The Stranger

Chapter 54

Thirty seconds later, the cops were there.

They were local guys. Johanna wasn’t far behind. She’d been the one to call them, getting the location from Thomas. Adam was proud of his son. He would call him later and explain.

But not quite yet.

Adam dealt with the police. It took some time. That was okay. He could plan as he talked to them. He kept his tone even. He answered all their questions. He answered them in his best attorney voice. He followed his own lawyerly advice: Only answer what is asked.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Johanna told him that the gunman’s name was John Kuntz. He was an ex-cop forced to resign. She was still putting the pieces together, but Kuntz now worked security for yet another Internet start-up that was about to go public. Apparently, his motives were financial and involved his sick kid.

Adam nodded as she spoke. He accepted treatment from an EMT, but he refused to go to the hospital. The EMT wasn’t happy about that, but there wasn’t much he could do. When they were winding down, Johanna put her hand on his shoulder.

“You need to see a doctor.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“The cops will want to ask you more questions in the morning.”

“I know.”

“There’ll be a ton of media too,” Johanna said. “Three dead bodies.”

“Yeah, I know that too.” Adam checked his watch. “I better go. I called the boys, but they’ll be a wreck until I get home.”

“I’ll give you a ride, unless you want the police to take you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Adam said. “My car is here.”

“They won’t let you take it. It’s evidence.”

He hadn’t thought of that.

“Hop in,” Johanna said. “I’ll drive.”

They were quiet for a while. Adam fiddled with his phone for a bit, typing out an e-mail. Then he sat back. The EMT had given him something for the pain. It was making him feel groggy. He closed his eyes.

“Just rest,” Johanna said.

He would, but he knew that sleep was still a long way away. “So when are you flying back?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” Johanna said. “I might stick around a few more days.”

“Why?” He pried his eyes open, looked at her profile. “You got the guy who killed your friend, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s not enough?”

“Maybe it is, but”-Johanna tilted her head-“we aren’t done yet, are we, Adam?”

“Oh, I think we are.”

“Still some big loose ends left dangling.”

“Like you said, it’s a big story now. They’ll catch the stranger.”

“I’m not talking about him.”

He had figured as much. “You’re worried about Corinne.”

“And you’re not?”

“Not as much,” he said.

“You want to tell me why?”

Adam took his time, considering his words carefully. “Like you said, there’ll be a ton of media now. Everyone will be looking for her, so she’ll probably just come home. But the more I think about it, the more I think the answer was pretty obvious right from the start.”

Johanna arched an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“I kept wanting it not to be my fault, you know? Her running off had to be more than it appeared. It had to be some big conspiracy involving Chris Taylor’s group or something.”

“And you don’t think that anymore?”

“No, I don’t.”

“So what do you think?”

“Chris Taylor exposed my wife’s most closely held and painful secret. We all know what that does to a person.”

“It messes you up,” Johanna said.

“Right. But more than that, a revelation that big-it strips you bare. It tears you down and takes away how you look at your life.” Adam closed his eyes again. “You need time after something like that. To rebuild. To figure out what’s next.”

“So you think Corinne…?”

“Occam’s razor,” Adam said. “The simplest answer is usually correct. Corinne texted that she needed time apart. It’s still only been a few days. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

Adam didn’t respond.

Johanna hit her blinker and kept driving. “You want to stop and clean up before you get home? You still got blood on you.”

“That’s okay.”

“You’ll scare the boys.”

“Nah,” Adam said. “They’re more resilient than you know.”

A few minutes later, Johanna dropped him by his front door. Adam waved and waited until she drove off. He didn’t go into his house. The boys weren’t there anyway. When he was alone back at the lake, he had called Kristin Hoy. He asked if she could pick the boys up from school and keep them at her house for the night.

“Of course,” Kristin Hoy said. “Are you okay, Adam?”

“I’m great. I appreciate this favor.”

Corinne’s minivan, the one that had been left in the hotel parking lot, was sitting in the driveway. Adam slipped into it. The driver’s seat, too, smelled wonderfully of Corinne. The medication was wearing off, and the pain was flooding back in. He didn’t care. He could deal with the pain. But he had to be sharp. He had his iPhone in his hand. The police had let him take it from the crime scene. He told them that he thought Chris Taylor had thrown his phone underneath the old chest of drawers. They’d let him reach under for it, but of course it wasn’t there.

Merton’s gun was.

Another police officer called down that he’d found Adam’s phone upstairs. The battery had been removed. Adam put the battery back and thanked him. Merton’s gun was now hidden in his waistband. The police hadn’t searched him again. Why would they?

