Contents

1. Cover

2. Title Page

3. Waking Kylie

4. An Excerpt from The Wife

5. About the Author

6. Also by Alafair Burke

7. Copyright

8. About the Publisher

Waking Kylie

Diane Light closed the file folder and tucked it at the bottom of the foot-high pile. When the tower began to wobble, she used her forearm to hold it steady.

She resisted the urge to separate that last file from the rest. It was special. It deserved to be carried into court on its own.

“Jesus, I thought I was late.” Diane heard footsteps rush past her office door, her coworker’s voice fading as he moved farther down the hallway. “Stone’s a stickler about time, you know.”

She knew.

She stole a glance at her watch as she scooped the stack of files against her chest. Two minutes until Stone would be seated at his bench, tapping the face of his own watch, eager for Diane—the deputy district attorney assigned to his courtroom today—to start calling cases.

Judge Stone was a stickler for promptness, but he was also a stickler for facts. She’d memorized the contents of Kylie’s file, from start to finish.

Two hours in, Stone pointed at the clock. “Nice job this morning, Miss Light. You could teach your colleagues a thing or two about docket management.”

Her pile was down to two inches. Three more cases and still an hour to go before Stone’s hardwired lunch alarm would sound. The strategy was working. She was saving Kylie for last.

She rushed through the next two cases. They were easy ones: both mothers were complying with conditions. The assigned social workers reported progress and recommended continued monitoring and treatment. The parties would return in two months for another status check.

Forty-five minutes to go, and only one more file. Kylie’s file. She called the case number and watched Kylie’s father, Kyle, approach the opposing counsel’s table with his court-appointed attorney. The daddy-daughter pairing of names could have been cute under different circumstances. Kylie’s assigned court advocate stood between the two lawyers.

“Your Honor,” Diane said, setting the stage for the discussion, “you may recall this case. The State originally moved to terminate parental rights ten months ago, after police learned the parents had permitted the child to be sexually abused in exchange for drugs. She was only twenty-two months old at the time.” Twenty-two months old sounded much younger than two years old. Somehow it sounded even more babylike than a year and a half. Diane noticed the court reporter’s eyes widen. She hadn’t been working long enough to have hardened to the kinds of facts recited on the child welfare docket.

“Objection.” It came from the dad’s attorney, Lisa Hobbins.

Hobbins pretended to care about her clients, but Diane knew for a fact that she didn’t; three years ago, after too many tequila shots at the old Veritable Quandary, Hobbins had notoriously puked her guts out in the gutter of First Avenue and cried about the “scumbag parents” the courts forced her to represent.

“Miss Light, of all people, is well aware that only the mother was convicted of those charges,” Hobbins said now. “My client was estranged from his wife at the time the crimes occurred. He wanted to get clean. She didn’t. He would never have left Kylie with her mother if he’d known—”

“We dispute all of that, Your Honor. A grand jury indicted the father as well as the mother.”

Hobbins interrupted. “And then Kylie’s mother testified at my client’s trial—under oath—and took sole responsibility for the horrific abuse.”

“Your Honor, the State’s position is that the mother is a battered woman and not estranged from her husband at all. She testified under duress, falsely taking full responsibility to protect him—”

Judge Stone held up a hand. “You lost at trial, Miss Light. The jury must have rejected that theory.”

“But this is a separate case, Your Honor. As an independent finder of fact, you can make a fresh assessment—”

“So where are we now?” He didn’t try to mask the glance at his watch.

Diane quickly summarized the efforts to find Kylie a suitable parent. Ten months earlier, Kylie had been placed with a foster mother, Janice Miller, while the State sought to terminate the rights of her biological parents. Kylie’s mother had already agreed as part of her criminal sentence, but the father was resisting. After three hearings, Judge Stone found grounds for termination “in theory” but wanted assurances that Kylie would have a permanent home. Since then, the case had been continued repeatedly while Kylie’s foster mother decided whether to enter into a legal adoption.

Stone was rifling through the court’s file. Maybe Diane should have called the case first. She didn’t want the judge getting stuck on continuances and previous hearings; she needed him to focus on Kylie.

All that work. All that planning. And now she was blowing it. Again. She remembered breaking down in her office, sobbing with the door closed, moments after the criminal trial against Kyle Chance had ended with a Not Guilty verdict.

“To cut to the chase, Your Honor”—she knew that was Stone’s favorite phrase—“Kylie was not an easy child to place. Adoptive parents are reluctant to take on children who have been through the kind of trauma Kylie experienced. In addition to the abuse that led to her parents’ arrest, she was born drug-affected. When Child Protective Services became involved, she was undernourished and suffering from PTSD. But after nearly a year as a foster parent to Kylie, Miss Miller was sufficiently comfortable with Kylie’s physical and emotional progress. This morning was supposed to be a hearing to finalize the termination of Mr. Chance’s parental rights with a simultaneous adoption by Miss Miller.”

“But?”

Diane had a sudden image of Janice sitting in her office last week, bouncing Kylie on her lap and thanking Diane for her patience while she made certain she was capable of raising a child on her own. “Miss Miller was struck and killed by a drunk driver two nights ago as she was jogging across Powell Boulevard.” Judge Stone made a tsk sound. “The State is still seeking termination of parental rights. Regardless of her father’s acquittal on criminal charges, the basic facts remain.”

She couldn’t believe she had to spell out the stomach-churning evidence once again. A neighbor in the Chances’ apartment building called the police after she saw blood on a child’s dress in the communal laundry room. A fan of crime TV, she went so far as to seize the evidence and seal it in a Ziploc bag. The lab results—the blood was from a female, another type of fluid was from a man—painted an even more disturbing picture. A search warrant executed at the apartment led to a set of Kylie’s pajamas with yet another man’s genetic material. The State’s DNA database turned up a match to the pajamas—a convicted sex offender named Trevor Williams, who just happened to be Kyle Chance’s cellmate during Chance’s prison stint on drug charges.

Cutting a deal with that pedophile was the hardest bargain Diane had ever struck. They might never identify the other man—or men—to whom Kylie was traded for drugs, but they had Williams, and Williams was willing to give them both of the parents. It was the only way to protect the girl in the long run.

When Diane got to Williams’s trial testimony, Hobbins cut her off. “Your Honor, that man was a serial offender who testified in exchange for leniency. Given how child abusers are treated in prison, he would have said anything to get in the prosecutor’s good graces.”

