Gone Girl

wait?’ Go asked.
    Tanner nodded. ‘It’s a risk. We have to move fast. If another bit of evidence pops up, if the police get a search warrant for the woodshed, if Andie goes to the cops—’
    ‘She won’t,’ I said.
    ‘She bit you, Nick.’
    ‘She won’t. She’s pissed off right now, but she’s … I can’t believe she’d do that to me. She knows I’m innocent.’
    ‘Nick, you said you were with Andie for about an hour the morning Amy disappeared, yes?’
    ‘Yes. From about ten-thirty to right before twelve.’
    ‘So where were you between seven-thirty and ten?’ Tanner asked. ‘You said you left the house at seven-thirty, right? Where did you go?’
    I chewed on my cheek.
    ‘Where did you go, Nick – I need to know.’
    ‘It’s not relevant.’
    ‘ Nick! ’ Go snapped.
    ‘I just did what I do some mornings. I pretended to leave, then I drove to the most deserted part of our complex, and I … one of the houses there has an unlocked garage.’
    ‘And?’ Tanner said.
    ‘And I read magazines.’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘I read back issues of my old magazine.’
    I still missed my magazine – I hid copies like porn and read them in secret, because I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.
    I looked up, and both Tanner and Go felt very, very sorry for me.
    I drove back to my house just after noon, was greeted by a street full of news vans, reporters camped out on my lawn. I couldn’t get into my driveway, was forced to park in front of the house. I took a breath, then flung myself out of the car. They set on me like starving birds, pecking and fluttering, breaking formation and gathering again. Nick, did you know Amy was pregnant? Nick, what is your alibi? Nick, did you kill Amy?
    I made it inside, locked myself in. On each side of the door were windows, so I braved it and quickly pulled down the shades, all thewhile cameras clicking at me, questions called. Nick, did you kill Amy? Once the shades were pulled, it was like covering a canary for the night: The noise out front stopped.
    I went upstairs and satisfied my shower craving. I closed my eyes and let the spray dissolve the dirt from my dad’s house. When I opened them back up, the first thing I saw was Amy’s pink razor on the soap dish. It felt ominous, malevolent. My wife was crazy. I was married to a crazy woman. It’s every asshole’s mantra: I married a psycho bitch . But I got a small, nasty bite of gratification: I really did marry a genuine, bona fide psycho bitch. Nick, meet your wife: the world’s foremost mindfucker . I was not as big an asshole as I’d thought. An asshole, yes, but not on a grandiose scale. The cheating, that had been preemptive, a subconscious reaction to five years yoked to a madwoman: Of course I’d find myself attracted to an uncomplicated, good-natured hometown girl. It’s like when people with iron deficiencies crave red meat.
    I was toweling off when the doorbell rang. I leaned out the bathroom door and heard the reporters’ voices geared up again: Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you’ll be a grandpa, Rand? Do you think Nick killed your daughter, Marybeth?
    They stood side by side on my front step, grim-faced, their backs rigid. There were about a dozen journalists, paparazzi, but they made the noise of twice that many. Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you’ll be a grandpa, Rand? The Elliotts entered with mumbled hellos and downcast eyes, and I slammed the door shut on the cameras. Rand put a hand on my arm and immediately removed it under Marybeth’s gaze.
    ‘Sorry, I was in the shower.’ My hair was still dripping, wetting the shoulders of my T-shirt. Marybeth’s hair was greasy, her clothes wilted. She looked at me like I was insane.
    ‘Tanner Bolt? Are you serious?’ she asked.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I mean, Nick: Tanner Bolt, are you serious. He only represents guilty people.’ She leaned in closer, grabbed my chin. ‘What’s on your cheek?’
    ‘Hives. Stress.’ I turned away from her. ‘That’s not true about Tanner, Marybeth. It’s not. He’s the best in the business. I need him right now. The police – all they’re doing is looking at me.’
    ‘That certainly seems to be the case,’ she said. ‘It looks like a bite mark.’
    ‘It’s hives.’
    Marybeth released an aggravated sigh, turned the corner into the living room. ‘This is where it happened?’ she asked. Her