, the more they believe it.’

‘Come on, Tanner, there’s got to be something.’

I paced over to the staircase to make sure Amy was nowhere nearby. We were whispering, but still. I had to be careful now.

‘For now we need to toe the line, Nick. She left you looking fairly bad: Everything in the diary was true, she says. All the stuff in the woodshed was you. You bought the stuff with those credit cards, and you’re too embarrassed to admit it. She’s just a sheltered little rich girl, what would she know about acquiring secret credit cards in her husband’s name? And my goodness, that pornography!’

‘She told me there was never a baby, she faked it with Noelle Hawthorne’s pee.’

‘Why didn’t you say—That’s huge! We’ll lean on Noelle Hawthorne.’

‘Noelle didn’t know.’

I heard a deep sigh on the other end. He didn’t even bother asking how. ‘We’ll keep thinking, we’ll keep looking,’ he said. ‘Something will break.’

‘I can’t stay in this house with that thing. She’s threatening me with—’

‘Attempted murder … the antifreeze. Yeah, I heard that was in the mix.’

‘They can’t arrest me on that, can they? She says she still has some vomit. Evidence. But can they really—’

‘Let’s not push it for now, okay, Nick?’ he said. ‘For now, play nice. I hate to say it, I hate to, but that’s my best legal advice for you right now: Play nice.’

‘Play nice? That’s your advice? My one-man legal dream team: Play nice? Fuck you.’

I hung up in full fury.

I’ll kill her, I thought. I will fucking kill the bitch.

I plunged into the dark daydream I’d indulged over the past few years when Amy had made me feel my smallest: I daydreamed of hitting her with a hammer, smashing her head in until she stopped talking, finally, stopped with the words she suctioned to me: average, boring, mediocre, unsurprising, unsatisfying, unimpressive. Un, basically. In my mind, I whaled on her with the hammer until she was like a broken toy, muttering un, un, un until she sputtered to a stop. And then it wasn’t enough, so I restored her to perfection and began killing her again: I wrapped my fingers around her neck – she always did crave intimacy – and then I squeezed and squeezed, her pulse—

‘Nick?’

I turned around, and Amy was on the bottom stair in her nightgown, her head tilted to one side.

‘Play nice, Nick.’

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN

He turns around, and when he sees me standing there, he looks scared. That’s something useful. Because I’m not going to let him go. He may think he was lying when he said all those nice things to lure me home. But I know different. I know Nick can’t lie like that. I know that as he recited those words, he realized the truth. Ping! Because you can’t be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into remission, but it’s always waiting to return. Like the world’s sweetest cancer.

You don’t buy it? Then how about this? He did lie. He didn’t mean a fucking thing he said. Well, then, screw him, he did too good a job, because I want him, exactly like that. The man he was pretending to be – women love that guy. I love that guy. That’s the man I want for my husband. That’s the man I signed up for. That’s the man I deserve.

So he can choose to truly love me the way he once did, or I will bring him to heel and make him be the man I married. I’m sick of dealing with his bullshit.

‘Play nice,’ I say.

He looks like a child, a furious child. He bunches his fists.

‘No, Amy.’

‘I can ruin you, Nick.’

‘You already did, Amy.’ I see the rage flash over him, a shiver. ‘Why in God’s name do you even want to be with me? I’m boring, average, uninteresting, uninspiring. I’m not up to par. You spent the last few years telling me this.’

‘Only because you stopped trying,’ I say. ‘You were so perfect, with me. We were so perfect when we started, and then you stopped trying. Why would you do that?’

‘I stopped loving you.’

‘Why?’

‘You stopped loving me. We’re a sick, fucking toxic Möbius strip, Amy. We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way. You don’t really love me, Amy. You don’t even like me. Divorce me. Divorce me, and let’s try to be happy.’

‘I won’t divorce you, Nick. I won’t. And I swear to you, if you try to leave, I will devote my life to making your life as awful as I can. And you know I can make it awful.’

He begins pacing like a caged bear. ‘Think about it, Amy, how bad we are for each other: the two most needful human beings in the world stuck with each other. I’ll divorce you if you don’t divorce me.’

‘Really?’

‘I will divorce you. But you should divorce me. Because I know what you’re thinking already, Amy. You’re thinking it won’t make a good story: Amazing Amy finally kills her crazed-rapist captor and returns home to … a boring old divorce. You’re thinking it’s not triumphant.’

It’s not triumphant.

‘But think of it this way: Your story is not some drippy, earnest survivor story. TV movie circa 1992. It’s not. You are a tough, vibrant, independent woman, Amy. You killed your kidnapper, and then you kept on cleaning house: You got rid of your idiot cheat of a husband. Women would cheer you. You’re not a scared little girl. You’re a badass, take-no-prisoners woman. Think about it. You know I’m right: The era of forgiveness is over. It’s passé. Think of all the women – the politicians’ wives, the actresses – every woman in the public who’s been cheated on, they don’t stay with the cheat these days. It’s not stand by your man anymore, it’s divorce the fucker.’

I feel a rush of hate toward him, that he’s still trying to wriggle out of our marriage even though I’ve told him – three times now – that he can’t. He still thinks he has power.

