Page 48 of The Atonement
“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. “Thewhat?”
“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.
“Thesaferoom?” he asked, looking unimpressed. “Seriously, Ainsley?” He crossed his arms. “I’m going toguess 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.”