Judge Stone raised an impatient palm again. “I’m not going to relitigate the criminal case here, ladies. You should both know that the standard is the best interests of the child.”

And how the hell was it in Kylie’s best interests to live with a man who sold her as a two-year-old to support his heroin habit?

Diane knew her argument would only go downhill from there. The woman who was supposed to be Kylie’s forever-mother was gone, and now Kylie was staying in a group home, the youngest of all the children there.

Diane focused on maintaining her composure while her opposing counsel painted Kyle Chance as some kind of victim. According to Hobbins, Chance’s shock at what his wife had done to their daughter had been the wake-up call he needed. After some initial relapses, he had been clean for five months. He still denied all knowledge of his wife’s crimes, but he had been willing to let Kylie go with Janice Miller because the woman had been there for his daughter when he had not. But now Miller was gone, and he was finally in a “position to parent.”

“Miss Hobbins, does your client have a residence suitable for the child to live there now?”

Diane couldn’t believe how quickly Hobbins had managed to reframe the entire case.

“Yes, Your Honor. He has a private apartment with subsidization through Section Eight. It is a one-bedroom; Kylie would have the bedroom, and he would sleep in the living room. Were he granted custody, he would qualify for additional subsidization. He has a social worker through his drug rehabilitation program, and she would assist him in securing a two-bedroom. He is working part-time as a janitor at Portland State, and his sister has agreed to watch Kylie while he is at work.”

Diane remembered the sister. She’d refused to take Kylie in because “my food stamps barely cover my own three kids, and you people don’t pay foster parents for shit.”

“And what does Kylie want?” The judge directed his question to Paula Chambers, Kylie’s court-appointed advocate.

“Your Honor, she’s not even three years old,” Diane said.

“I didn’t ask the child if she wanted a pony. I’m simply asking a question of a fellow lawyer who is supposed to play a role here. Is that all right with you, Miss Light? Am I allowed to ask a question?”

Diane forced herself to nod deferentially as Chambers walked them through the basics: Kylie was lucky “in a sense” to have suffered the abuse at such at a young age. The psychiatrists said she was unlikely to retain any conscious long-term memory of the incidents.

She tested at below-average intelligence—most likely a consequence of her mother’s prenatal drug use—but the experts attributed her delayed speech to the lack of environmental stimulation prior to her placement with Miss Miller. She had recently shown some willingness to vocalize but had become distracted and unresponsive in the two days since her move to the group home. She had seen her father six times during the last three months with the consent and supervision of her foster mom. According to Chambers, Kylie demonstrated a “natural fondness” for him and “clearly recognized that he played some role in her life.”

Kyle Chance chose that moment to speak up on his own behalf. “I just want one more chance to be her dad, Judge. I promise you on my life that I will not mess it up this time. Please, sir. Please.” Chance had trimmed his straggly black hair and had gained a few pounds since the time of his mug shot, but he still looked at least a decade older than his actual thirty-five years.

“Baby steps, Mr. Chance. We’ll start with five-hour days with you, one hour supervised. She’ll remain at the group home at night. We’ll hear again from all parties in two weeks and make a decision then.”

Diane could not believe how quickly this case, almost a year in the making—not to mention the criminal trial—was spiraling out of control. “Your Honor, that’s four hours a day without supervision,” she protested.

“I’m aware of basic math, Miss Light.”

“But the best interests of the child—”

“—require some consistency for this little girl. The biological mother is in prison. The foster mother just died. She has one, and only one, person left, and he stands here by all accounts a changed—and acquitted—man. You have nothing to offer but a group home filled with juvenile delinquents.”

“I can offer myself, Your Honor. I’ll take her if that’s the only option. You can’t put her back with this man.”

“Good Lord, Miss Light. Get control of yourself. I recognize your indignation, and it’s on the record. There’s no need to be hyperbolic.”

“It’s not hyperbole, Your Honor. I’ve been on this case for ten months. I handled the criminal prosecution. I have shepherded the case through the family court process. I went to Miss Miller’s home multiple times to talk to her about the adoption. He’s seen Kylie—what, six times since this all happened? I’ve seen her on at least twenty occasions. Does he even know her favorite stuffed animal? It’s a raccoon. Its name is Coo-Coo. It was one of the only times Kylie repeated after her speech therapists—she tried to say raccoon, and she said coo-coo, so that became the toy’s name. I was there for that, not him. Kylie knows me. I know Kylie. I will take her.”

The courtroom fell silent. Even Diane could not believe her outburst. In all those hours studying the file, she had never once considered the possibility. But suddenly every piece fell into place. There was a reason she had been the major-crimes attorney assigned to the trial. There was a reason she had requested the transfer from criminal court and had landed in the family law unit. Maybe there was even a reason Janice Miller had been hit by a drunk driver.

Diane could do this. She could be a good mother to that girl.

Stone cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, that’s very noble of you, Miss Light, but the best interests of the child value biological connections. Let’s give Kylie a chance at a life with her father. I hope I’m not wrong about you, Mr. Chance.”

“You’re not, sir. I promise you, you’re not. Thank you. Thank you so, so much.” Chance grabbed both of Hobbins’s hands and shook them hard.

Diane saw the defense attorney well up and wanted to slap her.

Five weeks later, Diane started her car engine, searching for the comfort of the radio. All that silence made the minutes tick by too slowly. Where the hell was Matt?

The guy leaving the McDonald’s was looking at her. He saw her notice him. He smiled.

Diane still wasn’t used to that kind of smile from a man. She had spent her entire life as the type of girl men looked away from. Or if one looked, the glance would be followed by a nudge of his buddy, then a wisecrack and guilty giggle. Dude, that’s just wrong.

At least they usually had the courtesy to keep their voices down. Well, not that one time, back in law school. She’d worn her knee-length purple sweater tunic to class. Even with the black leggings, it was a bold fashion choice. She’d thought she looked pretty good until she heard the male voices singing in the undergrad quad, “‘I love you, you love me . . .’” Maybe she would have managed to forget the incident—the day abandoned somewhere in the recesses of her mind like that enormous sweater discarded in the bathroom garbage can—but someone had yelled, “Barney!” as she walked the stage at commencement. To this day, she still burned inside if she stumbled across a picture of that big purple dinosaur.

Her cell phone buzzed on the console. A text message illuminated the screen. It was from Greg. Will u pls change cable bill to ur name? Grace tried 2 add Showtime. Mix-up b/c 2 accts under mine. Thx.