‘And if I don’t divorce you, you’ll divorce me?’ I ask.

‘I don’t want to be married to a woman like you. I want to be married to a normal person.’

Piece of shit.

‘I see. You want to revert to your lame, limp loser self? You want to just walk away? No! You don’t get to go be some boring-ass middle American with some boring-ass girl next door. You tried it already – remember, baby? Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t do that now. You’ll be known as the philandering asshole who left his kidnapped, raped wife. You think any nice woman will touch you? You’ll only get—’

‘Psychos? Crazy psycho bitches?’ He’s pointing at me, jabbing the air.

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Psycho bitch?’

It’d be so easy, for him to write me off that way. He’d love that, to be able to dismiss me so simply.

‘Everything I do, I do for a reason, Nick,’ I say. ‘Everything I do takes planning and precision and discipline.’

‘You are a petty, selfish, manipulative, disciplined psycho bitch—’

‘You are a man,’ I say. ‘You are an average, lazy, boring, cowardly, woman-fearing man. Without me, that’s what you would have kept on being, ad nauseum. But I made you into something. You were the best man you’ve ever been with me. And you know it. The only time in your life you’ve ever liked yourself was pretending to be someone I might like. Without me? You’re just your dad.’

‘Don’t say that, Amy.’ He balls up his fists.

‘You think he wasn’t hurt by a woman, too, just like you?’ I say it in my most patronizing voice, as if I’m talking to a puppy. ‘You think he didn’t believe he deserved better than he got, just like you? You really think your mom was his first choice? Why do you think he hated you all so much?’

He moves toward me. ‘Shut up, Amy.’

‘Think, Nick, you know I’m right: Even if you found a nice, regular girl, you’d be thinking of me every day. Tell me you wouldn’t.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘How quickly did you forget little Able Andie once you thought I loved you again?’ I say it in my poor-baby voice. I even stick out my lower lip. ‘One love note, sweetie? Did one love note do it? Two? Two notes with me swearing I loved you and I wanted you back, and I thought you were just great after all – was that it for you? You are WITTY, you are WARM, you are BRILLIANT. You’re so pathetic. You think you can ever be a normal man again? You’ll find a nice girl, and you’ll still think of me, and you’ll be so completely dissatisfied, trapped in your boring, normal life with your regular wife and your two average kids. You’ll think of me and then you’ll look at your wife, and you’ll think: Dumb bitch.’

‘Shut up, Amy. I mean it.’

‘Just like your dad. We’re all bitches in the end, aren’t we, Nick? Dumb bitch, psycho bitch.’

He grabs me by the arm and shakes me hard.

‘I’m the bitch who makes you better, Nick.’

He stops talking then. He is using all his energy to keep his hands at his side. His eyes are wet with tears. He is shaking.

‘I’m the bitch who makes you a man.’

Then his hands are on my neck.

NICK DUNNE

THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN

Her pulse was finally throbbing beneath my fingers, the way I’d imagined. I pressed tighter and brought her to the ground. She made wet clucking noises and scratched at my wrists. We were both kneeling, in face-to-face prayer for ten seconds.

You fucking crazy bitch.

A tear fell from my chin and hit the floor.

You murdering, mind-fucking, evil, crazy bitch.

Amy’s bright blue eyes were staring into mine, unblinking.

And then the strangest thought of all clattered drunkenly from the back of my brain to the front and blinded me: If I kill Amy, who will I be?

I saw a bright white flash. I dropped my wife as if she were burning iron.

She sat hard on the ground, gasped, coughed. When her breath came back, it was in jagged rasps, with a strange, almost erotic squeak at the end.

Who will I be then? The question wasn’t recriminatory. It wasn’t like the answer was the pious: Then you’ll be a killer, Nick. You’ll be as bad as Amy. You’ll be what everyone thought you were. No. The question was frighteningly soulful and literal: Who would I be without Amy to react to? Because she was right: As a man, I had been my most impressive when I loved her – and I was my next best self when I hated her. I had known Amy only seven years, but I couldn’t go back to life without her. Because she was right: I couldn’t return to an average life. I’d known it before she’d said a word. I’d already pictured myself with a regular woman – a sweet, normal girl next door – and I’d already pictured telling this regular woman the story of Amy, the lengths she had gone to – to punish me and to return to me. I already pictured this sweet and mediocre girl saying something uninteresting like Oh, nooooo, oh my God, and I already knew part of me would be looking at her and thinking: You’ve never murdered for me. You’ve never framed me. You wouldn’t even know how to begin to do what Amy did. You could never possibly care that much. The indulged mama’s boy in me wouldn’t be able to find peace with this normal woman, and pretty soon she wouldn’t just be normal, she’d be substandard, and then my father’s voice – dumb bitch – would rise up and take it from there.

Amy was exactly right.

So maybe there was no good end for me.

Amy was toxic, yet I couldn’t imagine a world without her entirely. Who would I be with Amy just gone? There were no options that interested me anymore. But she had to be brought to heel. Amy in prison, that was a good ending for her. Tucked away in a box where she couldn’t inflict herself on me but where I could visit her from time to time. Or at least imagine her. A pulse, my pulse, left out there somewhere.

