flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 75
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I moved away.“What is your story, Amy?”“Desi,” she whispered, her lower lip trembling. “Desi Collings took me. It was themorning. Of. Of our anniversary. And the doorbell rang, and I thought … I don’t know, Ithought maybe it was flowers from you.”I inched. Of course she’d nd a way to work in a gripe: that I hardly ever sent herowers, when her dad had sent her mom owers each week since they’d been married.That’s 2,444 bouquets of flowers vs. 4.“Flowers or … something,” she continued.
“So I didn’t think, I just ung open thedoor. And there he stood, Desi, with this look on his face. Determined. As if he’d beengirding himself up for this all along. And I was holding the handle … to the Judy puppet.Did you find the puppets?” She smiled up at me tearily. She looked so sweet.“Oh, I found everything you left for me, Amy.”“I had just found the handle to the Judy puppet—it had fallen o —I was holding itwhen I opened the door, and I tried to hit him, and we struggled, and he clubbed mewith it. Hard.
And the next thing I knew …”“You had framed me for murder and disappeared.”“I can explain everything, Nick.”I stared at her a long hard moment. I saw days under the hot sun stretched across thesand of the beach, her hand on my chest, and I saw family dinners at her parents’ house,with Rand always re lling my glass and patting me on the shoulder, and I saw ussprawled on the rug in my crummy New York apartment, talking while staring at the lazyceiling fan, and I saw mother of my child and the stunning life I’d planned for us once. Ihad a moment that lasted two beats, one, two, when I wished violently that she weretelling the truth.“I actually don’t think you can explain everything,” I said. “But I am going to lovewatching you try.”“Try me now.”She tried to take my hand, and I ung her o .
I walked away from her, took abreath, and then turned to face her. My wife must always be faced.“Go ahead, Nick. Try me now.”“Okay, sure. Why was every clue of the treasure hunt hidden in a place where Ihad … relations with Andie?”She sighed, looked at the oor. Her ankles were raw. “I didn’t even know aboutAndie until I saw it on TV … while I was tied to Desi’s bed, hidden away in his lakehouse.”“So that was all … coincidence?”“Those were all places that were meaningful to us,” she said. A tear slid down herface. “Your office, where you reignited your passion for journalism.”I snuffed.“Hannibal, where I nally understood how much this area means to you. Yourfather’s house—confronting the man who hurt you so much.
Your mother’s house, whichis now Go’s house, the two people who made you such a good man. But … I guess itdoesn’t surprise me that you’d like to share those places with someone you”—she bowedher head—“had fallen in love with. You always liked repeats.”“Why did each of those places end up including clues that implicated me in yourmurder? Women’s undies, your purse, your diary. Explain your diary, Amy, with all thelies.”She just smiled and shook her head like she was sorry for me. “Everything, I canexplain everything,” she said.I looked in that sweet tear-stained face. Then I looked down at all the blood.
“Amy.Where’s Desi?”She shook her head again, a sad little smile.I moved to call the police, but a knock on our door told me they were already here.AMY ELLIOTT DUNNETHE NIGHT OF THE RETURNI still have Desi’s semen inside me from the last time he raped me, so the medicalexamination goes ne. My rope-wreathed wrists, my damaged vagina, my bruises—thebody I present them is textbook. An older male doctor with humid breath and thickngers performs the pelvic exam—scraping and wheezing in time—while DetectiveRhonda Boney holds my hand. It is like being clutched by a cold bird claw.
Notcomforting at all. Once she breaks into a grin when she thinks I’m not looking. She isabsolutely thrilled that Nick isn’t a bad guy after all. Yes, the women of America arecollectively sighing.Police have been dispatched to Desi’s home, where they’ll nd him naked anddrained, a stunned look on his face, a few strands of my hair in his clutches, the bedsoaked in blood. The knife I used on him, and on my bonds, will be nearby on the oorwhere I dropped it, dazed, and walked barefoot, carrying nothing out of the house buthis keys—to the car, to the gate—and climbed, still slick with his blood, into his vintageJaguar and returned like some long-lost faithful pet, straight back home to my husband.I’d been reduced to an animal state; I didn’t think of anything but getting back to Nick.The old doctor tells me the good news; no permanent damage and no need for a D&C—I miscarried too early.