Greg and Grace. Just the sound of it was ridiculous. Diane had spent nearly thirty years with the man, and now her relationship with Greg was nothing but logistics hammered out through misspellings and abbreviations. She hit Delete.

Where the fuck was Matt?

Maybe pulling Matt into this had been too big a risk. At one point, they’d had something resembling a friendly relationship, albeit one based on reciprocal compensation: he was her favorite informant; she was his benefactor in the drug unit. Relying on and rewarding the cooperation of criminals was one of the ugly realities of her job, but as felons went, Matt wasn’t so bad. His only crime was to sell drugs, and then only to adults and in small quantities. Most important—for her purposes, at least—he always kept his ears and eyes open for information that he could trade for a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Matt was so well connected to Portland’s heroin trade that she’d gone to him last January hoping he might recognize Kylie’s parents. Maybe he was selling to them or had seen them in the usual spots looking to buy. Matt had never seen either one of the Chances, but Diane had mentally added a chit to his account, just for the time he spent studying their mug shots.

Matt had been popped fourteen times, but because of the chits, he had never taken a conviction. The defendants who’d been burned by his information called him Matt the Rat, but more commonly, he was known on the streets as Matt the Cat because he’d burned through nine lives and then some.

That track record made him a good informant, but not a good ally. Sitting in her car waiting for him, Diane realized that a senior deputy district attorney’s head on a silver platter would be hefty currency in Matt’s trade, much more valuable to him than yet another IOU from her.

She wondered how the office would respond if anyone discovered what she was about to do. She’d been with the office for nearly eighteen years; she’d known colleagues who had DUIs, arrests for so-called domestic disturbances, even coke problems. Some had jobs waiting for them after the appropriate amount of rehab. Others got shipped off, their cases referred to the attorney general for investigation.

A year ago, if she’d been caught using an informant to entrap a defendant, she would have gotten the kid-glove treatment. She’d been a team player. Kept her head down. Put the office first, always.

And then Greg left her. The boy who’d taken her to the high school prom. The guy she’d shacked up with in college. The man she’d married the weekend after graduation. The asshole left her.

When he’d asked her to prom, she was already approaching two hundred pounds. She was nearly at three when he told her there was someone else.

Her weight was never really an issue for him. That’s what she’d thought, at least. He was big too. They both liked to eat. They both said they were happy in their bodies and wished other people would accept them as they were. Regardless, they had accepted each other. Now she wondered whether they’d loved each other only because no one else would.

Everything had started to change about five years earlier. They’d gotten married so young that they just assumed a baby would come along eventually. Before they knew it, their thirties were almost over. The doctors said her weight might be the reason she hadn’t conceived.

She and Greg went on a diet together. They joined the gym. Success came faster to him than to her.

So did pregnancy.

Ironically, it wasn’t until Greg broke the news that he was expecting a child with someone else—Grace from spin class, naturally—that her own weight finally started to come off. It was as if that one conversation changed her physical makeup. Her metabolism, her glucose levels, her fat cells—all transformed. It was like waking up in someone else’s body.

But by then, the body was too old. She was forty-four. On a government salary, she didn’t have the money for in vitro, private adoption, or a surrogate. She’d always assumed she was lucky to have Greg. Now she couldn’t believe the person she saw in her mirror every day. She was finally the kind of woman who was appealing to men, but to what end?

It wasn’t just her body that changed. So did her determination. In an office filled with athletes and health nuts who viewed physical fitness as a measure of character, she had nevertheless excelled over the years because she was like an uncaged tiger at trial. But the anger and indignation that had propelled her courtroom performances had somehow burned away with all those pounds. She found herself cutting corners. Winging opening statements. She rang in the new year by oversleeping on the final day of Kyle Chance’s criminal trial, then delivering her closing argument in a groggy haze.

That epic cry in her office after the acquittal had been the first time she’d found herself caring about her job in months.

And so, after climbing the prosecutorial hierarchy for eighteen years, she’d asked for a transfer out of the major-crimes unit, the most coveted job in the office. She knew the rotation into the wasteland of family court was intended as punishment, a message to the rest of the attorneys that they requested changes at their own peril.

But now she realized the move had allowed her to stay in Kylie’s life. Who else would have protected her?

She finally spotted Matt, who looked only in the direction of oncoming traffic on the one-way street before he dashed across Park Avenue. This was the kind of thing a mother noticed.

She rolled down her window halfway.

“Sorry, Light. No dice.”

“You didn’t find him?” According to the social worker, Chance worked janitorial duty at the campus until nine o’clock.

“I found him a’ight. Dude dipped.” Matt’s skin was white as Casper, but not his voice. She once tried getting him to drop the affect for his trial testimony, telling him he sounded like a twenty-first-century minstrel show. He responded by asking what religion had to do with it.

“Are you sure you talked to the right guy?” She hit her dome light and showed him Chance’s mug shot again. If only Matt had recognized this photo in January. If only he’d had some connection to Kyle and Rachel Chance. Testimony placing the couple together near the time of Kylie’s abuse would have debunked their bogus story that the mother acted alone during a desperate binge brought on by their separation. “This picture’s a year old. He’s put on a little weight since then. Trimmed his hair.”

It had been two days since Kylie officially moved in with her father full-time. According to Judge Stone, the one month of monitoring that had passed since the previous hearing was “proof enough” that he was capable of parenting.

“I did my thing, you know? Acted like I was working the Park Blocks. Saw him coming. Sidled up to him. Asked if he was looking for H. Dude just said no, thanks, and kept on walking.”

“I’m not buying it, Matt.”

“You’re my girl, Light. Liked you better with that junk in your trunk, fo’ sho’, but you know I want to he’p you out. You think I’d cross you? I know better than to get DiLi mad.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “I want to trust you, Matt, but I don’t believe for a second that this guy turned down the opportunity to get high.”

“Hey, whatchu want me to say?”

“That you just sold the man in this picture some dope.”

“Then you send your man in there to frisk him down but he don’t find no smack. That would make me a liar, and you know I only speak the truth. I bathe in the light of honesty, girl. I might sell folks to the law, but only if they did the crime, you know? Hey, don’t get so upset, Light. I never seen you so down. It must be that diet. Get yourself some cheeseburgers and onion rings, you know what I’m saying?”

“You’re positive you approached the right guy?”