It had to be me who put her there. It was my responsibility. Just as Amy took the credit for making me my best self, I had to take the blame for bringing the madness to bloom in Amy. There were a million men who would have loved, honored, and obeyed Amy and considered themselves lucky to do so. Confident, self-assured, real men who wouldn’t have forced her to pretend to be anything but her own perfect, rigid, demanding, brilliant, creative, fascinating, rapacious, megalomaniac self.

Men capable of being uxorious.

Men capable of keeping her sane.

Amy’s story could have gone a million other ways, but she met me, and bad things happened. So it was up to me to stop her.

Not kill her but stop her.

Put her in one of her boxes.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

FIVE DAYS AFTER THE RETURN

I know, I know for sure now, that I need to be more careful about Nick. He’s not as tame as he used to be. Something in him is electric; a switch has turned on. I like it. But I need to take precautions.

I need one more spectacular precaution.

It will take some time to put in place, this precaution. But I’ve done it before, the planning. In the meantime, we can work on our rebuilding. Start with the facade. We will have a happy marriage if it kills him.

‘You’re going to have to try again to love me,’ I told him. The morning after he almost killed me. It happened to be Nick’s thirty-fifth birthday, but he didn’t mention it. My husband has had enough of my gifts.

‘I forgive you for last night,’ I said. ‘We were both under a lot of stress. But now you’re going to have to try again.’

‘I know.’

‘Things will have to be different,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he said.

He doesn’t really know. But he will.

My parents have visited daily. Rand and Marybeth and Nick lavish me with attention. Pillows. Everyone wants to offer me pillows: We are all laboring under a mass psychosis that my rape and miscarriage have left me forever achy and delicate. I have a permanent case of sparrow’s bones – I must be held gently in the palm, lest I break. So I prop my feet on the infamous ottoman, and I tread delicately over the kitchen floor where I bled. We must take good care of me.

Yet I find it strangely tense to watch Nick with anyone but me. He seems on the edge of blurting all the time – as if his lungs are bursting with words about me, damning words.

I need Nick, I realize. I actually need him to back my story. To stop his accusations and denials and admit that it was him: the credit cards, the goodies in the woodshed, the bump in insurance. Otherwise I will carry that waft of uncertainty forever. I have only a few loose ends, and those loose ends are people. The police, the FBI, they are sifting through my story. Boney, I know, would love to arrest me. But they botched everything so badly before – they look like such fools – that they can’t touch me unless they have proof. And they don’t have proof. They have Nick, who swears he didn’t do the things I swear he did, and that’s not much, but it’s more than I’d like.

I’ve even prepared in case my Ozarks friends Jeff and Greta show up, nosing around for acclaim or cash. I’ve already told the police: Desi didn’t drive us straight to his home. He kept me blindfolded and gagged and drugged for several days – I think it was several days – in some room, maybe a motel room? Maybe an apartment? I can’t be sure, it’s all such a blur. I was so frightened, you know, and the sleeping pills. If Jeff and Greta show their pointy, lowdown faces and somehow convince the cops to send a tech team down to the Hide-A-Way, and one of my fingerprints or a hair is found, that simply solves part of the puzzle. The rest is them telling lies.

So Nick is really the only issue, and soon I’ll return him to my side. I was smart, I left no other evidence. The police may not entirely believe me, but they won’t do anything. I know from the petulant tone in Boney’s voice – she will live in permanent exasperation from now on, and the more annoyed she gets, the more people will dismiss her. She already has the righteous, eye-rolling cadence of a conspiracy crackpot. She might as well wrap her head in foil.

Yes, the investigation is winding down. But for Amazing Amy, it’s quite the opposite. My parents’ publisher placed an abashed plea for another Amazing Amy book, and they acquiesced for a lovely fat sum. Once again they are squatting on my psyche, earning money for themselves. They left Carthage this morning. They say it’s important for Nick and me (the correct grammar) to have some time alone and heal. But I know the truth. They want to get to work. They tell me they are trying to ‘find the right tone.’ A tone that says: Our daughter was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by a monster she had to stab in the neck … but this is in no way a cash grab.

I don’t care about the rebuilding of their pathetic empire, because every day I get calls to tell my story. My story: mine, mine, mine. I just need to pick the very best deal and start writing. I just need to get Nick on the same page so that we both agree how this story will end. Happily.

I know Nick isn’t in love with me yet, but he will be. I do have faith in that. Fake it until you make it, isn’t that an expression? For now he acts like the old Nick, and I act like the old Amy. Back when we were happy. When we didn’t know each other as well as we do now. Yesterday I stood on the back porch and watched the sun come up over the river, a strangely cool August morning, and when I turned around, Nick was studying me from the kitchen window, and he held up a mug of coffee with a question: You want a cup? I nodded, and soon he was standing beside me, the air smelling of grass, and we were drinking our coffee together and watching the water, and it felt normal and good.

He won’t sleep with me yet. He sleeps in the downstairs guest room with the door locked. But one day I will wear him down, I will catch him off guard, and he will lose the energy for the nightly battle, and he will get in bed with me. In the middle of the night, I’ll turn to face him and press myself against him. I’ll hold myself to him like a climbing, coiling vine until I have invaded every part of him and made him mine.

