flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 69

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“I know you love dusty rose.”I don’t love dusty rose anymore; that was high school. “You are so lovely, Desi, thankyou,” I say, my most heartfelt. My thank-yous always come out rather labored. I oftendon’t give them at all. People do what they’re supposed to do and then wait for you topile on the appreciation—they’re like frozen-yogurt employees who put out cups for tips.But Desi takes to thank-yous like a cat being brushed; his back almost arches with thepleasure.

For now it’s a worthwhile gesture.I set my bag down in my room, trying to signal my retirement for the evening—Ineed to see how people are reacting to Andie’s confession and whether Nick has beenarrested—but it seems I am far from through with the thank-yous. Desi has ensured I willbe forever indebted to him. He smiles a special-surprise smile and takes my hand (I havesomething else to show you) and pulls me back downstairs (I really hope you like this) ontoa hallway off the kitchen (it took a lot of work, but it’s so worth it).“I really hope you like this,” he says again, and flings open the door.It’s a glass room, a greenhouse, I realize.

Within are tulips, hundreds, of all colors.Tulips bloom in the middle of July in Desi’s lake house. In their own special room for avery special girl.“I know tulips are your favorite, but the season is so short,” Desi said. “So I xed thatfor you. They’ll bloom year-round.”He puts his arm around my waist and aims me toward the owers so I canappreciate them fully.“Tulips any day of the year,” I say, and try to get my eyes to glisten. Tulips were myfavorite in high school. They were everyone’s favorite, the gerbera daisy of the late ’80s.Now I like orchids, which are basically the opposite of tulips.“Would Nick ever have thought of something like this for you?” Desi breathes into myear as the tulips sway under a mechanized dusting of water from above.“Nick never even remembered I liked tulips,” I say, the correct answer.It is sweet, beyond sweet, the gesture. My own flower room, like a fairy tale.

And yetI feel a lilt of nerves: I called Desi only twenty-four hours ago, and these are not newlyplanted tulips, and the bedroom did not smell of fresh paint. It makes me wonder: theuptick in his letters the past year, their woeful tone … how long has he been wanting tobring me here? And how long does he think I will stay? Long enough to enjoy bloomingtulips every day for a year.“My goodness, Desi,” I say. “It’s like a fairy tale.”“Your fairy tale,” he says. “I want you to see what life can be like.”In fairy tales, there is always gold.

I wait for him to give me a stack of bills, a slimcredit card, something of use. The tour loops back around through all the rooms so I canooh and ahh about details I missed the rst time, and then we return to my bedroom, asatin-and-silk, pink-and-plush, marshmallow-and-cotton-candy girl’s room. As I peer outa window, I notice the high wall that surrounds the house.I blurt, nervously, “Desi, would you be able to leave me with some money?”He actually pretends to be surprised. “You don’t need money now, do you?” he says.“You have no rent to pay anymore; the house will be stocked with food.

I can bring newclothes for you. Not that I don’t like you in bait-shop chic.”“I guess a little cash would just make me feel more comfortable. Should somethinghappen. Should I need to get out of here quickly.”He opens his wallet and pulls out two twenty-dollar bills. Presses them gently in myhand. “There you are,” he says indulgently.I wonder then if I have made a very big mistake.NICK DUNNETEN DAYS GONEI made a mistake, feeling so cocky. Whatever the hell this diary was, it was going toruin me.

I could already see the cover of the true-crime novel: the black-and-white photoof us on our wedding day, the blood-red background, the jacket copy: including sixteenpages of never-seen photos and Amy Elliott Dunne’s actual diary entries—a voice from beyondthe grave … I’d found it strange and kind of cute, Amy’s guilty pleasures, those cheesytrue-crime books I’d discovered here and there around our house. I thought maybe shewas loosening up, allowing herself some beach reading.Nope. She was just studying.Gilpin pulled over a chair, sat on it backward, and leaned toward me on crossedarms—his movie-cop look. It was almost midnight; it felt later.“Tell us about your wife’s illness these past few months,” he said.“Illness? Amy never got sick.