Matt looked back toward the park, but she could tell he was just buying himself time to answer. “If it makes you feel better, I could tell he was craving it. Real tempted, you know? Like, pondering and shit. But—I don’t know—maybe I made it seem too easy. I knew you wanted him, so I floated twenty a bag. Price was too low; he probably figured I was po-po. Maybe try again in a few weeks?”

A few weeks was too long. A man like Chance could break Kylie all over again in a few hours.

“No, that’s all right. You want a ride back uptown?”

“Nah, I’m good. Might hang down here for a bit.”

“Dumb question, Matt, but any chance I can persuade you to get into another line of work?”

“You cute, girl. And, seriously, you look good, Light. Maybe a little too light, if you get it. But good. Hang tough.”

The next night, Chance showed up at home close to eleven o’clock. Diane watched Kylie hold his hand as they stepped from the bus onto McLoughlin Boulevard. From the university to the aunt’s house to here should not have taken him the nearly two hours it had. Chance was definitely up to something. Not to mention, what kind of father let a three-year-old stay up that late?

She watched from her car as they walked hand in hand to their apartment complex. She saw Kylie’s bedroom light turn on. Five minutes later, it turned off. She waited another twenty minutes before stepping from her car out into the darkness.

The chill of the night was perfect. Her quilted black hat felt snug on her head. Her neoprene gloves provided just enough compression to make her fingers feel extra alive. She placed her hands in her coat pockets, felt the knife against her left hand, the brick-shaped wad of paper against her right.

He opened the door for her. Of course he did.

It was over fast. She knew it would be. He was a lifelong junkie with slow reflexes and no idea what was about to happen when he turned to get that glass of water she asked for. Blade into the carotid artery, the results of which she’d seen in so many autopsies. He never even touched her.

The hardest part was waking Kylie, but she had no choice. She lifted the girl from her bed. Was it her imagination or was the child lighter than the last time she’d held her at Janice Miller’s house? Chance had probably been trading food stamps for drugs instead of feeding the poor thing.

She held Kylie close to her chest and grabbed the stuffed raccoon from the bed. “Shhh,” she whispered. “It won’t be long, baby girl.”

She set Kylie on the worn linoleum of the bloody kitchen floor, and then started walking backward toward the living room, waving the stuffed toy in front of her as she moved. “Come here, sweetie. Come play with your Coo-Coo. Yeah, good girl. You’re such a good girl. Now you’re safe. No more bad things in the kitchen, okay?” Kylie followed her. Diane handed her the stuffed animal.

She dialed 911 and let the receiver fall to the floor.

“Don’t be afraid, Kylie. Someone will be here in just a few minutes. We’re going to be all right.” Diane tried not to cry as she looked one last time at Kylie, alone on the living-room rug with nothing but a blood-smeared acrylic raccoon.

“The final case on the docket, Your Honor. Kylie Chance.”

Stone nodded as Diane reminded him of the court’s decision to reinstate custody of the child to her biological father, Kyle Chance.

“Mr. Chance’s body was found in his apartment late Wednesday night.” Stone emitted multiple tsk noises as she outlined the facts. Fatally stabbed. A wad of paper found at the scene—a twenty-dollar bill folded around strips of newspaper cut to resemble bills. The police believed it was likely a drug deal gone bad. Chance tried to bilk the seller. Got a knife in the neck in return. The perpetrator at least had the decency to dial 911 before leaving. It was too late to save Chance, but at least Kylie had been found quickly.

The judge said, “I guess we’ll have to chalk this up to a lesson about the fragility of recovery from addiction.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” As if she hadn’t warned him.

“And what do you need from me today, Miss Light?”

“Nothing imminent. I thought you deserved the earliest possible update on the case status. The child is back in the group home where she resided prior to placement with her father, and the State is trying to secure a foster home for her.”

“Sad stuff. Awful. All right, we’re done here?”

She had expected Stone to at least ask about the chances of a foster placement before calling it a day.

“It won’t be easy to find a home for this girl. The prenatal drug exposure, the abuse, and now having apparently witnessed the murder of her father—she was covered in his blood—well, the deck is stacked against her.”

I’m so sorry, Kylie. I’m so sorry for waking you. For putting you through that. For the blood. But I couldn’t take a chance. According to dispatch, it was only six minutes before police arrived. Six minutes I hope you will never remember. Six minutes that were nothing compared to what your parents put you through.

“I thought there was an aunt or something?”

“The father’s sister. Even she won’t take her. Potential parents assume she’s damaged goods.”

“What about that offer you made, Miss Light? I don’t suppose that door is still open?”

Stone laughed, mocking what he still considered her overly dramatic objection to his initial ruling. She joined him with an awkward giggle.

“Actually, Your Honor, I suppose I should put my money where my mouth is. Yes, I guess if it’s acceptable to you, I am willing to take her home. Just temporarily. The child does know me, after all. Maybe something else will come through in a week or two. And if worst comes to worst, once she starts making progress with speech therapy, it will be easier to find another placement for her.”

“Well, I’d say that’s very generous of you, Miss Light. You’re sure about this?”

“Sure, Your Honor. Why not?” Not one of the million little goose bumps she felt beneath her sleeves revealed itself in her voice.

That afternoon, Diane’s cell pinged as she strapped on her seat belt. She pulled it from her purse and saw a new message on the screen. From Greg again. He couldn’t call or even e-mail like a regular adult. He was like a teenager with the texting. Grace in Seattle so I’m mister mom this week. Any chance you’re willing to meet Nicole? Know it’s a lot to ask. Trying to find a way to be friends.

Nicole. At least Greg and Grace hadn’t named their kid some stupid matching G name.

She hit Delete and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Behind her she saw last night’s purchases: a child safety seat and the biggest, best stuffed raccoon she could find. Maybe they’d call him Coo-Coo Two.

She was careful as she backed out of the parking space. She was in a hurry but would need to be a more cautious driver now. She was picking up her daughter.

“What color is this one?”

“Red!”

“How about this one?”

“Yellow!”

“And this?”

“Ahnje!”

“That’s right. Orange. And all of these flowers are called tulips. Isn’t that a funny name? Tulips.”

Kylie smiled and pointed at Diane’s mouth. “Two lips.”