NICK DUNNE

THIRTY DAYS AFTER THE RETURN

Amy thinks she’s in control, but she’s very wrong. Or: She will be very wrong.

Boney and Go and I are working together. The cops, the FBI, no one else is showing much interest anymore. But yesterday Boney called out of the blue. She didn’t identify herself when I picked up, just started in like an old friend: Take you for a cup of coffee? I grabbed Go, and we met Boney back at the Pancake House. She was already at the booth when we arrived, and she stood and smiled somewhat weakly. She’d been getting pummeled in the press. We did an awkward, group-wide hug-or-handshake shuffle. Boney settled for a nod.

First thing she said to me once we got our food: ‘I have one daughter. Thirteen years old. Mia. For Mia Hamm. She was born the day we won the World Cup. So, that’s my daughter.’

I raised my eyebrows: How interesting. Tell me more.

‘You asked that one day, and I didn’t … I was rude. I’d been sure you were innocent, and then … everything said you weren’t, so I was pissed. That I could be that fooled. So I didn’t even want to say my daughter’s name around you.’ She poured us out coffee from the thermos.

‘So, it’s Mia,’ she said.

‘Well, thank you,’ I said.

‘No, I mean … Crap.’ She exhaled upward, a hard gust that fluttered her bangs. ‘I mean: I know Amy framed you. I know she murdered Desi Collings. I know it. I just can’t prove it.’

‘What is everyone else doing while you’re actually working the case?’ Go asked.

‘There is no case. They’re moving on. Gilpin is totally checked out. I basically got the word from on high: Shut this shit down. Shut it down. We look like giant, rube, redneck jackasses in the national media. I can’t do anything unless I get something from you, Nick. You got anything?’

I shrugged. ‘I got everything you got. She confessed to me, but—’

‘She confessed?’ she said. ‘Well, hell, Nick, we’ll wire you.’

‘It won’t work. It won’t work. She thinks of everything. I mean, she knows police procedure cold. She studies, Rhonda.’

She poured electric-blue syrup over her waffles. I stuck the tines of my fork in my bulbous egg yolk and swirled it, smearing the sun.

‘It drives me crazy when you call me Rhonda.’

‘She studies, Ms Detective Boney.’

She blew her breath upward, fluttered her bangs again. Took a bite of pancake. ‘I couldn’t get a wire anyway at this point.’

‘Come on, there has to be something, you guys,’ Go snapped. ‘Nick, why the hell are you staying in that house if you aren’t getting something?’

‘It takes time, Go. I have to get her to trust me again. If she starts telling me things casually, when we’re not both stark naked—’

Boney rubbed her eyes and addressed Go: ‘Do I even want to ask?’

‘They always have their talks naked in the shower with the water running,’ Go said. ‘Can’t you bug the shower somewhere?’

‘She whispers in my ear, on top of the shower running,’ I said.

‘She does study,’ Boney said. ‘She really does. I went over that car she drove back, Desi’s Jag. I had ’em check the trunk, where she swore Desi had stowed her when he kidnapped her. I figured there’d be nothing there – we’d catch her in a lie. She rolled around in the trunk, Nick. Her scent was detected by our dogs. And we found three long blond hairs. Long blond hairs. Hers before she cut it. How she did that—’

‘Foresight. I’m sure she had a bag of them so if she needed to leave them somewhere to damn me, she could.’

‘Good God, can you imagine having her for a mother? You could never fib. She’d be three steps ahead of you, always.’

‘Boney, can you imagine having her for a wife?’

‘She’ll crack,’ she said. ‘At some point, she’ll crack.’

‘She won’t,’ I said. ‘Can’t I just testify against her?’

‘You have no credibility,’ Boney said. ‘Your only credibility comes from Amy. She’s single-handedly rehabilitated you. And she can single-handedly undo it. If she comes out with the antifreeze story …’

‘I need to find the vomit,’ I said. ‘If I got rid of the vomit and we exposed more of her lies …’

‘We should go through the diary,’ Go said. ‘Seven years of entries? There have to be discrepancies.’

‘We asked Rand and Marybeth to go through it, see if anything seemed off to them,’ Boney said. ‘You can guess how that went. I thought Marybeth was going to scratch my eyes out.’

‘What about Jacqueline Collings, or Tommy O’Hara, or Hilary Handy?’ Go said. ‘They all know the real Amy. There has to be something there.’

Boney shook her head. ‘Believe me, it’s not enough. They’re all less credible than Amy. It’s pure public opinion, but right now that’s what the department is looking at: public opinion.’

She was right. Jacqueline Collings had popped up on a few cable shows, insisting on her son’s innocence. She always started off steady, but her mother’s love worked against her: She soon came across as a grieving woman desperate to believe the best of her son, and the more the hosts pitied her, the more she snapped and snarled, and the more unsympathetic she became. She got written off quickly. Both Tommy O’Hara and Hilary Handy called me, furious that Amy remained unpunished, determined to tell their story, but no one wanted to hear from two unhinged former anythings. Hold tight, I told them, we’re working on it. Hilary and Tommy and Jacqueline and Boney and Go and I, we’d have our moment. I told myself I believed it.

