Her phone rang a couple of minutes later. Mia was calling. Feeling like the world’s worst mother, Kate didn’t pick up.

12

THE WIFE

‘Just because the victim was from out of town, doesn’t mean that the killer is,’ Lori declared loudly. She was uncharacteristically chipper, waving her fork at Abby as if it was a magic wand.

For better or worse – usually worse – the Gilpins were a sit-down-for-dinner type of family. Abby would have been happy eating all her meals in front of the TV. That’s how she spent her childhood and she turned out okay. But family time was important to Ray. He envisioned a half-hour each night where those closest to him passed the salt around the table like a conch shell, talking about their hopes and dreams and fears. It rarely worked out that way. When the kids were small, dinner had often stretched to an hour as Ray got caught up telling a story while Abby fetched everyone an extra scoop of neapolitan. But when Eddie and Lori hit puberty, family time became dinner with strangers.

Nowadays, the way it usually worked was that Abby and Ray would make stilted conversation, painfully drawing information out of their children. It was like taking water from a well with a bendy-straw. Eddie moved food around on his plate. Lori cast brooding gazes across the table and Abby speed-ate her way to the finish.

Tonight was different. The body had Lori talking. She was perched forward on her chair, commanding the attention of the room.

‘The killer could be someone we know,’ she said. ‘This might not even be their first victim. They might do this all the time. They might have lured hundreds of people to the island then fed their bodies to the sharks in Elk Harbour, but this time the cops beat the sharks to the body, and—’

‘Take a breath, honey,’ Abby said.

‘All I’m saying is, that makes a lot of sense in my mind,’ Lori said. ‘What do you think, Dad?’

Ray sat across from her, furiously covering his meal with salt. It was Abby’s turn to cook and a chef she was not. She’d put some packet fettuccine in carbonara sauce on the stove and scooped whatever hadn’t stuck to the pot into four bowls. Each was a messy and unappetising tangle of limp, creamy noodles.

‘I think there has to be something lighter to discuss at the dinner table,’ he said, and shifted gears. ‘How was school today, Eddie?’

Eddie was deep in thought, staring vaguely into the mouth of a Coca-Cola can, hood pulled up so high and tight that his peripheral vision must have been cut off. He didn’t reply to his father.

‘Earth to Eddie,’ Ray said, clicking his fingers.

Eddie flinched, looked up blinking and muttered, ‘Huh?’