Page 26 of The Atonement (Arrangement #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

AINSLEY

“ A insley, what did you do?” he asked again, shaking his head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“You gave me no choice. I had to do it for the kids.”

I spied Detective Burks making her way toward us, not looking particularly pleased.

“Who is that?” Peter asked.

“The detective working our case,” I said, reaching for my door and stepping out of the car, meeting her halfway. I felt as if I were going to be sick.

“Mrs. Greenburg.” She said my name as a full sentence, and I couldn’t read her emotions.

My hands were freezing, and I clutched them together in front of my stomach. “Detective. I’m sorry to have to do this—”

“What’s this all about?” Peter asked. I heard the car door shut and the crunch of the gravel underneath his shoes before he appeared next to me .

“Oh, just doing a bit of light gardening,” she said. “You a big gardener, Mr. Greenburg?”

“Can’t say that I am.” The skin of his neck flushed pink.

“Really? Well, your wife says differently.” She eyed me, and soon enough, they were both looking at me.

“What’s she talking about, Ainsley?”

“I told her about the bodies, Peter. About the email you were planning to send, the one I found—your confession. I told her about the women. I gave them permission to excavate the woods. To give their families peace. I’m so sorry.”

He stared at me with a blank look in his eyes, as if I were speaking a language he couldn’t understand.

“I’m sorry, what are you talking about? Is this a joke?

” He pointed a finger gun at the detective.

“Is this a prank? Did Beckman put you up to this?” He looked around as if waiting for someone to jump out of the woods and shout, ‘Surprise!’

“I’m afraid this is no joke, Mr. Greenburg.” The detective studied him silently for a few moments.

Peter looked at me, his expression turning stony. “Is this because of the divorce? Is this your way of getting back at me?”

“Divorce?” the detective asked, folding her arms across her chest as she stared at me.

“My wife and I are in the process of getting a divorce,” Peter told her. “It’s been very messy and painful for the two of us. I’m really sorry if she brought you here and wasted your time, but surely you have to realize she’s joking. I mean, do I look like a killer to you?”

“You do know most serial killers are middle-aged white men, don’t you?” she snapped.

“Right.” Peter looked down. “Well…I mean, there are no bodies here, so whatever she’s told you, she’s wrong. And this is my property, too. Don’t you need my permission as well as hers?”

“As luck would have it, no. I don’t.”

I suppressed a smile.

“Your wife forwarded me an email with a confession, allegedly from you, claiming you’ve killed multiple people and buried their bodies in your woods. The email contained the exact location of the bodies, including longitude and latitude, and a marked-up Google map. Care to explain?”

“I don’t know anything about any email,” he said firmly, waving his hands to the side as if he were an umpire calling someone safe .

“This has gone far enough. Ainsley, seriously, you’ve done a lot of terrible shit, but is this really how you want this to be?

I thought we could be civil. But filing a fake police report? ”

“It’s not fake, and you know it!” I argued. Why weren’t they arresting him already? Why wasn’t the detective backing me up?

“There are no bodies in the woods,” he said, his fingers near his temples.

I shot a glance at Detective Burks as she held up a hand to stop the argument.

“As it turns out, Mrs. Greenburg, he’s right. ”

“What?” The swooping sensation in my core was back. The ground all but torn out from underneath me. “What do you mean?”

She gestured toward the crowd of detectives and officers milling about around the perimeter of the house.

Looking closer, I realized they were all making their way back toward their cruisers.

“We excavated the marked area, and the entire surrounding area on your word that there was something to find and there wasn’t.

No bodies. Just what looked like the skeleton of an old dog. ”

“Scout…” I whispered. “That’s not possible. Are you sure you checked the right spot?”

“As I said, we checked the exact area that was marked on the map—it didn’t leave a whole lot of guesswork—and all of the surrounding area.”

“What did you do?” I demanded, turning to Peter as my throat constricted with rage.

He ignored me completely. “I’m so sorry, Detective. Honestly. I’m embarrassed.”