‘What if we at least got Andie?’ I asked. ‘Got her to testify that everywhere Amy hid a clue was a place where we’d, you know, had sex? Andie’s credible; people love her.’

Andie had reverted to her old cheery self after Amy returned. I know that only from the occasional tabloid snapshot. From these, I know she has been dating a guy her age, a cute, shaggy kid with earbuds forever dangling from his neck. They look nice together, young and healthy. The press adored them. The best headline: Love Finds Andie Hardy!, a 1938 Mickey Rooney movie pun only about twenty people would get. I sent her a text: I’m sorry. For everything. I didn’t hear back. Good for her. I mean that sincerely.

‘Coincidence.’ Boney shrugged. ‘I mean, weird coincidence, but … it’s not impressive enough to move forward. Not in this climate. You need to get your wife to tell you something useful, Nick. You’re our only chance here.’

Go slammed down her coffee. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,’ she said. ‘Nick, I don’t want you in that house anymore. You’re not an undercover cop, you know. It’s not your job. You are living with a murderer. Fucking leave. I’m sorry, but who gives a shit that she killed Desi? I don’t want her to kill you. I mean, someday you burn her grilled cheese, and the next thing you know, my phone’s ringing and you’ve taken an awful fall from the roof or some shit. Leave.’

‘I can’t. Not yet. She’ll never really let me go. She likes the game too much.’

‘Then stop playing it.’

I can’t. I’m getting so much better at it. I will stay close to her until I can bring her down. I’m the only one left who can do it. Someday she’ll slip and tell me something I can use. A week ago I moved into our bedroom. We don’t have sex, we barely touch, but we are husband and wife in a marital bed, which appeases Amy for now. I stroke her hair. I take a strand between my finger and thumb, and I pull it to the end and tug, like I’m ringing a bell, and we both like that. Which is a problem.

We pretend to be in love, and we do the things we like to do when we’re in love, and it feels almost like love sometimes, because we are so perfectly putting ourselves through the paces. Reviving the muscle memory of early romance. When I forget – I can sometimes briefly forget who my wife is – I actually like hanging out with her. Or the her she is pretending to be. The fact is, my wife is a murderess who is sometimes really fun. May I give one example? One night I flew in lobster like the old days, and she pretended to chase me with it, and I pretended to hide, and then we both at the same time made an Annie Hall joke, and it was so perfect, so the way it was supposed to be, that I had to leave the room for a second. My heart was beating in my ears. I had to repeat my mantra: Amy killed a man, and she will kill you if you are not very, very careful. My wife, the very fun, beautiful murderess, will do me harm if I displease her. I find myself jittery in my own house: I will be making a sandwich, standing in the kitchen midday, licking the peanut butter off the knife, and I will turn and find Amy in the same room with me – those quiet little cat feet – and I will quiver. Me, Nick Dunne, the man who used to forget so many details, is now the guy who replays conversations to make sure I didn’t offend, to make sure I never hurt her feelings. I write down everything about her day, her likes and dislikes, in case she quizzes me. I am a great husband because I am very afraid she may kill me.

We’ve never had a conversation about my paranoia, because we’re pretending to be in love and I’m pretending not to be frightened of her. But she’s made glancing mentions of it: You know, Nick, you can sleep in bed with me, like, actually sleep. It will be okay. I promise. What happened with Desi was an isolated incident. Close your eyes and sleep.

But I know I’ll never sleep again. I can’t close my eyes when I’m next to her. It’s like sleeping with a spider.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

EIGHT WEEKS AFTER THE RETURN

No one has arrested me. The police have stopped questioning. I feel safe. I will be even safer very soon.

This is how good I feel: Yesterday I came downstairs for breakfast, and the jar that held my vomit was sitting on the kitchen counter, empty. Nick – the scrounger – had gotten rid of that little bit of leverage. I blinked an eye, and then I tossed out the jar.

It hardly matters now.

Good things are happening.

I have a book deal: I am officially in control of our story. It feels wonderfully symbolic. Isn’t that what every marriage is, anyway? Just a lengthy game of he-said, she-said? Well, she is saying, and the world will listen, and Nick will have to smile and agree. I will write him the way I want him to be: romantic and thoughtful and very very repentant – about the credit cards and the purchases and the woodshed. If I can’t get him to say it out loud, he’ll say it in my book. Then he’ll come on tour with me and smile and smile.

I’m calling the book simply: Amazing. Causing great wonder or surprise; astounding. That sums up my story, I think.

NICK DUNNE

NINE WEEKS AFTER THE RETURN

I found the vomit. She’d hidden it in the back of the freezer in a jar, inside a box of Brussels sprouts. The box was covered in icicles; it must have been sitting there for months. I know it was her own joke with herself: Nick won’t eat his vegetables, Nick never cleans out the fridge, Nick won’t think to look here.

But Nick did.

Nick knows how to clean out the refrigerator, it turns out, and Nick even knows how to defrost: I poured all that sick down the drain, and I left the jar on the counter so she’d know.

She tossed it in the garbage. She never said a word about it.

