I laughed it off, especially when I caught a glimpse of the handsome Ethan dropping Gail off for one of her appointments. Nobody who looked like that could be a bad person. And how nice of him to drop his mother off for her therapy sessions. Of course, he didn’t know what she was talking about to the therapist and he certainly didn’t know that the sessions were being recorded.

But then a couple of months after Dr. Hale’s disappearance, my mother, who ran in the same social circles as Gail, told me the gossip about her untimely death. She took a spill down a flight of stairs and broke her neck after she had a few too many drinks. Leaving her son Ethan with a hefty insurance payout to take care of the consequences of his first failed start-up and then some.

I have to admit, I became a little obsessed with Ethan after that. First of all, he was gorgeous. And second, something about him reminded me of myself. He went after what he wanted. Even if he had to do something other people would say was unthinkable.

Okay, I was more than a little obsessed with Ethan. Let’s just say that our coincidental meeting wasn’t such a coincidence. More like it was carefully engineered by yours truly.

But he never quite came around the way I wanted him to. After we got married, I thought he would confess everything to me. I thought he would love and trust me enough to tell me the truth. But he hasn’t.

That’s why I brought him along on this trip. I could have gone alone, and it would’ve been easier. I could have searched to my heart’s content. But I wanted Ethan here with me. He forgot about this house until he saw the portrait of Dr. Hale on the wall. But now he knows that his secret is out there.

“What are you doing?” I ask him again. He opens his mouth, but before any words can come out, I add, “Don’t lie.”

“I would never lie to you, Tricia,” he sputters.

I give him a look.

His shoulders sag. “You listened to my mother’s tapes, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Some of them.”

“Oh God.” He tugs at the short strands of his golden hair. “I know what she said on those tapes. But I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie.”

He stands there for a moment. The only sounds in the room are the fire crackling and his inhale and exhale.

“Fine,” he says. “I killed her.”

Chapter 54

Now that the truth has left his lips, he seems calmer. He’s not sweating anymore. He’s my confident husband again.