The Wife They Burned novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: Mudroom

Abel didn't say anything for a while.

He went out to his truck and came back with a big paper evidence bag and a pair of blue gloves.

He folded my coat into the bag.

"Don't wash anything else that hung in that mudroom," he said. "Don't tell anybody what the dog did."

"Joy saw."

"Joy's fine. Anybody at Highmoor."

"I don't talk to anybody at Highmoor."

He sealed the bag with red tape and wrote the date across the seal.

"I'm off the case," he said. "So this goes to a private lab, on my credit card, and it'll take a few weeks."

"Let me pay for it."

"No."

"Abel."

"You've got a house to save," he said. "Let me have the coat."

He loaded the bag and the dog into the truck.

At the curb he rolled the window down.

"Ada. Don't go back there alone."

"I won't," I said.

I went back the next morning, alone.

I told myself it was for my mother's ring.

It was the only thing of hers I had, a thin gold band with a chip of sapphire.

I'd left it in the jewelry tray in my old dressing room the day I moved to the attic.

That was true.

It just wasn't the reason.

I parked by the kitchen door at ten, when I knew Marshall was in Stamford and his mother did her board calls in the library.

The cook looked up from her bread dough and didn't say a word.

She just tipped her head toward the back hall, as if she knew where I was going before I did.

The mudroom smelled like boot wax and wet dog.

Six hooks by the back door.

Marshall's barn jacket. His mother's quilted vest. Two raincoats for guests.

My hook was empty.

So was the hook beside it.

I stood there and looked at the bare brass for a long time.

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