Something’s wrong. I don’t know what it is, but something’s very wrong.

My life has begun to feel like an epilogue. Tanner picked up a new case: A Nashville singer discovered his wife was cheating, and her body was found the next day in a Hardee’s trash bin near their house, a hammer covered with his fingerprints beside her. Tanner is using me as a defense. I know it looks bad, but it also looked bad for Nick Dunne, and you know how that turned out. I could almost feel him winking at me through the camera lens. He sent the occasional text: U OK? Or: Anything?

No, nothing.

Boney and Go and I hung out in secret at the Pancake House, where we sifted the dirty sand of Amy’s story, trying to find something we could use. We scoured the diary, an elaborate anachronism hunt. It came down to desperate nitpickings like: ‘She makes a comment here about Darfur, was that on the radar in 2010?’ (Yes, we found a 2006 newsclip with George Clooney discussing it.) Or my own best worst: ‘Amy makes a joke in the July 2008 entry about killing a hobo, but I feel like dead-hobo jokes weren’t big until 2009.’ To which Boney replied: ‘Pass the syrup, freakshow.’

People peeled away, went on with their lives. Boney stayed. Go stayed.

Then something happened. My father finally died. At night, in his sleep. A woman spooned his last meal into his mouth, a woman settled him into bed for his last rest, a woman cleaned him up after he died, and a woman phoned to give me the news.

‘He was a good man,’ she said, dullness with an obligatory injection of empathy.

‘No, he wasn’t,’ I said, and she laughed like she clearly hadn’t in a month.

I thought it would make me feel better to have the man vanished from the earth, but I actually felt a massive, frightening hollowness open up in my chest. I had spent my life comparing myself to my father, and now he was gone, and there was only Amy left to bat against. After the small, dusty, lonely service, I didn’t leave with Go, I went home with Amy, and I clutched her to me. That’s right, I went home with my wife.

I have to get out of this house, I thought. I have to be done with Amy once and for all. Burn us down, so I couldn’t ever go back.

Who would I be without you?

I had to find out. I had to tell my own story. It was all so clear.

The next morning, as Amy was in her study clicking away at the keys, telling the world her Amazing story, I took my laptop downstairs and stared at the glowing white screen.

I started on the opening page of my own book.

I am a cheating, weak-spined, woman-fearing coward, and I am the hero of your story. Because the woman I cheated on – my wife, Amy Elliott Dunne – is a sociopath and a murderer.

Yes. I’d read that.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

TEN WEEKS AFTER THE RETURN

Nick still pretends with me. We pretend together that we are happy and carefree and in love. But I hear him clicking away late at night on the computer. Writing. Writing his side, I know it. I know it, I can tell by the feverish outpouring of words, the keys clicking and clacking like a million insects. I try to hack in when he’s asleep (although he sleeps like me now, fussy and anxious, and I sleep like him). But he’s learned his lesson, that he’s no longer beloved Nicky, safe from wrong – he no longer uses his birthday or his mom’s birthday or Bleecker’s birthday as a password. I can’t get in.

Still, I hear him typing, rapidly and without pause, and I can picture him hunched over the keyboard, his shoulders up, his tongue clamped between his teeth, and I know that I was right to protect myself. To take my precaution.

Because he isn’t writing a love story.

NICK DUNNE

TWENTY WEEKS AFTER THE RETURN

I didn’t move out. I wanted this all to be a surprise to my wife, who is never surprised. I wanted to give her the manuscript as I walked out the door to land a book deal. Let her feel that trickling horror of knowing the world is about to tilt and dump its shit all over you, and you can’t do anything about it. No, she may never go to prison, and it will always be my word against hers, but my case was convincing. It had an emotional resonance, if not a legal one.

So let everyone take sides. Team Nick, Team Amy. Turn it into even more of a game: Sell some fucking T-shirts.

My legs were weak when I went to tell Amy: I was no longer part of her story.

I showed her the manuscript, displayed the glaring title: Psycho Bitch. A little inside joke. We both like our inside jokes. I waited for her to scratch my cheeks, rip my clothes, bite me.

‘Oh! What perfect timing,’ she said cheerfully, and gave me a big grin. ‘Can I show you something?’

I made her do it again in front of me. Piss on the stick, me squatting next to her on the bathroom floor, watching the urine come out of her and hitting the stick and turning it pregnant-blue.

Then I hustled her into the car and drove to the doctor’s office, and I watched the blood come out of her – because she isn’t really afraid of blood – and we waited the two hours for the test to come back.

Amy was pregnant.

‘It’s obviously not mine,’ I said.

‘Oh, it is.’ She smiled back. She tried to snuggle into my arms. ‘Congratulations, Dad.’

‘Amy—’I began, because of course it wasn’t true, I hadn’t touched my wife since her return. Then I saw it: the box of tissues, the vinyl recliner, the TV and porn, and my semen in a hospital freezer somewhere. I’d left that will-destroy notice on the table, a limp guilt trip, and then the notice disappeared, because my wife had taken action, as always, and that action wasn’t to get rid of the stuff but to save it. Just in case.

I felt a giant bubble of joy – I couldn’t help it – and then the joy was encased in a metallic terror.