The detective stared at him. “We also checked the room where your wife claims you’ve held women hostage.”

His brows knitted together with an almost amused scoff. “The what? ”

“In the garage.” She was no longer talking to me. Only to Peter. I was the irrational woman trying to get revenge on her husband for leaving her.

“The safe room?” he asked, looking unimpressed. “Seriously, Ainsley?” He crossed his arms. “I’m going to guess you didn’t find anything in there except dust and old tools, right?”

The detective didn’t immediately confirm it.

“I’m a bit of an over preparer. Without a basement, I just felt safer having a room we could go to in case of a tornado.

It comes in handy. But…” He laughed, as if it was ridiculous he even had to say it.

“I can assure you the only people being tortured in there are my kids when they have to listen to my jokes during a tornado warning. Have you heard the one about a tornado’s favorite game?

” His eyes twinkled, as if he had no cares in the world.

“Twister. Get it?” He broke out in laughter over the terrible joke.

I felt like I was watching the entire thing playing out in slow motion.

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

When the detective didn’t laugh along, he straightened up, clearing his throat. “My kids don’t think it’s funny either. That was probably the worst of them. I’ve got more—”

“That’s really not necessary, Mr. Greenburg.” She met my eyes again. “We didn’t find anything in the room either. There’s nothing here to suggest any of what you said or anything from that email is true. No black bag in the space in the wall, no traces of blood, no bodies in the woods.”

“It’s not possible,” I said, finding my voice again as I watched my chance to finally end this slipping away. I’d been so close. “I don’t know how he did it, Detective, but I promise you, he had to have moved the bodies. They’re there. They have to be. ”

“And you know this how, Mrs. Greenburg? Because he wrote some email? There’s no proof that your husband wrote that email at all, other than it being sent from his email address, which you, no doubt, have access to.

I’m not here to play marriage counselor.

The taxpayers are not paying for us to come out here and ruin each other’s days for you guys.

Filing a fake police report is a very serious matter. I could have you arrested—”

“It wasn’t false. I swear to you, it wasn’t. This is what he does. He had to have known I was going to turn him in. He knew I found the email. He knew I’d tell you where the bodies were.”

“Do you have any proof that the bodies existed at all? Anything besides the email?”

“No, nothing, but—”

“Had you ever seen them with your own eyes?”

Peter was staring at me now, too. Obviously enjoying this all a bit too much.

“No.”

“Then our work here is done.” She held her hand up with what must’ve been a signal, because the remaining officers began retreating to their cars, their work obviously done.

“Wait, wait! ” I shouted as one final idea occurred to me. “Please…check under the patio. There’s a body under the patio.”

Detective Burks glanced over at the concrete patio, then back at Peter. Finally, she looked at me. “The letter didn’t mention that. I thought you said all the bodies were in the woods. ”

It was my only chance. This was the only shot I had. There was no way Peter had moved Stefan’s or Illiana’s bodies, which meant they could still be found.

“They were. They…are. They should be. But there was one. He told me about it when I found the email. It’s why he put the patio down last summer.”

The detective blew a piece of hair from her eyes. “Look, Mrs. Greenburg, I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems an awful lot like you’re trying to play with me. I’m not going to waste any more time, energy, or resources on digging up your patio when we just had to dig up your woods.”

“Oh, please, no. If you’ll just dig it up, I promise you, you’ll see that—”

“If you can find me proof—” She held up her hand to cut me off. “I will listen. But otherwise, I advise the two of you to separate—at least for the night, but preferably for a long, long time—and cool off.”

“Thank you, Detective. We will,” Peter said, bowing to her as if he were practicing martial arts. I felt as if I were living in some alternate universe. How was any of this happening?

“Detective, please, if you’ll just listen—”

“I have listened, Mrs. Greenburg. I’m done listening now. I’m sorry.” She took another step back, but hesitated. “One last question.” She was looking at Peter. “If you’re not a gardener…” I felt bitter hope fill my chest. “Why has so much of your property been disturbed in the last few months?”