She and Kylie had been together nearly six months. The adoption wasn’t quite finalized, but Diane had nevertheless succumbed to the calls from her old downtown colleagues to bring her daughter for a visit. It was a rare dry day in April, so after leaving the office, they’d gone over to enjoy the bloom of tulips on the Portland Park Blocks. The area’s potpourri of college students and homeless people shared the lush, green grass and an occasional park bench.

She reached into the brown sack in her purse. “What’s this, Kylie?”

“Coo-kie.”

Maybe someday her daughter would talk her ears numb, but for now, Diane cherished every word. In light of Kylie’s progress, her speech and cognition therapists said she might even be ready to start kindergarten with her own age group.

Diane broke off an especially chocolaty piece of cookie for Kylie and kissed her on the forehead. “That’s right. And you are my little cookie monster.” She allowed herself a bite as well. She wasn’t worried about the few extra pounds. It was normal to gain weight with a child around.

She heard her cell phone beep in her purse. She recognized the office extension on the display screen.

“Light.”

“Hey, Diane. It’s Sam Kincaid.” Kincaid was the major-crimes attorney who’d inherited Diane’s caseload last year. “I hope you don’t mind my calling your cell, but I hear you and your cutie were doing the rounds on your old stomping grounds.”

“Yeah, we just headed out.” Kincaid was a good lawyer but a little high maintenance for Diane’s taste. They’d never been close.

“Shoot. I was hoping to catch you. Do you remember your case against Kyle and Rachel Chance? It was a Rape One, compelling prostitution, bunch of other charges involving their two-year-old daughter?”

Twenty-two months.

Diane had told her friends she’d adopted a daughter but hadn’t mentioned Kylie’s connection to the earlier criminal trial.

“Not the kind of case you forget.”

“I didn’t think so. You flipped a guy named Trevor Williams. He was the father’s former cellmate? He said both parents were involved in the abuse?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Did you ever doubt him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry. I mean, obviously, you wouldn’t have put him on the stand if you thought he was lying. But I think he’s a problem. He’s serving the five years he got on his deal with you and is trying to whittle it down by handing us his current cellmate. According to Williams, the guy confessed to a home invasion last year, but the cellmate doesn’t match the victim’s description. Looks like his story’s bogus.”

“Well, it wasn’t bogus in my case. Williams’s DNA was found on Kylie Chance’s clothing. That’s why he’s doing five years.”

“Yeah, I saw that. But he would’ve been looking at nine, minimum, if it weren’t for his deal.”

Rachel Chance had confessed after she was arrested but steadfastly refused to turn on her husband. Williams had offered to give up both parents in exchange for leniency. If only Diane had had another witness. If only someone other than Williams could have placed the parents together during that time window—she would have had a second witness to contradict the Chances’ fabricated story about being separated.

“The mom’s a piece of shit. So’s the dad. And so is Williams. Maybe he’s lying now, but he wasn’t then.”

“All right. I was all set to write him off. Wouldn’t be the first bad jailhouse informant. I’ll take a closer look at the cellmate, just in case. Thanks for the info.”

As she rezipped her purse, Diane caught sight of a familiar face near Market Street. She was too far away to hear his words, but after eighteen years as a prosecutor, she could spot hand-to-hand drug transactions across a football field.

Once the customer had left, she waved in Matt’s direction. Kylie turned to look, then held on to Diane’s leg. Her sweet little brown eyebrows were furrowed.

“That’s just a friend of your mommy’s.” She’d have to ask Kylie’s psychologist whether a lingering fear of men was to be expected.

Matt nodded to her, but then turned away to walk farther south. She supposed the presence of a deputy district attorney wasn’t good for a drug dealer’s business.

“You want some more cookie? Can you say cookie?”

Kylie was still clinging to her leg, but the worry in her eyes had transformed to panic. Her breath quickened, and Diane recognized all the signs of a serious meltdown.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? Is Mommy’s cookie monster all full? Is it nap time?”

Her daughter’s gaze moved south, and her grasp tightened. “Matt.”

“What did you say?”

Kylie’s lower lip trembled, but her next words were unmistakable. She began to cry. “Matt. Cat.” She let out a meow that sounded more like a wail.

“How do you know—”

It all came rushing at her at once. Matt’s frantic banter when she’d initially approached him about the Chance case. His utter certainty when he’d finally said, “Sorry, DiLi, never seen either one of these ugly hopheads.” Fourteen pops, no convictions. No convictions meant no blood sample for the DNA data bank, which turned up no match for the bodily fluid—still unidentified—on that little dress in the laundry room that had triggered the entire investigation.

She tasted bile and chocolate at the back of her throat. What else had she been wrong about?

She pictured Trevor Williams on the stand, promising to tell the whole truth. Rachel Chance’s insistence of full responsibility: I’m so ashamed, but I can’t blame this on Kyle. I fell apart when he left me. Kyle Chance hugging his lawyer when Stone allowed him back in Kylie’s life. The lawyer for once appearing pleased to have helped a client.

As if Chance were standing before her, Diane remembered the clarity on his face when he’d opened the apartment door that night. She saw her daughter on that worn kitchen floor, gazing up with sleepy eyes, oblivious to her father’s blood beginning to soak into the bottom of her flowered flannel pajamas.

The grass and the tulips shimmered in the sunlight and went out of focus, as though the laws of gravity had been set in abeyance and would not be restored anytime soon.

An Excerpt from The Wife

Please enjoy this preview from Alafair Burke’s new novel, The Wife, coming from Harper in January 2018.

Prologue

In an instant, I became the woman they assumed I’d been all along: the wife who lied to protect her husband.

I almost didn’t hear the knock on the front door. I had removed the brass knocker twelve days earlier, as if that would stop another reporter from showing up unannounced. Once I realized the source of the sound, I sat up straight in bed, hitting mute on the TV remote. Fighting the instinct to freeze, I forced myself to take a look. I parted the drawn bedroom curtains, squinting against the afternoon sun.

I saw the top of a head of short black hair on my stoop. The Impala in front of the fire hydrant across the street practically screamed “unmarked police car.” It was that same detective, back again. I still had her business card tucked away in my purse, where Jason wouldn’t see it. She kept knocking, and I kept watching her knock, until she sat on the front steps and started reading my paper.

I threw on a sweatshirt over my tank top and pajama pants and made my way to the front door.

“Did I wake you?” Her voice was filled with judgment. “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”

I wanted to say I didn’t owe anyone an explanation for lying around my own house, but instead, I muttered that I had a migraine. Lie number one—small, but a lie nonetheless.

