Page 24 of In the Bones
“He’s working on getting a dental match,” said Tim, “but since we have no records to compare to, he has to send it to missing persons. He’s telling me that could take weeks, possibly even months.”
As he spoke, his gaze drifted back to Nicole where she sat at the bar. Her posture had changed, her body folding in on itself. Boneless. Her face was alarmingly vacant too, and for a second Tim wondered if he or Shana should call Mac. Mac was busy prepping for the surprise party, though. It was why she hadn’t been able to join them at The Brig. And anyway, Nicole had her blonde friend.
The party would help, Tim reasoned. Distract Nicole from the disturbing situation.
The party couldn’t come at a better time.
TWENTY-ONE
Nicole
It was late by the time Nicole got home, and she was sure Woody knew before he opened the door that she was drunk. There was no missing the uneven way she plodded up the steps that led from the driveway to the side entrance, or how hard she had to work to make her mouth look natural. She found her husband in the kitchen, washing and drying the last of the dishes. When Nicole had told him Stacy was taking her out for some girl talk, Woody had assured her he could handle dinner. Bagged salad, probably, and that leftover chicken, gone tough from days in the fridge. The kitchen was spotless, though. There was that.
“Hi,” Nicole said. As she wrestled off her shoes, she caught a glimpse of herself in the darkened window. Her hair was flat on one side, though she didn’t remember dozing off in the car. “How’re the girls?”
“They’re fine. Hey, were you in the garage this morning? The door was partway open when I got back from work.”
“Why would I go in the garage?” asked Nicole, working to tamp down the resentment in her voice. She’d come to terms with the endless stacks of boxes over time, even in winter when they had to park out in the freezing driveway, but the last thing she wanted was to put the chaos on display for the whole neighborhood.
“Must have been one of the girls. I’ll talk to them about it. You eat?” he asked.
Nicole shook her head. Drinks on an empty stomach had been a bad idea. She was usually careful about that. Woody offered to make her a grilled cheese, and Nicole accepted. From the table, she watched as he got out the frying pan. Fetched the bread and a package of cheese from the fridge. Why hadn’the thought to make that for the girls? They would have liked grilled cheese.
At the cupboard, Woody retrieved the big Coke glass she liked, the one he’d swiped for her on their tenth anniversary from that diner in Lake George. Woody filled it with water from the tap, setting it down in front of her, and for a second their relationship felt sweet again. Easy. But only for a second.
“I need to tell you something.” Nicole could hear her words sliding into each other. She reached for the water. Took a sip, and tried again. “It’s going to be in the news soon, so you might as well hear it from me.” Beads of sweat were forming on her chest.
Woody hadn’t liked the idea of his wife working in rich people’s houses. Big riverfront homes meant big payouts, but only in the warmer months, and the winters were long, those places sitting empty all the while. A few of her clients returned in late fall for leaf peeping and Punkin’ Chunkin’, when crowds watched catapults launch pumpkins a thousand feet into the river, but it was the summer people who paid Nicole’s bills and increased the family’s meager savings.
What was more, Nicole’s job didn’t jive with Woody’s lack of self-worth.It’s bad enough that you have to scrub strangers’ toilets and pick up their snotty tissues. Couldn’t you at least do it at a hotel where the people are normal?Woody knew full well Nicole had to work because he didn’t earn enough from the mini putt—not even in combination with the recently added resale business—but his bone-deep abhorrence of the wealthy made the newest version of her job difficult for him to stomach. He was constantly worried one of the homeowners would belittle her or make a pass.One of these days, Nic. That’s how these people operate. They think it’s their right, and that’s dangerous.
Woody really wasn’t going to like it when she told him about her day.
Nicole held nothing back. She confessed the house she’d been cleaning that morning belonged to Mikko Helle, and that a woman had been hiding inside, and that the police had found a skeleton buried under Mikko’s basement floor. She let himstew in the information while she drank more water, willing the headache that was gathering behind her eyes to go away.
