Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

PETER

I t was my worst nightmare, living with what we'd done. I tossed and turned the entire night, replaying the evening's events over and over in my head.

The day had started out so normal; how had things gone so wrong? How would I ever sleep again knowing the evidence that I was a murderer was buried just outside? That anyone could find it at any time? Every night for the rest of my life, every single day, I'd be reminded that I was a killer. That I'd killed a man. That I'd killed a cop. That I'd killed a cop in front of my wife.

She'd never forget it. She'd never unsee what I'd done. She must've hated me. How had I let us get here? Why had I ever let her go out with that monster? How would I ever be able to breathe again? How would we survive this?

There was a time when I was sure my secret about the other women would destroy me, but this was so much worse. That was an eyelash stuck in the corner of my eye, mildly painful and obtrusive, annoying as all hell, but I could live with it. And I had. This…the fact that Ainsley had watched me become a monster before her very eyes, the fact that there was a dead body buried just outside our front door…it was a scalding hot poker to my insides, the scraping and pulling of all my muscles in opposite directions. It burned and stung and made it impossible to breathe, impossible to think of anything else.

How would I continue living? The idea of going to work on Monday, of facing coworkers, facing my children, while I had no control over who might come snooping around, what wild animal might catch the scent on the wind and dig up the body… It was too much to bear. I couldn't go to prison. I needed to be here for my kids. I needed to be here for my wife.

I rolled over for the eightieth time, pulling the covers out from under my side. When I looked to Ainsley's side of the bed, I jumped, sucking in a breath. She was lying there, awake, eyes open and staring straight at me. She had a determined look in her eyes I knew well.

"You need to calm down," she said softly, her tone firm.

"How am I supposed to be calm right now?" I asked. "How are you calm?"

"I'm not calm," she said, "but I know that if we don't at least seem calm, we're going to get caught."

"What did you do with the…er, the bat?"

"I bleached it. Tomorrow, I'll take it with me on my way to work and drop it in a dumpster downtown."

"Do you think it's okay to leave…him…where he is? Will he start to…stink or—"

"We don't have a choice right now," she cut me off. "He's there, and for all we know, that's okay. You think he's down deep enough, right? To hide the smell?"

"How should I know?" I asked, my hands shaking again. "It's not like I have any experience digging graves to know how deep the bodies should be buried."

"Did you bury him deeper than you buried Scout?"

The kids' beloved German Shepard that had died two years ago. I swallowed at the thought. That day was painful. This day was unbearable.

"I think so. Maybe. At least as deep. A few feet."

She sighed, displeased with my answer.

"It'll have to do for now."

"What will we tell the police if they come asking questions? What am I supposed to tell Gina about why I left the…er…the meeting?"

Her eyes narrowed at me slightly. "Tell Gina, or Beckman, or anyone else that I got sick and needed you to come home. And why would the police come around asking questions here?"

"Well, he was your date, wasn't he? There've been conversations between you two. Won't they come around and ask you how you knew him and if you've seen him recently?"

"I used a fake identity on the app, Peter. That was the whole point."

I scoffed. How did she seem so calm? It was driving me crazy. I kept seeing flashes of the blood, wondering if we'd managed to wipe away every spot of evidence, and she looked like it was just another Friday night. "Yeah, but they'll be able to find you still, right? You said he used your real name on the app, so he obviously knew who you were. Like you said, maybe you slipped up, but he had our address either way. And the police will have your IP address or whatever. They'll connect the dots back to you."

"He only used my name once, and not even my last name. However he figured out who I was, surely he covered his tracks, right? I don't think cops can just stalk people for no reason. Besides, the app's privacy guarantee is super strict. They don't store IP addresses or anything aside from what you put on your profile. Remember? They were the ones who got in all that trouble last year because the police were trying to investigate a girl who was attacked and the company had no information on whom she'd gone on dates with other than his profile, which was obviously fake. It was all over the news. They guarantee privacy, and they stood by that in court. I mean, it was awful, but it's part of the reason I chose that app for us to use. I didn't want anyone to be able to find us. Those computer geniuses…they could probably track us down if they wanted to. I didn't want to chance it. You don't remember hearing about that case?"

