Chapters (48)
- TITLE PAGE
- COPYRIGHT
- CONTENTS
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“I knew I hadn’t been involved in Kate’s disappearance, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew I was going to be their number one suspect. The husband always is. You know that as well as I do, and if I had told them that we argued that morning, it would only have increased their suspicion. They would’ve spent even more time investigating me when the real bad guy was out there with Kate. So I made a decision to lie, but I also knew that in order for it to be effective, no one could ever know the truth. I never told anyone. Not even Abbi.”
“Why didn’t you tell me once you trusted me?”
“Once you’ve told a story so many times, it just becomes the truth.”
“But you passed the polygraph . . .” My voice trailed off, thick with unspoken meaning. He had passed the polygraph with flying colors; only seasoned liars could pull that off.
“And I want you to know that it’s not even all that horrible, what happened. Regular married stuff.”
“That you lied about for eleven years?” My patience had reached its limit. “Tell me what happened, and I’ll decide how horrible it is.”
Red flooded his face. “I practically forced Kate to quit her job and stay home with Abbi. She was never really set on the idea, and part of the reason was because she didn’t want to give up her income. I convinced her we’d be fine, and for a while we were, but then everything crashed in 2008. You remember what it was like. This is so embarrassing.” He cracked his knuckles like he did whenever he got nervous. “Commercial real estate tanked.”
I waited for him to go on and explain himself, but he just stood there without saying anything. “And?”
He refused to meet my eyes. “Things got pretty bad for us financially, and I never told her about any of it.”
“That was all it was?”
“And I took out a loan and second mortgage on our house without telling her.” His sheepish look reminded me of my boys whenever they got in trouble when they were young.
“Kate found out?”
“Yes, the night before she went missing. It was so weird because I’d expected her to be angry with me, but she just kept saying how disappointed she was in me. That made it worse. Instead of manning up and admitting what I’d done, I acted like a complete idiot instead. Total ego bullshit.”
“Why couldn’t you tell the police exactly what you told me?”