Chapter 8: The Woman Four Blocks Away
I found her on the second afternoon.
I had walked the four-block radius three times over two days, once in the morning and twice in the late afternoon, until I recognized Christopher's car parked half a block from a gray rental house with a small front porch.
I didn't stop.
I kept walking, turned the corner, and called Patricia.
"I found where she's staying," I said.
"Gwen." Patricia's voice was careful.
"We talked about this."
"I'm not going to do anything.
I just want to see her."
"Seeing her is doing something."
"Patricia." I stopped walking.
"Christopher has planned this for at least eight months.
He has done it before.
There is a woman d3d in Akron and another one in Cincinnati and I am four days from a house in Vermont that they bought together." My voice stayed level.
"I need to look at her face."
A long pause.
"Don't speak to her," Patricia said finally.
"Don't let her see you clearly.
And call me the moment you leave."
I went back the next morning.
She came out at nine-forty.
Mid-thirties, dark hair pulled back, a canvas bag over one shoulder.
She locked the door and checked her phone twice before she reached the sidewalk.
She was pretty in a tired way — the kind of pretty that looks like it has been under pressure for a long time.
She turned toward the coffee shop on the corner.
I followed at a distance and took a table near the window while she ordered at the counter.
She sat down two tables away with her back to me.
Her phone lit up on the table.
She read something, typed a short reply, and set it face-down.
I watched her drink her coffee.
She didn't look like a monster.
She looked like a woman who was waiting for something.
Nervous in a way she was trying not to show — the way she kept touching the strap of her bag, the way she checked the door every few minutes.
I left before she finished her coffee.
Outside, I called Patricia.
"I saw her," I said.
"And?"
"She's frightened," I said.
"I don't think she's running the plan.
I think she's caught in it."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"That's a significant distinction legally."
"I know.
But I think if someone gave her a way out before Thursday, she might take it."
"Gwen, we cannot approach her.
If she warns Christopher —"
"I'm not going to approach her," I said.
"But Warren should know.
If she's frightened, she may cooperate.
And if she cooperates, the case against Christopher becomes airtight."
A pause.
"I'll tell Warren."
"Today," I said.
"It needs to be today."
I walked home along the longer route, past the park where Toby had learned to ride a bike, past the bakery where Christopher had bought pastries the morning after he came into my house with a syringe.
My phone buzzed.
Toby.
"I found Diane's sister," he said.
"Her name is Carol Marsh.
She lives in Columbus.
Mom — she never believed it was an accident.
She filed a complaint with the Akron police two months after Diane d3d.
They closed it without investigation."
"Does she know about me?"
"Not yet."
"Call her," I said.
"Tell her everything.
Tell her it's almost over."
Toby exhaled.
"Okay."
"And Toby?"
"Yeah?"
"Tell her she wasn't wrong."
I got home and sat in my father's study for a long time.
The safe was behind me, closed and locked.
The coat with the letter and the marriage certificate was in the back of my closet, in a bag I had already given Patricia a copy of.
Christopher came home at six with flowers.
Yellow ones.
My favorites.
He set them in the vase on the counter as though it were any Thursday, any year, any marriage.
"Two more days," he said, turning to smile at me.
May you like
"Two more days," I said.
He didn't hear what I meant by it.