“You should take vinegar and honey. Works every time.”

“I think I’d rather have a headache. If you need to talk to Jason, you can call our lawyer.”

“I told you before, Olivia Randall’s not your lawyer. She’s Jason’s.”

I started to close the door, but she pushed it back open. “And you may think your husband’s case is on hold, but I can still investigate, especially when it’s about an entirely new charge.”

I should have slammed the door, but she was baiting me with the threat of incoming shrapnel. I’d rather take it in the face than wait for it to strike me in the back.

“What is it now?”

“I need to know where your husband was last night.”

Of all nights, why did she have to ask about that one? For any other date of our six-year marriage, I could have offered a truthful account.

I already knew from Jason’s lawyer that this wasn’t the stuff covered by spousal privilege. They could haul me in to a grand jury. They could use my failure to answer as proof that I was hiding something. And a detective was at my door with what seemed like a simple question: Where had my husband been the previous night?

“He was here with me.” It had been twelve years since a police officer last asked me a direct question, but my first instinct was still to lie.

“All night?”

“Yes, our friend brought over enough food to last the whole day. It’s not exactly fun to be seen in public these days.”

“What friend?”

“Colin Harris. He brought takeout from Gotham. You can call the restaurant if you need to.”

“Can anyone else vouch that your husband was here with you?”

“My son, Spencer. He called from camp around seven thirty and spoke to both of us.” Words kept escaping my mouth, each phrase seemingly necessitated by the previous one. “Pull up our phone records if you don’t believe me. Now, please, what’s this all about?”

“Kerry Lynch is missing.”

The words sounded funny together. Kerry Lynch is missing. This woman who had been batting us around was suddenly gone, like a sock that never makes it out of the dryer.

Of course it was about that woman. Our entire life had been about her for the last two weeks. My lips kept moving. I told the detective that we streamed La La Land before falling asleep, even though I had watched it alone. So many details, tumbling out.

I decided to go on the offense, making it clear I was outraged the police had come straight to our door when Kerry could be anywhere. I even suggested indignantly that the detective come inside and take a look around, but in reality, my thoughts were racing. I assured myself that Jason could answer questions about the film if asked. He had seen it on the plane the last time he flew home from London. But what if they asked Spencer about the phone call?

The detective was obviously unmoved by my exasperation. “How well do you really know your husband, Angela?”

“I know he’s innocent.”

“You’re more than a bystander. You’re enabling him, which means I can’t help you. Don’t let Jason take you and your boy down with him.”

I waited until the Impala had left to reach for my phone. Jason was in a client meeting, but took my call. I had told him the night before that I didn’t want to speak to him again until I had made some decisions.

“I’m so glad you called.”

With one stupid conversation, I had conformed to the stereotype. I was complicit now. I was all in.

“Jason, Kerry Lynch is missing. Please tell me you didn’t do this because of me.”

I

Rachel

1

The first piece of trouble was a girl named Rachel. Sorry, not a girl. A woman named Rachel.

Even teenagers are called young women now, as if there is something horribly trivial about being a girl. I still have to correct myself. At whatever moment I transformed from a girl to a woman, when I might have cared about the difference, I had other things to worry about.

Jason told me about the Rachel incident the same day it happened. We were at Lupa, seated at our favorite table, a found pocket of quiet in the back corner of the crowded restaurant.

I only had two things to report from my day. The handyman fixed the hinge on the cabinet in the guest bathroom, but said the wood was warping and would eventually need to be replaced. And the head of the auction committee at Spencer’s school called to see if Jason would donate a dinner.

“Didn’t we just do that?” he asked, taking a large bite of the burrata we were sharing. “You were going to cook for someone.”

Spencer is in the seventh grade at Friends Seminary. Every year the school asks us to donate not only money on top of the extraordinary tuition we pay but also an “item” to be sold at the annual auction. Six weeks earlier, I opted for our usual contribution at this year’s event: I’d cater a dinner for eight in the highest bidder’s home. Only a few people in the city connected me now to the summer parties I once planned in the Hamptons, so Jason helped boost my ego by driving the price up. I convinced him to stop once my item had “gone” for a thousand dollars.

“There’s a new chair of the committee for next year,” I explained. “She wants to get a head start. The woman has too much time on her hands.”

“Dealing with someone who fastidiously plans every last detail months in advance? I can’t imagine how awful that must be for you.”

He looked at me with a satisfied smile. I was the planner in the family, the one with daily routines and a long list of what Jason and Spencer called Mom Rules, all designed to keep our lives routine and utterly predictable—good and boring, as I like to say.

“Trust me. She makes me look chill.”

He feigned a shudder and took a sip of wine. “Want to know what that crowd really needs for an auction? A week in the desert without water. A cot in a local homeless shelter. Or how about a decent lay? We’d raise millions.”

I told him the committee had other plans. “Apparently you’re a big enough deal now that people will open up their wallets for a chance to breathe the same air. They suggested dinner with three guests at a—quote—‘socially responsible’ restaurant of your choosing.”

His mouth was full, but I could read the thoughts behind his eye roll. When I first met Jason, no one had heard of him other than his students, coworkers, and a couple of dozen academics who shared his intellectual passions. I never would have predicted that my cute little egghead would become a political and cultural icon.

“Hey, look on the bright side. You’re officially a celebrity. Meanwhile, I can’t give myself away without getting rejected.”

“They didn’t reject you.”

“No, but they did make it clear that you were the member of the Powell family they want to see listed in next year’s brochure.”

We finally settled on a lunch, not dinner, with two guests, not three, at a restaurant—period, no mention of its social consciousness. And I agreed to persuade one of the other moms to buy the item when the time came, using our money if necessary. Jason was willing to pay a lot to avoid a meal with strangers.

Once our terms were negotiated, he reminded me that he would be leaving the following afternoon to meet with a green energy company based in Philadelphia. He’d be gone for two nights.

Of course, I didn’t need the reminder. I had entered the dates in my calendar—aka the Family Bible—when he first mentioned it.

“Would you like to come with me?” Did he actually want me to join him, or had my expression given me away? “We could get a sitter for Spencer. Or he could tag along.”

The thought of ever returning to the state of Pennsylvania made my stomach turn. “The chess tournament tomorrow, remember?”

I could tell that he did not, in fact, remember. Spencer had little in the way of organized hobbies. He wasn’t a natural athlete and seemed to share Jason’s aversion to group activities. But so far, he was sticking with the chess club.