‘I’ll need to do a few things for my security, Nick,’ she said. ‘Just because, I have to say, it’s almost impossible to trust you. To start, you’ll have to delete your book, obviously. And just to put that other matter to rest, we’ll need an affidavit, and you’ll need to swear that it was you who bought the stuff in the woodshed and hid the stuff in the woodshed, and that you did once think I was framing you, but now you love me and I love you and everything is good.’

‘What if I refuse?’

She put her hand on her small, swollen belly and frowned. ‘I think that would be awful.’

We had spent years battling for control of our marriage, of our love story, our life story. I had been thoroughly, finally outplayed. I created a manuscript, and she created a life.

I could fight for custody, but I already knew I’d lose. Amy would relish the battle – God knew what she already had lined up. By the time she was done, I wouldn’t even be an every-other-weekend dad; I would interact with my child in strange rooms with a guardian nearby sipping coffee, watching me. Or maybe not even that. I could suddenly see the accusations – of molestation or abuse – and I would never see my baby, and I would know that my child was tucked away far from me, Mother whispering, whispering lies into that tiny pink ear.

‘It’s a boy, by the way,’ she said.

I was a prisoner after all. Amy had me forever, or as long as she wanted, because I needed to save my son, to try to unhook, unlatch, debarb, undo everything that Amy did. I would literally lay down my life for my child, and do it happily. I would raise my son to be a good man.

I deleted my story.

Boney picked up on the first ring.

‘Pancake House? Twenty minutes?’ she said.

‘No.’

I informed Rhonda Boney that I was going to be a father and so could no longer assist in any investigation – that I was, in fact, planning to retract any statement I’d made concerning my misplaced belief that my wife had framed me, and I was, also ready to admit my role in the credit cards.

A long pause on the line. ‘Hunh,’ she said. ‘Hunh.’

I could picture Boney running her hand through her slack hair, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

‘You take care of yourself, okay, Nick?’ she said finally. ‘Take good care of the little one too.’ Then she laughed. ‘Amy I don’t really give a fuck about.’

I went to Go’s house to tell her in person. I tried to frame it as happy news. A baby, you can’t be that upset about a baby. You can hate a situation, but you can’t hate a child.

I thought Go was going to hit me. She stood so close I could feel her breath. She jabbed me with an index finger.

‘You just want an excuse to stay,’ she whispered. ‘You two, you’re fucking addicted to each other. You are literally going to be a nuclear family, you do know that? You will explode. You will fucking detonate. You really think you can possibly do this for, what, the next eighteen years? You don’t think she’ll kill you?’

‘Not as long as I am the man she married. I wasn’t for a while, but I can be.’

‘You don’t think you’ll kill her? You want to turn into Dad?’

‘Don’t you see, Go? This is my guarantee not to turn into Dad. I’ll have to be the best husband and father in the world.’

Go burst into tears then – the first time I’d seen her cry since she was a child. She sat down on the floor, straight down, as if her legs gave out. I sat down beside her and leaned my head against hers. She finally swallowed her last sob and looked at me. ‘Remember when I said, Nick, I said I’d still love you if? I’d love you no matter what came after the if?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I still love you. But this breaks my heart.’ She let out an awful sob, a child’s sob. ‘Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way.’

‘It’s a strange twist,’ I said, trying to turn it light.

‘She won’t try to keep us apart, will she?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Remember, she’s pretending to be someone better too.’

Yes, I am finally a match for Amy. The other morning I woke up next to her, and I studied the back of her skull. I tried to read her thoughts. For once I didn’t feel like I was staring into the sun. I’m rising to my wife’s level of madness. Because I can feel her changing me again: I was a callow boy, and then a man, good and bad. Now at last I’m the hero. I am the one to root for in the never-ending war story of our marriage. It’s a story I can live with. Hell, at this point, I can’t imagine my story without Amy. She is my forever antagonist.

We are one long frightening climax.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

TEN MONTHS, TWO WEEKS, SIX DAYS AFTER THE RETURN

I was told love should be unconditional. That’s the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge? I am supposed to love Nick despite all his shortcomings. And Nick is supposed to love me despite my quirks. But clearly, neither of us does. It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous.

You can read more about my thoughts on love in Amazing. Out soon!

But first: motherhood. The due date is tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be our anniversary. Year six. Iron. I thought about giving Nick a nice pair of handcuffs, but he may not find that funny yet. It’s so strange to think: A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him.

Nick has spent all his free time these past months slathering my belly with cocoa butter and running out for pickles and rubbing my feet, and all the things good fathers-to-be are supposed to do. Doting on me. He is learning to love me unconditionally, under all my conditions. I think we are finally on our way to happiness. I have finally figured it out.

We are on the eve of becoming the world’s best, brightest nuclear family.

We just need to sustain it. Nick doesn’t have it down perfect. This morning he was stroking my hair and asking what else he could do for me, and I said: ‘My gosh, Nick, why are you so wonderful to me?’

He was supposed to say: You deserve it. I love you.

But he said, ‘Because I feel sorry for you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because every morning you have to wake up and be you.’

I really, truly wish he hadn’t said that. I keep thinking about it. I can’t stop.