“Ex-excuse me? ”

She turned back to face us. “Well, it’s obvious quite a bit of the area Mrs. Greenburg directed us to had recently been disturbed. Now, if you were a gardener, I guess that might make sense. But since you’ve already said you’re not…” She paused. “Would you care to explain?”

He shot a glance at me, then straightened his shoulders.

“I…I’m not exactly sure where you were looking, but I’m in the early stages of clearing out some of the woods to build an extra workspace for my architecture firm.

I’m hoping it’ll mean I can be home with the kids more—work from home and all that.

Especially once we divide up custody. I’ve been digging around, preparing to lay the foundation and, like you saw, we have buried quite a few family pets out there and there are coyotes in the woods.

I couldn’t say for sure which one caused what you saw.

I’m happy to answer more questions if you want to show me the exact area. ”

She was silent for a moment, then her lips pressed into a thin smile with a puff of breath from her nose.

Her chest fell with the heavy release of air.

“That won’t be necessary. I’ve taken up enough of your time.

” Somehow, I thought she wanted to say we’d taken up enough of hers.

She opened her mouth, obviously weighing what she was about to say.

“Mr. Greenburg, I should ask if you want to press charges against your wife for the false allegations.”

He beamed at her, mocking sincerity. “Oh, no, it’s okay. Thank you, Detective. We don’t want to waste any more of your time. Tensions are just high right now. I’m really sorry you had to come all the way out here for this.”

She looked at me one last time, then turned on her heel and made her way to her car. The officers pulled down the driveway slowly, one by one, none of them bothering to look at us. Peter waved at them like a politician, a giant grin on his face.

“ What did you do? ” I asked him through gritted teeth. I didn’t care who saw how angry I was. It was impossible. It was also my last idea. I had no idea what I was going to do now.

Once the cars were gone, all except the two unmarked cars driven by Detective Burks and another detective, an excavator was driven down the side of our yard and around the curve of our driveway.

Finally, the detectives pulled away, leaving us standing in silence, the weight of what just happened hanging in the air between us.

I’d failed.

I’d failed miserably.

“What did you do, Peter?” I demanded again.

“Looks like I just saved my own ass, doesn’t it?” He chuckled. “Did you honestly think I’d leave them where they were, knowing you tried to kill me? I love you, Ains. But I’m not stupid enough to trust you. Not anymore. You ruined that.”

“Where are the bodies?”

“Looks like I’m the only one who knows.” He shrugged, walking toward the end of the driveway. I followed him. “And if you’d like to keep it that way, I suggest you do as I say.”

“Where are you going?”

He rounded the corner, peering down the portion of the driveway that was concealed from the house. “Checking to make sure they left. Wouldn’t want to walk into another trap.” When he turned back to me, he cracked his knuckles. “Now then, where were we?”

Thinking quickly, I spun around on my heels, tearing down the driveway at breakneck speed.

He rushed to keep up, lunging at me with his hands outstretched.

He grabbed my arm, and I jerked forward.

I tried to swipe the keys from his hand, but he held on to them tightly, tugging me into his chest and wrapping me up with both arms.

Using all my strength, I pulled his wrist to my lips, sinking my teeth into his skin with so much force, I tasted blood in seconds.

I bit down harder until I felt a chunk of skin break free.

He jerked back, cursing at me and dropping the keys.

Fighting against the urge to vomit, I spit the piece of skin onto the ground and dove for the keys.

I scooped them up and scrambled to my feet, sliding inside while he cursed and kicked and spun in circles with pain. When the car started, he was jarred from his pain-filled trance. He hurried forward, but he was too slow.

I stomped on the gas and the car flew down the driveway in reverse, narrowly making the turn. I silently prayed that the police would still be there. That they’d see him chasing me, but I knew they’d be gone. They weren’t wasting time with us, and I couldn’t blame them.

This made twice now that Peter had bested me, but it wouldn’t happen again. He was getting smarter, I’d give him that, but I’d always been—and would always be—able to outsmart him. I’d just have to learn to play by the new rules of the game.