The subject of his intern, Rachel, did not arise until the waiter brought our pasta: an order of cacio e pepe split between two bowls.

Jason let it slip like it was nothing: “Oh, something a little odd happened to me today at work.”

“In class?” Jason still taught at NYU during the spring semester, but also had his own corporate consulting company and was a frequent talking head on cable television. In addition, he hosted a popular podcast. My husband had a lot of jobs.

“No, at the office. I told you about the interns?” With the university increasingly upset (jealous, Jason thought) about his outside activities, Jason had agreed to start an internship program, where he and his consulting firm would oversee a handful of students each semester. “One of them apparently thinks I’m a sexist pig.”

He was grinning as if it were funny, but we were different that way. Jason found conflict amusing, or at least curious. I avoided it at all costs. I immediately rested my fork against the edge of my bowl.

“Please,” he said, waving a flippant hand. “It’s ridiculous, proof that interns create more work than they’re worth.”

He smiled the entire time he described the incident. Rachel was in either the first or second year of her master’s study. He wasn’t sure. She was one of the weaker students. He suspected, but wasn’t certain, that Zack—the associate he’d tapped with the job of selecting candidates—had included her for purposes of gender diversity. She entered Jason’s office to deliver a memo she had written about a chain of grocery stores. She blurted out that her boyfriend had proposed over the weekend, and held up her left hand to show off a giant diamond.

“What am I,” Jason asked, “her sorority sister?”

“Please tell me you didn’t say that.”

Another eye roll, this time slightly less exaggerated. “Of course not. I honestly don’t remember what I said.”

“And yet . . . ?”

“She says I was sexist.”

“She said this to whom?” I was pretty sure the correct usage was whom. “Why would she say that?”

“She went to Zack. These are the kinds of students we’re accepting these days—a graduate student who doesn’t understand the hierarchy at the firm where she works. She assumes Zack has some kind of power, because he was the one who hired her.”

“But why was she complaining?” I noticed a woman at the next table looking in our direction and lowered my voice. “What is she saying happened?”

“I don’t know. She started running on about getting engaged. She told Zack I said she was too young to get married. That she needed to live a little first.”

Was there something wrong with that? I’d never had a job in a formal office setting. It sounded rude, but not offensive. I told Jason that there had to be more to it if she was complaining.

Another dismissive wave. “That’s how ridiculous these millennials are. It’s considered sexual harassment even to ask someone about their personal life. But if she barges in my office and starts telling me about her engagement, I can’t say anything without melting the special snowflake.”

“So is that what you said? That she was too young and should live a little, or did you call her a special snowflake?” I knew Jason’s harshest opinions about his students.

“Of course not. I don’t know. Honestly, I was annoyed by the whole conversation. I think I said something as a joke. Like, ‘Are you sure you’re ready to get locked down?’ Probably that.”

It was a phrase I’d heard him use before, about not only marriage but anything that was so good that you wanted to hold on to it forever. “Lock that down.”

We put in an early offer on our house. “It’s priced to sell. We need to lock that down.”

A waiter telling us that there were only two more orders of branzino in the kitchen. “We’re good for one. Lock that down.”

I could picture him in his office, interrupted by an intern he’d prefer not to supervise. She’s babbling about her engagement. He couldn’t care less. You’re still in school. You sure you’re ready to lock that down? Jason had a habit of making teasing comments.

I asked him again if that was all that happened, if he was sure there wasn’t something else that could have been misconstrued.

“You don’t know how sensitive these college students are.” The words burned, even though he didn’t mean them to. I had never attended college. “If Spencer turns out like these micro-aggression asshole whiners, I’ll ground him until he’s forty.”

Seeing the expression on my face, he reached for my hand. Spencer actually is special, not a special snowflake. He’s not like these kids who were raised to think they’re extraordinary even though they’re extra-ordinary. Jason said he was kidding, and I knew he was. And I felt guilty because I realized I—like Rachel the girl intern—was being too sensitive, was feeling too special.

“So now what happens?” I asked.

Jason shrugged, as if I’d asked what he’d like to donate to the auction. “Zack will deal with it. Thank god the semester’s almost over. But screw her if she thinks she’s getting a recommendation.”

As I poured a little more wine into my glass, I really thought that was the only thing at stake in Jason’s interaction with Rachel—whether a graduate student would get a recommendation.

It would be four days until I realized how naive I had been.

2

New York City Police Department

Omniform System—Complaints

May 14

- OCCURRENCE LOCATION: 1057 Avenue of the Americas

- NAME OF PREMISES: FSS Consulting

- NARRATIVE:
Victim states that suspect “encouraged” sexual contact during business appointment.

- VICTIM:

- Rachel Sutton

- AGE: 24

- GENDER: Female

- RACE: White

Victim walked into precinct at 17:32 and asked to file a complaint. She proceeded to report that a coworker, Jason Powell, “encouraged” sexual contact between them. Victim presented calmly and did not appear distraught. When I asked her what type of sexual contact, she said, “He suggested that I should be sexual with him.”

When I asked her to explain what she meant by “encouraged” and “suggested,” she did not respond. I asked if there had been any physical contact between them or if he had threatened her or forced her to do anything she did not want to do. She abruptly accused me of not believing her and left the station over my repeated requests that she continue her complaint.

- CONCLUSION: Forward report to SVU for consideration of further action.

Signed: L. Kendall

3

The woman who called about Jason donating a meal to next year’s auction was Jen Connington. I no longer use names when I tell Jason what is happening in the parts of our lives he doesn’t see, because I know he won’t remember them. Jen is mother to Madison and Austin, wife to Theo. A top-three competitor for queen bee of the Friends Seminary Moms and newly appointed chair of the auction committee.

When I picked up the phone, she said, “Hey there, Angie.”

My name isn’t Angie. To the extent I ever had a nickname, it was Gellie, and only my parents ever used it. I guess women who shorten Jennifer to Jen assume that Angelas are Angies. “Thanks so much for your offer to cater another dinner!!” Exclamation points added. “But we thought you might want a break next year.”

We. I immediately wondered which of the other moms was involved in whatever change was about to be decreed. “Seriously, Jen, it’s the least we can do.” My use of we felt smaller.

