Chapters (73)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Part IAnnie
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Part IIHarry
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Part IIIAnnie
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Part IVHarry
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Part VAnnie
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
“The front door wasn’t locked. We don’t usually lock the doors except at night, or if we’re going out, like, shopping. When Nadine’s here through the day, even if I’m not home, she wouldn’t lock up. I mean, this is a good neighborhood. We’ve never had any kind of trouble.”
“Right.”
“So I parked the car and came in the front door and I called out for her, saying I was home, and she didn’t answer, so I thought maybe she was downstairs or in the backyard. I was coming through the kitchen when I noticed the power was out.”
“How’d you discover that?”
“Well, the little digital clocks on the stove and the microwave were blank, and then I flipped on a switch and the lights didn’t come on, so I figured we’d had a power failure. You know how, when that happens, you think, is it just my house or the whole street.”
Harry glanced up at the ceiling fixture in the bedroom. The light was on.
“Did the power come back on at some point?”
“Much later, after we found out . . . what caused it. So, even before I went looking for Nadine, I got a flashlight out of the drawer and went down to the basement where the breaker box is. Opened it up, saw that the whole house had been tripped. I flipped it back, but it kicked out again. Came up, looked to see if Nadine was out back. And then I came up here.”
“Okay.”
“I kept calling for her, still not getting an answer, and I came in here, and saw her clothes on the bed, and that was when I looked in there.” He nodded toward the bathroom.
Nadine was still there. Her dead body in a tub full of cold water.
“I got down, put my arm into the water, around her, asking her what happened, wake up—I don’t know what I said, exactly. But I could tell . . . I could see . . .”
Wendell choked on his words. He lowered his head, ran his hand over his mouth, tried to regain his composure.
“Take your time,” Harry said, laying a hand on the man’s back.
“I could see she was . . . she wasn’t breathing, and her body was as cold as the water. But I called 911 anyway. I mean, I knew she couldn’t be saved, but . . . The fire department and the paramedics came real fast, but they said that, you know, there would have to be an investigation and that they couldn’t take her out of the bathtub.”
“We’re going to try to do what we have to do as quickly as possible, Mr. Comstock. I have to ask, had you and your wife been having difficulties lately?”