flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 80
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The morning after healmost killed me. It happened to be Nick’s thirty- fth birthday, but he didn’t mention it.My husband has had enough of my gifts.“I forgive you for last night,” I said. “We were both under a lot of stress. But nowyou’re going to have to try again.”“I know.”“Things will have to be different,” I said.“I know,” he said.He doesn’t really know.
But he will.My parents have visited daily. Rand and Marybeth and Nick lavish me withattention. Pillows. Everyone wants to o er me pillows: We are all laboring under amass psychosis that my rape and miscarriage have left me forever achy and delicate. Ihave a permanent case of sparrow’s bones—I must be held gently in the palm, lest Ibreak.So I prop my feet on the infamous ottoman, and I tread delicately over the kitchenfloor where I bled. We must take good care of me.Yet I nd it strangely tense to watch Nick with anyone but me. He seems on the edgeof blurting all the time—as if his lungs are bursting with words about me, damningwords.I need Nick, I realize. I actually need him to back my story. To stop his accusationsand denials and admit that it was him: the credit cards, the goodies in the woodshed, thebump in insurance.
Otherwise I will carry that waft of uncertainty forever. I have only afew loose ends, and those loose ends are people. The police, the FBI, they are siftingthrough my story. Boney, I know, would love to arrest me. But they botched everythingso badly before—they look like such fools—that they can’t touch me unless they haveproof. And they don’t have proof.
They have Nick, who swears he didn’t do the things Iswear he did, and that’s not much, but it’s more than I’d like.I’ve even prepared in case my Ozarks friends Je and Greta show up, nosing aroundfor acclaim or cash. I’ve already told the police: Desi didn’t drive us straight to his home.He kept me blindfolded and gagged and drugged for several days—I think it was severaldays—in some room, maybe a motel room? Maybe an apartment? I can’t be sure, it’s allsuch a blur.
I was so frightened, you know, and the sleeping pills. If Je and Greta showtheir pointy, lowdown faces and somehow convince the cops to send a tech team downto the Hide-A-Way, and one of my ngerprints or a hair is found, that simply solves partof the puzzle. The rest is them telling lies.So Nick is really the only issue, and soon I’ll return him to my side. I was smart, I leftno other evidence. The police may not entirely believe me, but they won’t do anything.
Iknow from the petulant tone in Boney’s voice—she will live in permanent exasperationfrom now on, and the more annoyed she gets, the more people will dismiss her. Shealready has the righteous, eye-rolling cadence of a conspiracy crackpot. She might aswell wrap her head in foil.Yes, the investigation is winding down.
But for Amazing Amy, it’s quite the opposite.My parents’ publisher placed an abashed plea for another Amazing Amy book, and theyacquiesced for a lovely fat sum. Once again they are squatting on my psyche, earningmoney for themselves. They left Carthage this morning. They say it’s important for Nickand me (the correct grammar) to have some time alone and heal. But I know the truth.They want to get to work. They tell me they are trying to “ nd the right tone.” A tonethat says: Our daughter was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by a monster she had to stab inthe neck … but this is in no way a cash grab.I don’t care about the rebuilding of their pathetic empire, because every day I getcalls to tell my story.
My story: mine, mine, mine. I just need to pick the very best dealand start writing. I just need to get Nick on the same page so that we both agree howthis story will end. Happily.I know Nick isn’t in love with me yet, but he will be. I do have faith in that. Fake ituntil you make it, isn’t that an expression? For now he acts like the old Nick, and I actlike the old Amy. Back when we were happy.
When we didn’t know each other as wellas we do now. Yesterday I stood on the back porch and watched the sun come up overthe river, a strangely cool August morning, and when I turned around, Nick wasstudying me from the kitchen window, and he held up a mug of co ee with a question:You want a cup? I nodded, and soon he was standing beside me, the air smelling ofgrass, and we were drinking our co ee together and watching the water, and it feltnormal and good.He won’t sleep with me yet. He sleeps in the downstairs guest room with the doorlocked.