"What?" I asked, feeling a strange mixture of shock and disgust. "I mean, of course I remember hearing about it, but I didn't remember the name of the app. Why would you ever want to use it? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"

"Well, you should be glad I did because it may be the only thing standing in the way of you going to prison." My face fell as I stared into her hardened expression. After a moment, it softened. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm just stressed out."

"I am too," I whispered, rubbing my hands over her arms. "Trust me, I am. I'm so sorry I put us in this situation."

"You were trying to protect us," she said softly, but I sensed the disappointment in her tone.

"I'm still sorry. If it comes down to it, you know I'll take the blame." I reached for her hand, taking her fingers in mine and rubbing them between my thumb and fingers.

"It's both of our faults. I should've never suggested we see other people. This whole thing was my idea. If anyone's to blame, it's me." She said it plainly, leaving no room for negotiation, but I could sense the vulnerability there.

"Don't say that. None of this is your fault. He was a bad man who wanted to hurt you. He must've looked into you. Like you said, he'd been stalking you. Harassing you. Messaging you all the time. He showed up at our house… That was all on him."

"What do you think he wanted?" she asked, dropping her head a bit and tucking her chin to her chest. "Why do you think he wouldn't leave me alone? Do you think he was planning to hurt me?"

"I don't know," I said, resisting the sudden urge to pull her to my chest and comfort her. "He said he wanted to see you. He threatened me. He said if I didn't put my bat away someone was going to get hurt and, when you opened the door, he was going to grab you… I knew he had the gun. He could've held you hostage. I just…I snapped. I couldn't let him hurt you. Why else would he have brought his weapon and handcuffs? It doesn't make any sense."

"How did he even find me, though? How did he learn my real name? I was so careful. I truly don't think I would've slipped up that badly," she insisted.

I shook my head. "I don't know… I mean, he was a cop. Maybe he ran your plates? Maybe he saw your ID when you ordered a drink. There are probably a million ways he could've found out who you were… We could try to look him up—"

"No," she said. "We can't. We can't give anyone any further reason to look into us. We need to forget about it."

"Should we delete the app?"

"Not yet," she said. "If the police were to come looking for me, it might seem suspicious. There's nothing incriminating in our messages. If anything, there's proof that he was stalking me. We'll leave the app on our phones for now, but we're both in agreement that we don't connect with anyone else on there. We're done with this…arrangement."

I nodded. "Okay, agreed."

She shivered. "I'm so sorry about all of this. I don't understand how it happened. It all feels like a flash. I was so scared… I didn't know what to do. I should've told you about him before, but I was nervous. I didn't want to break any of our rules, and I didn't want you to obsess over who he was. I never, in a million years, thought he could be dangerous. He seemed so sweet on our date. I never thought… How did I misread him so badly?"

"I'd say he had a lot of practice hiding who he was." I slid my hand from her arm to her waist, gripping it tightly. "I don't know what I would've done if I'd lost you. I'm sorry I wasn't here."

"It wasn't your fault you had to work," she whispered.

"Yeah." I swallowed, the bitter truth sitting on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell her about Gina. I didn't want to lie to her, but the truth at that moment wouldn't do anyone any good. "Well, no more late nights. I want to fix us, Ainsley. I want us to be better than we've ever been. I almost lost you tonight… I never want to lose, or almost-lose, you again."

Her smile was small, her eyes exhausted. "I love you."

"I love you too," I swore to her, squeezing my eyes to hide the tears I felt preparing to fall. I tucked my face into my pillow and sucked in a breath. My mistakes, countless and longstanding, were what had brought us to this moment. If I hadn't been distancing myself because I was cheating, we wouldn't have needed the arrangement in the first place. If I hadn't lied about my whereabouts tonight, I would've known what was going on and perhaps been able to prepare myself or call the police. Everything could've gone so much differently, if only I'd been a better man.

But I was vowing then and there to become better. I'd put the night behind me and make myself the man my wife deserved.

If only it were that easy.