I don’t have anything else to add. I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I’ve earned that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’ve got to start with Stephanie Kip Rostan, whose smart advice, sound opinions, and good humor have seen me through three books now. She’s also just really fun to hang out with. Thanks for all the excellent guidance over the years. Many thanks also to Jim Levine and Daniel Greenberg and everyone at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

My editor, Lindsay Sagnette, is a dream: Thank you for lending me your expert ear, for letting me be just the right amount of stubborn, for challenging me to do better, and for cheering me on during that last stretch – if it weren’t for you, I’d have remained ‘82.6 per cent done’ forever.

Much thanks to Crown publisher Molly Stern for the feedback, the support, the sage comments, and the endless energy.

Gratitude also to Annsley Rosner, Christine Kopprasch, Linda Kaplan, Rachel Meier, Jay Sones, Karin Schulze, Cindy Berman, Jill Flaxman, and E. Beth Thomas. Thanks as always to Kirsty Dunseath and the gang at Orion.

For my many questions about police and legal procedures, I turned to some very gracious experts. Thanks to my uncle, the Hon. Robert M. Schieber, and to Lt. Emmet B. Helrich for always letting me run ideas by them. Huge thanks this round to defense attorney Molly Hastings in Kansas City, who explained her job with great grace and conviction. And endless gratitude to Det. Craig Enloe of the Overland Park Police Department for answering my 42,000 emails (modest estimate) over the past two years with patience, good humor, and exactly the right amount of information. Any mistakes are mine.

Thanks, for many and varied reasons, to: Trish and Chris Bauer, Katy Caldwell, Jessica and Ryan Cox, Sarah and Alex Eckert, Wade Elliott, Ryan Enright, Mike and Paula Hawthorne, Mike Hillgamyer, Sean Kelly, Sally Kim, Sarah Knight, Yocunda Lopez, Kameren and Sean Miller, Adam Nevens, Josh Noel, Jess and Jack O’Donnell, Lauren “Fake Party We’re Awesome” Oliver, Brian “Map App” Raftery, Javier Ramirez, Kevin Robinett, Julie Sabo, gg Sakey, Joe Samson, Katie Sigelman, Matt Stearns, Susan and Errol Stone, Deborah Stone, Tessa and Gary Todd, Jenny Williams, Josh Wolk, Bill and Kelly Ye, Chicago’s Inner Town Pub (home of the Christmas Morning), and the unsinkable Courtney Maguire.

For my wonderful Missouri family – all the Schiebers, the Welshes, the Flynns, and branches thereof. Thanks for all the love, support, laughs, pickle rolls, and bourbon slush … basically for making Missouri, as Nick would say, ‘a magical place’.

I received some incredibly helpful feedback from a few readers who are also good friends. Marcus Sakey gave me sharp advice about Nick early on over beer and Thai food. David MacLean and Emily Stone (deareth!) were kind enough to read Gone Girl in the months leading up to their wedding. It doesn’t seem to have harmed you guys in the least, and it made the book a lot better, so thanks. Nothing will stop you from getting to the Caymans!

Scott Brown: Thanks for all the writing retreats during the Gone Girl Years, especially the Ozarks. I’m glad we didn’t sink the paddleboat after all. Thanks for your incredibly insightful reads, and for always swooping in and helping me articulate what the hell it is I’m trying to say. You are a good Monster and a wonderful friend.

Thanks to my brother, Travis Flynn, for always being around to answer questions about how things actually work. Much love to Ruth Flynn, Brandon Flynn, and Holly Bailey.

To my in-laws, Cathy and Jim Nolan, Jennifer Nolan, Megan, Pablo, and Xavy Marroquin – and all the Nolans and Samsons: I am very aware of how lucky I am to have married into your family. Thanks for everything. Cathy, we always knew you had one hell of a heart, but this past year proved it in so many ways.

To my parents, Matt and Judith Flynn. Encouraging, thoughtful, funny, kind, creative, supportive, and still madly in love after more than forty years. I am, as always, in awe of you both. Thanks for being so good to me and for always taking the time to harass strangers into buying my books. And thank you for being so lovely with Flynn – I become a better parent just watching you.

Finally, my guys.

Roy: Good kitty.

Flynn: Beloved boy, I adore you! Also, if you are reading this before the year 2024, you are too little. Put it down and pick up Frumble!

Brett: Husband! Father of my child! Dance partner, emergency grilled-cheese maker. The kind of fellow who knows how to pick the wine. The kind of fellow who looks great in a tux. Also a zombie-tux. The guy with the generous laugh and the glorious whistle. The guy who has the answer. The man who makes my child laugh till he falls down. The man who makes me laugh till I fall down. The guy who lets me ask all sorts of invasive, inappropriate, and intrusive questions about being a guy. The man who read and reread and reread and then reread, and not only gave advice, but gave me a bourbon app. You’re it, baby. Thanks for marrying me.

Two words, always.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gillian Flynn’s first novel, Sharp Objects, was the winner of two CWA Dagger Awards and was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award, and for an Edgar. Her second, Dark Places was published to great critical acclaim. A former writer and critic for Entertainment Weekly, her novels have been published in twenty-eight countries. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.