Once a year she’d get a cold, maybe.”Boney picked up the book, turned to a marked page. “Last month you made Amy andyourself some drinks, sat on your back porch. She writes here that the drinks wereimpossibly sweet and describes what she thinks is an allergic reaction: My heart wasracing, my tongue was slabbed, stuck to the bottom of my mouth. My legs turned to meat asNick walked me up the stairs.” She put a nger down to hold her place in the diary,looked up as if I might not be paying attention. “When she woke the next morning: Myhead ached and my stomach was oily, but weirder, my ngernails were light blue, and when Ilooked in the mirror, so were my lips. I didn’t pee for two days after.

I felt so weak.”I shook my head in disgust. I’d become attached to Boney; I expected better of her.“Is this your wife’s handwriting?” Boney tilted the book toward me, and I saw deepblack ink and Amy’s cursive, jagged as a fever chart.“Yes, I think so.”“So does our handwriting expert.”Boney said the words with a certain pride, and I realized: This was the rst casethese two had ever had that required outside experts, that demanded they get in touchwith professionals who did exotic things like analyze handwriting.“You know what else we learned, Nick, when we showed this entry to our medicalexpert?”“Poisoning,” I blurted. Tanner frowned at me: steady.Boney stuttered for a second; this was not information I was supposed to provide.“Yeah, Nick, thank you: antifreeze poisoning,” she said.

“Textbook. She’s lucky shesurvived.”“She didn’t survive, because that never happened,” I said. “Like you said, it’s textbook—it’s made up from an Internet search.”Boney frowned but refused to bite. “The diary isn’t a pretty picture of you, Nick,” shecontinued, one nger tracing her braid. “Abuse—you pushed her around. Stress—youwere quick to anger.

Sexual relations that bordered on rape. She was very frightened ofyou at the end there. It’s painful to read. That gun we were wondering about, she saysshe wanted it because she was afraid of you. Here’s her last entry: This man might kill me.This man might kill me, in her own words.”My throat clenched. I felt like I might throw up.

Fear, mostly, and then a surge ofrage. Fucking bitch, fucking bitch, cunt, cunt, cunt.“What a smart, convenient note for her to end on,” I said. Tanner put a hand onmine to hush me.“You look like you want to kill her again, right now,” Boney said.“You’ve done nothing but lie to us, Nick,” Gilpin said. “You say you were at the beachthat morning. Everyone we talk to says you hate the beach. You say you have no ideawhat all these purchases are on your maxed-out credit cards.

Now we have a shed full ofexactly those items, and they have your ngerprints all over them. We have a wife su eringfrom what sounds like antifreeze poisoning weeks before she disappears. I mean, comeon.” He paused for effect.“Anything else of note?” Tanner asked.“We can place you in Hannibal, where your wife’s purse shows up a few days later,”Boney said. “We have a neighbor who overheard you two arguing the night before.

Apregnancy you didn’t want. A bar borrowed on your wife’s money that would revert toher in case of a divorce. And of course, of course: a secret girlfriend of more than ayear.”“We can help you right now, Nick,” Gilpin said. “Once we arrest you, we can’t.”“Where did you find the diary? At Nick’s father’s house?” Tanner asked.“Yes,” Boney said.Tanner nodded to me: That’s what we didn’t find. “Let me guess: anonymous tip.”Neither cop said a thing.“Can I ask where in the house you found it?” I asked.“In the furnace. I know you thought you burned it. It caught re, but the pilot lightwas too weak; it got smothered.

So only the outer edges burned,” Gilpin said. “Extremelygood luck for us.”The furnace—another inside joke from Amy! She’d always proclaimed amazement athow little I understood the things men are supposed to understand. During our search,I’d even glanced at my dad’s old furnace, with its pipes and wires and spigots, andbacked away, intimidated.“It wasn’t luck. You were meant to find it,” I said.Boney let the left side of her mouth slide into a smile.

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