Boney keeps clutching my hand and murmuring, My God, whatyou’ve been through, do you think you feel up to answering a few questions? That fast, fromcondolences to brass tacks. I nd ugly women are usually overly deferential orincredibly rude.You are Amazing Amy, and you’ve survived a brutal kidnapping involving repeatedassaults. You’ve killed your captor, and you’ve made it back to a husband you’vediscovered was cheating. You:a) Put yourself first and demand some time alone to collect yourself.b) Hold it together just a little longer so you can help the police.c) Decide which interview to give rst—you might as well get something out ofthe ordeal, like a book deal.Answer: B.
Amazing Amy always puts others first.I’m allowed to clean myself up in a private room in the hospital, and I change into aset of clothes Nick put together for me from the house—jeans with creases from beingfolded too long, a pretty blouse that smells of dust. Boney and I drive from the hospitalto the police station in near silence. I ask weakly after my parents.“They’re waiting for you at the station,” Boney says. “They wept when I told them.With joy. Absolute joy and relief. We’ll let them get some good hugs in with you beforewe do our questions, don’t worry.”The cameras are already at the station. The parking lot has that hopeful, overlit lookof a sports stadium.
There is no underground parking, so we have to pull right up frontas the madding crowd closes in: I see wet lips and spittle as everyone screams questions,the pops of ashbulbs and camera lights. The crowd pushes and pulls en masse, jerkinga few inches to the right, then the left, as everyone tries to reach me.“I can’t do this,” I say to Boney. A man’s meaty palm smacks against the car windowas a photographer tries to keep his balance. I grab her cold hand. “It’s too much.”She pats me and says, wait. The station doors open, and every o cer in the buildingles down the stairs and forms a line on either side of me, holding the press back,creating an honor guard for me, and Rhonda and I run in holding hands like reversenewlyweds, rushing straight up to my parents who are waiting just inside the doorway,and everyone gets the photos of us clutching each other with my mom whisperingsweetgirlsweetgirlsweetgirl and my dad sobbing so loudly he almost chokes.There is more whisking away of me, as if I haven’t been whisked away quite enoughalready.
I am deposited in a closet of a room with comfortable but cheap o ce chairs,the kind that always seem to have bits of old food woven into the fabric. A camerablinking up in the corner and no windows. It is not what I pictured. It is not designed tomake me feel safe.I am surrounded by Boney, her partner, Gilpin, and two FBI agents up from St. Louiswho remain nearly silent. They give me water, and then Boney starts.B: Okay, Amy, rst we have to thank you sincerely for talking with us afterwhat you’ve been through. In a case like this, it’s very important to get everythingdown while the memory is fresh. You can’t imagine how important that is. So it’sgood to talk now.
If we can get all these details down, we can close the case, andyou and Nick can go back to your lives.A: I’d definitely like that.B: You deserve that. So if you’re ready to begin, can we start with the time line:What time did Desi arrive at your door? Do you remember?A: About ten A.M.
A little after, because I remember hearing the Teverers talkingas they walked to their car for church.B: What happened when you opened the door?A: Something felt wrong immediately. First of all, Desi has written me letters allmy life. But his obsession seemed to have become less intense over the years. Heseemed to think of himself as just an old friend, and since the police couldn’t doanything about it, I made my peace with that. I never felt like he meant me activeharm, although I really didn’t like being this close to him.
Geographically. I thinkthat’s what put him over the edge. Knowing I was so close. He walked into myhouse with … He was sweaty and sort of nervous but also determined-looking. I’dbeen upstairs, I’d been about to iron my dress, when I noticed the big woodenhandle of the Judy puppet on the oor—I guess it had fallen o . Bummer becauseI’d already hidden the puppets in the woodshed. So I grabbed the handle, and I hadthat in my hand when I opened the door.B: Very good memory.A: Thank you.B: What happened next?A: Desi barged in, and he was pacing around the living room, all ustered andkind of frantic, and he said, What are you doing for your anniversary? It frightenedme, that he knew today was our anniversary, and he seemed angry about it, andthen his arm ashed out and he had me by the wrist and was twisting it behind myback, and we struggled.
I put up a real fight.B: What next?A: I kicked him and got away for a second and ran to the kitchen, and westruggled more and he clubbed me once with the big wooden Judy handle, and Iwent ying and then he hit me two or three more times. I remember not being ableto see for a second, just dizzy, my head was throbbing and I tried to grab for thehandle and he stabbed my arm with this pocketknife he was carrying.
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