“I don’t understand,” Woody finally said, standing stock-still at the stove. Nicole didn’t remember him buttering the bread or turning on the burner, but the sandwich was sizzling in the pan, a comfortable sound that felt undeserved. “You’re working for Mikko? What the fuck were you doing in that house? Christ, Nic … does he know who you are?”
“They interviewed him,” she said, ignoring his questions. “And me, too. He’s a suspect, Woody, a suspect in a homicide investigation. Are you even hearing me?” she spat when he didn’t answer, even as Woody cast a worried glance at the hall that led to the girls’ rooms. “Mikko Helle, your beloved new partner, might be a murderer. We have to get out of this, Woody. You need to get our money back.”
When they were newly dating, Nicole loved nothing more than to lean over Woody where he lay and stare into his bright blue eyes. They’d mesmerized her—everything about him had done that back then—but the eyes that bored into her now weren’t the ones she knew. These left her cold.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly.
“I had to.” What was it about her decision that he couldn’t understand? “And it was obviously the right thing to do, because look! There was a dead body in the guy’s house—in his house! The police are investigating him. Don’t you think that’s a pretty clear sign of trouble? You need to talk to him before he goes to prison and that money’s gone for good.”
“No.” Woody snatched the pan from the heat and slammed it back down so hard Nicole flinched. “This is fucking ridiculous. Mikko Helle’s a former NHL athlete. There’s nobody more legit than him.”
“Legit people don’t have bodies in their basements. The guy had a literal skeleton in his closet! What’s it going to take to make you listen?”
Woody stared at her for a long time. It was like he was waiting for something, though she couldn’t fathom what it was. Could he see the shimmer of terror in her eyes? Did he know her fear felt permanent now, baked right into her bones?When he’d first told her about his business deal—that he’d met a man who wanted to tap Woody’s unique skillset in exchange for more money than the Durhams could ever need—she’d been skeptical. Quite simply, it sounded too good to be true. An ex-NHL player with a plan for a North Country business?Come on, she’d said.No way. Nicole’s husband was more of a baseball guy than hockey fan, and hadn’t even known who Mikko was. That didn’t stop Woody from allowing himself to be seduced. The man had been enraptured, his awe of the athlete absolute.
Mikko Helle had plans to transform the old Rivermouth Arena. Mikko would use his name and brand to draw people in, his face splashed on ads that would run in Albany, Toronto, Boston, Buffalo. He wanted Woody to be his front man, to use his regional knowledge and the business acumen he’d gleaned from Island Adventure to make the endeavor a success. It would be bigger than anything Woody had ever been part of. And according to Mikko, it would make both men a fortune.
Woody had claimed he’d done his due diligence. Again and again, he’d met with Mikko over lunch and drinks, and he swore up and down that the guy checked out. One day last August, he’d taken Nicole out to see the site, which sat a few miles outside of Cape Vincent. The arena, which had been abandoned for more than twenty years, was a living nightmare straight out of a dystopian horror show, but when Nicole expressed her dread, Woody had patted her arm like a child. All they had to do was hand over their entire savings, he said, a fraction of what Mikko was investing himself, in exchange for a stake in a business that was going to make Woody’s earnings from Island Adventure look like pocket change. He’d close the course, obviously. That business could never compete. It would be the end of one era, and the start of another. By the very next summer, the decrepit building nobody else had the courage or capital to touch would be up and running again, better even than it had been when Woody and Nicole were kids.
Nicole had spent countless nights thinking about Mikko’s offer, imagining all the ways the revenue from a thrivingbusiness could change their lives. It wasn’t just the cost of college and the condition of the house that weighed on her, but the knowledge that, for their entire marriage, they’d never once felt financially secure. Maybe this would change that. They worked so hard—didn’t they deserve a leg-up? Maybe Mikko really was a ministering spirit come to transform their lives.
She’d been all set to tell Woody she was in, ready to let him sweep her into a hug and embark on this transformative journey by his side. Two things had happened then. The first was the call from Stacy telling her she’d seen Woody with another woman. The second was Woody’s confession that he’d made the decision without her, having drained their savings account the previous day.