The gun had dug into his side the entire ride with Johanna, but he didn’t dare move it.

He needed that gun.

He sent the e-mail he’d composed during the car ride to Andy Gribbel. The subject read:

DO NOT READ UNTIL TOMORROW MORNING.

If something went wrong-and that was likely-Gribbel would read the e-mail in the morning and pass it on to both Johanna Griffin and Old Man Rinsky. He had debated telling them now, before this, but they would have stopped him. Law enforcement would have been contacted and then the suspects would circle the wagons and go silent. They’d hire attorneys like him and the truth would never come out.

He had to handle it this way.

He drove over to Beth Lutheran Church. He parked by the gymnasium exit and waited. He thought that he understood what had happened now, but something was still niggling at the base of his brain. Something still didn’t feel right-hadn’t felt right from the beginning.

He took out his phone, brought up Corinne’s text, and read it once again:

MAYBE WE NEED SOME TIME APART. YOU TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS. DON’T TRY TO CONTACT ME. IT WILL BE OKAY.

He was about to read it again when Bob “Gaston” Baime came sauntering out. He said good night to the other guys with high fives and knuckle pounds. He wore shorts that were too short. A towel was draped around his neck. Adam waited patiently until Bob was close to his car. Then Adam got out and said, “Hey, Bob.”

Bob turned toward him. “Hey, Adam. Whoa, you startled me there. What’s-?”

Adam punched him hard in the mouth, knocking the big man onto the driver’s seat. Bob’s eyes went wide with shock. Adam came up to his door and stuck the gun in his face.

“Don’t move.”

Bob’s hand was on his mouth, stemming the flow of blood. Adam opened the car door behind him and slid him into the backseat. He pressed the gun against Bob’s neck.

“What the hell are you doing, Adam?”

“Tell me where my wife is.”

“What?”

Adam pushed the muzzle of the gun into the back of his neck. “Just give me a reason.”

“I don’t know where your wife is.”

“CBW Inc., Bob.”

Silence.

“You hired them, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what-”

Adam struck him in the bony part of the shoulder with the butt of the gun.

“Ow!”

“Tell me about CBW.”

“Goddamn it, that hurt. That hurt a lot.”

“CBW is your cousin Daz’s investigation firm. You hired him to dig up dirt on Corinne.”

Bob closed his eyes and moaned.

“Didn’t you?”

Adam hit him again with the gun.

“Tell me the truth or I swear I’ll shoot you dead.”

Bob lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Adam.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I didn’t mean it. It was just… I needed something, you know?”

Adam pressed the gun against his neck. “Needed what?”

“Something on Corinne.”

“Why?”

The big man went quiet.

“Why did you need something on my wife?”

“Go ahead, Adam.”

“What?”

Bob turned and faced him. “Pull the trigger. I want you to. I got nothing anymore. I can’t find work. Our house is in foreclosure. Melanie is going to leave me. Go ahead. Please. I bought a good insurance policy from Cal. The boys will be better off.”

And then the niggling started up again.

The boys…

Adam froze and thought about Corinne’s text.

The boys…

“Do it, Adam. Pull the trigger.”

Adam shook his head. “Why did you hurt my wife?”

“Because she was trying to hurt me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The stolen money, Adam.”

“What about it?”

“Corinne. She was going to pin it on me. And if she did, what chance would I have against her? I mean, come on. Corinne is this nice schoolteacher. Everyone loves her. And me, I’m the one out of a job with the house in foreclosure. Who would believe me over her?”

“So you figured, what, get her before she got you?”

“I had to fight back. So I told Daz. I asked him to look into her, that’s all. He didn’t find anything. Of course not, right? Corinne’s Little Miss Perfect. So Daz says to me that he’d put her name out there with some of his”-he made quote marks in the air-“‘unorthodox sources.’ He ended up getting a hit with some weird group. But they had their own rules. They have to reveal the dirt themselves.”

“Did you steal the money, Bob?”

“No. But who’d believe me? And then Tripp confided in me what Corinne was doing-that she was trying to pin the whole thing on me.”

And then the niggling in Adam’s brain stopped.

The boys…

Adam’s throat went dry. “Tripp?”

“Yeah.”

“Tripp said Corinne was trying to pin it on you?”

“Right. He said we needed something, that’s all.”

Tripp Evans. Who had five kids. Three boys. Two girls.

The kids…

The boys…

He thought about that text one more time:

MAYBE WE NEED SOME TIME APART. YOU TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS.

Corinne never referred to Thomas and Ryan as “the kids.”

She always said “the boys.”