Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

AINSLEY

I approached the officers standing outside the branch the way you'd approach a deranged man with a gun. Every step was cautious as I tried to keep my face still, no sudden movements.

Brendan's and Tara's cars were in the parking lot, though they were nowhere to be seen. Noticing me approaching, two male officers ended their conversation, looking up at me.

"We're sorry, ma'am, you won't be able to enter the branch right now."

"I…I work here." I glanced toward the building, realizing the all-clear hadn't gone up yet. Where were Brendan and Tara? "I'm the manager. Did something happen?" Maybe the cops weren't there for me, after all.

"What's your name?" one of the officers asked, looking down at the pad of paper in his hands.

"Ainsley Greenburg," I told him. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"There was a suspicious car here when your employees arrived. A woman driving a red Hyundai Santa Fe. Your employees were afraid she may have been plotting to rob them. They called us to check it out, but the SUV had left by the time we arrived. We are getting a good look around the building to make sure it's safe for you all to enter."

"Where are my employees?" I asked, looking over toward their cars. "Why didn't they call me?"

As soon as I'd asked, I noticed the shape of a head inside Brendan's car. Tara's too. They were okay.

"They're waiting inside their cars until we give them the okay to get out. We'll have to ask you to do the same. The alarm wasn't set off, so once we've made sure the perimeter is secure, you'll be allowed to head inside. I think it was likely a case of someone parking here for a moment, maybe to answer a phone call or check their GPS, but we'd rather be safe than sorry. The employees did the right thing."

I supposed I must have looked angry, because he said the last sentence affirmatively, as if I needed to hear it. "Yes, of course. Thank you for coming."

"It's our job, ma'am."

"I…I appreciate that," I said softly, still trying to process everything I was being told.

"If you'll wait in your car, then." He gestured to the car, and I backed away from the officers, making my way back to the safety of my vehicle with a racing heart. Why hadn't they tried to call me? I glanced down at my phone, preparing to text them and noticed the missed call, one I hadn't seen come in as I was talking to Glennon. What if they'd been in real trouble? How had I let everything get so out of control? My branch and employees were my responsibility, and when they'd needed me most, I'd let them down. How could I have been so stupid?

I pressed my fingers into my temples.

Pull yourself together, Ainsley. You have to pull yourself together, or you're going to ruin everything.

* * *

When I arrived home that afternoon, Peter was on the porch on his hands and knees, scrubbing the exterior wall of the house with a dirty washcloth, a bucket of brown water beside him. The mop was lying in front of the door.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning," he said, not looking up at me. He seemed almost manic. The walls appeared fine to me, but he was insistent, so I didn't argue.

"Everything okay?"

"Fine," he snipped. "You know, you could've told me that you told Glennon we were doing family pictures. Prepared me a little so I wouldn't be caught off guard when she showed up here this morning to help."

My stomach flopped. "She did what?"

He stopped scrubbing. "You didn't know?"

"I had no idea. I told her not to come over. She wanted to spend time together, go for drinks or coffee or something, but I told her we were doing pictures to buy us time. I didn't expect her to come over." He looked at me, his lips pursed, as if that were ridiculous. "Did she stay long?"

"She caught me in the middle of cleaning. I told her we were fine and didn't need help, and she left."

"You weren't rude, were you?"

"Ainsley, I'm literally washing blood ," he lowered his voice to a whisper as he said the last word, "off our walls. I think I have more important things to worry about than hurting your friend's feelings."

I groaned. "Whatever. I'll have to call her later and fix things. What did you tell her about pictures?"

"That I didn't need help. That you were picking out the outfits."

I nodded. "Fine. Do you need some help with this?"

He looked away from me, back to his work. "I'm almost done. Did you take care of the…"

"Yep, it's gone." I glanced around behind me, checking out the quiet drive to be sure no one was coming down it, feeling exposed, even in the privacy of our very secluded yard.

"I was thinking… Maybe tonight we can move the… thing —" He cleared his throat. "To the woods. Somewhere far away from the house." He gestured toward the thick, dark woods surrounding us. We only owned about three acres, but were enveloped by over forty acres of hunting ground owned by various people. There were plenty of places to hide a body, but it was risky. Too risky.

"Do you know how many hunting cameras are in these woods? What if we were caught?" I asked, watching as he continued to scrub the clean spot.

"Well, then we'll bury it in our portion. Where there are no cameras."

"If they come looking, that's the first place they'll check. And I don't want you digging the thing up. We have to leave it alone."

The body was no longer a he, but an it. We'd made that transition.

Were there five steps to processing the fact that you'd committed a murder like there were for grief?

Step 1. Cleaning up.

Step 2. Detaching yourself from the victim by refusing to acknowledge they existed.

Step 3. To be determined

"Besides that," I added, "returning to the scene of a crime is the worst thing we can do right now."

"Ainsley, we live at the scene of the crime. We can't just keep him there. I can handle it. I can find somewhere to put him—"

"I said no. You're going to get caugh—"

"Mom?" a faint voice interrupted my sentence, calling from inside the house, and I realized Maisy was standing in the living room, hair wild, one eye squeezed shut. She yawned, catching my eye through the glass of the door.

I opened it, putting on my best everything's fine smile. "Good morning, sleepy head."

"What are you doing?"

"Your dad's cleaning the porch. I just got home. Did you have fun last night? I didn't get a chance to talk to you very much after you got home."

"It was homework, so it wasn't fun." She laughed, then her eyes filled with concern. "Dylan said you were sick. Are you better now?"

"Much. I think I ate something off at dinner."

"Nicole's dad says there's a bad stomach bug going around right now. He said he's had sixteen different patients this week with it."

"I don't think that's what I had. I'm feeling so much better already," I assured her, pleased to see the worry disappear. "Anyway, why don't you go on into the kitchen and get yourself some lunch, okay? I'll be inside in a second."

"Okay," she said, rubbing her eyes as she released another yawn and sulked to the kitchen.

"Do you think she heard us?" Peter asked, filling me with brand-new concern.

I shook my head. "She couldn't have… Could she?"

"Had she been standing there long?" As he asked, he stood up, dropped the sponge in the bucket, and dusted his hands on his pants.

"I have no idea," I said, inhaling deeply through my nose. I couldn't think about it. I refused to. There was no way she'd heard, and even if she had, no way she'd understood what we were talking about. I stepped a foot inside the house, glancing back at him. "I'm going to change and fix myself some lunch. You should hurry up with this and join us." I met his eyes, my gaze stern. "And wipe that petrified look off your face."