But one day I will wear him down, I will catch him o guard, and he will losethe energy for the nightly battle, and he will get in bed with me. In the middle of thenight, I’ll turn to face him and press myself against him. I’ll hold myself to him like aclimbing, coiling vine until I have invaded every part of him and made him mine.NICK DUNNETHIRTY DAYS AFTER THE RETURNAmy thinks she’s in control, but she’s very wrong.
Or: She will be very wrong.Boney and Go and I are working together. The cops, the FBI, no one else is showingmuch interest anymore. But yesterday Boney called out of the blue. She didn’t identifyherself when I picked up, just started in like an old friend: Take you for a cup of co ee? Igrabbed Go, and we met Boney back at the Pancake House. She was already at thebooth when we arrived, and she stood and smiled somewhat weakly.
She’d been gettingpummeled in the press. We did an awkward, group-wide hug-or-handshake shu e.Boney settled for a nod.First thing she said to me once we got our food: “I have one daughter. Thirteen yearsold. Mia. For Mia Hamm. She was born the day we won the World Cup. So, that’s mydaughter.”I raised my eyebrows: How interesting. Tell me more.“You asked that one day, and I didn’t … I was rude. I’d been sure you were innocent,and then … everything said you weren’t, so I was pissed. That I could be that fooled.
So Ididn’t even want to say my daughter’s name around you.” She poured us out co ee fromthe thermos.“So, it’s Mia,” she said.“Well, thank you,” I said.“No, I mean … Crap.” She exhaled upward, a hard gust that uttered her bangs. “Imean: I know Amy framed you. I know she murdered Desi Collings. I know it. I just can’tprove it.”“What is everyone else doing while you’re actually working the case?” Go asked.“There is no case. They’re moving on. Gilpin is totally checked out. I basically got theword from on high: Shut this shit down. Shut it down. We look like giant, rube, redneckjackasses in the national media.
I can’t do anything unless I get something from you,Nick. You got anything?”I shrugged. “I got everything you got. She confessed to me, but—”“She confessed?” she said. “Well, hell, Nick, we’ll wire you.”“It won’t work. It won’t work. She thinks of everything. I mean, she knows policeprocedure cold. She studies, Rhonda.”She poured electric-blue syrup over her wa es. I stuck the tines of my fork in mybulbous egg yolk and swirled it, smearing the sun.“It drives me crazy when you call me Rhonda.”“She studies, Ms. Detective Boney.”She blew her breath upward, uttered her bangs again. Took a bite of pancake. “Icouldn’t get a wire anyway at this point.”“Come on, there has to be something, you guys,” Go snapped.
“Nick, why the hell areyou staying in that house if you aren’t getting something?”“It takes time, Go. I have to get her to trust me again. If she starts telling me thingscasually, when we’re not both stark naked—”Boney rubbed her eyes and addressed Go: “Do I even want to ask?”“They always have their talks naked in the shower with the water running,” Go said.“Can’t you bug the shower somewhere?”“She whispers in my ear, on top of the shower running,” I said.“She does study,” Boney said.
“She really does. I went over that car she drove back,Desi’s Jag. I had ’em check the trunk, where she swore Desi had stowed her when hekidnapped her. I gured there’d be nothing there—we’d catch her in a lie. She rolledaround in the trunk, Nick. Her scent was detected by our dogs. And we found three longblond hairs.
Long blond hairs. Hers before she cut it. How she did that—”“Foresight. I’m sure she had a bag of them so if she needed to leave them somewhereto damn me, she could.”“Good God, can you imagine having her for a mother? You could never b. She’d bethree steps ahead of you, always.”“Boney, can you imagine having her for a wife?”“She’ll crack,” she said. “At some point, she’ll crack.”“She won’t,” I said. “Can’t I just testify against her?”“You have no credibility,” Boney said.
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