I immediately imagined her telling Theo over cocktails that night: “How many times does she have to remind us that she used to cater to the rich and famous in the Hamptons?” It was the only real job I ever had. At the time, I was pretty proud of myself, but women like Jen Connington would never stop seeing me as someone who had peaked as the help.

“Well, call me a radical feminist, but we thought it was about time for some of the dads to do their equal share, so to speak.” She laughed at her play on the title of Jason’s bestselling book, Equalonomics. “Don’t you think we should convince Jason to come out of hiding?”

I had told her I wished he were in hiding. I would see him more often.

Jason’s trademark thing was how companies could maximize profits by making corporate decisions based on principles of equality. It was perfect fodder for liberal Manhattanites—keep your one-percenter perks and be a good, moral person, all at the same time. His book spent nearly a year on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list before it was released in paperback to enjoy another forty-week run. In the time that passed, the media appearances to promote the book evolved into stints as a talking head, which led to the podcast. And at the suggestion of his best friend, Colin, he started an independent consulting company. I was happy for him—happy for us—but neither of us had adjusted to his newfound celebrity.

My catering prize would no longer suffice for our auction give. Jen tried to soften the rejection by returning to her theme of letting Jason do his fair share of the work: “Every year, the moms bust their butts for this auction. Next year, we’ll let Dad do the work.”

It was the second time she had referred to Jason as Spencer’s dad. I didn’t correct her. There was no reason to.

When Jason and I, to my surprise, started to become serious the summer we met, I could tell how hard he tried to include Spencer. He taught him how to duck-dive waves at Atlantic Beach, played tennis with him at the courts in Amagansett, and climbed to the top of the lighthouse at the end of Montauk, a summer adventure intended for onetime tourists, but which Spencer never tired of.

When autumn arrived, Jason asked us to move with him to the city. God, how I wanted to say yes. I was only twenty-four years old, and had only lived in two places: my parents’ house and a house in Pennsylvania I would have never gone back to, even if the city hadn’t torn it down. I had never really had a relationship with a man who had met me as an adult. I dated a couple of guys on and off who I knew from childhood, but nothing that would have ever led to marriage. The last thing I wanted was to be another generation of East Enders, barely scraping by in life, especially when I wasn’t in love.

And Jason wasn’t just a good man who loved me. He was educated, intellectual, and refined. He had a good job, an apartment in Manhattan, and apparently enough money left over for a Hamptons rental in the summer. He wanted to take care of me. I could finally move out of my mother’s house. I could work year-round in the city instead of having to work my ass off every day all summer trying to squirrel away enough cash for us to make it through the off-season.

But I couldn’t. I wasn’t the main character in a fairy tale, ready to be saved by Prince Charming. I was a mother to a six-year-old who didn’t speak until he was three. Whom the doctors said might be autistic, merely because of his silence and a tendency to avoid eye contact. Who required supplementary tutoring during kindergarten to “prepare” him for what I wasn’t supposed to call the “normal” classroom, rather than the “special” one his kindergarten teacher was suggesting. He was now about to start first grade at a school where he had friends, in the only stable home he had ever known. I couldn’t uproot him into the city for a man I’d known for three months. When I told Jason I couldn’t move, I was prepared to say good-bye, both to him and to our whirlwind romance. I tried to tell myself that other girls my age would have had a summer fling by now.

Again, Jason surprised me. He rode the train out from the city every other weekend, staying in the cheapest room at Gurney’s, with a view of the parking lot. He helped Spencer with his homework. He even managed to endear himself to my mother, who doesn’t like anyone. In December, I accepted his invitation to bring Spencer into the city to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. We went ice-skating. It felt like a movie. For the first time since Spencer and I came home to live with my parents, my son spent the night under a different roof.

Jason showed up unexpectedly the weekend before Memorial Day. The season would officially kick off in a week. I was already booked for twenty-seven parties. I was in the kitchen making hundreds of bacon-wrapped dates that I could freeze for future use when I heard the doorbell. He dropped to one knee on my mother’s front porch, opened the ring box, and asked me to marry him. I screamed so loudly that a passing bicyclist almost swerved into traffic.

He had every detail planned out. We’d move into his rental for the summer. I’d hire extra helpers to work the catering jobs I had already booked, and would stop accepting others. We’d return with him to the city in the fall. He’d ask friends to pull strings to get Spencer into a good school. He wanted to get married at Gurney’s this summer, if it wasn’t too soon. Last October, he’d put down a deposit to hold a date in July.

“You’re insane,” I told him. “I know what that place costs. You paid a fortune, all on a bet.”

“I don’t bet. When you’re an economist, it’s called researching and playing the market.”

“When you’re a normal human, it’s called being a dork.”

“If it helps, they gave me a discount when I told them what it was for. They love you there. Almost as much as I love you. Marry me, Angela.”

I asked him why it was such a rush.

“Because I don’t want to see you every ten days. I want you with me every night.” He wrapped me in his arms and kissed my hair. “Besides, I don’t want some other summer guy laying his eyes on you at a friend’s party and stealing you away from me.”

“And Spencer?”

“I want him to have a father. I want to be his father. Jason, Angela, and Spencer Powell. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

At that point, Spencer had my last name—Mullen. There had never been any consideration of another option. Now that Jason was talking about marriage, I saw the benefits of becoming Angela and Spencer Powell, in a big, crowded city. He would still see his grandparents. He had adjusted to kindergarten and then to first grade. He’d be able to transition to a new school. The benefits would be worth it.

I still remember Jason telling me how much his parents would have loved me the night after I said yes.

We got married at Gurney’s on the date Jason had held, but at my request, there was no ceremony, just a dinner party for twelve. No puffy gown, no veil, no announcement in the Sunday Styles section. A nondenominational minister I found on the Internet showed up for cocktails to make it official. Jason’s lawyer and best friend, Colin, filed the paperwork to change Spencer’s name the following Monday. Legal adoption would take longer, but Spencer and I were officially Powells.

Two years later, over a table at Eleven Madison Park, I asked Jason if Colin was still working on making it official. His face immediately fell, as if I’d interrupted dinner to ask him to take out the garbage. “Is this really what you want to talk about on our anniversary?”

“Of course not. It’s just the date—it’s a reminder.” I wasn’t a lawyer, but it didn’t seem possible it could take this long. There was no other father in the picture. “Did Colin tell you what the holdup was? I can get police reports if he needs them. I’m sure Detective Hendricks could explain—”

Jason rested his fork on the plate next to his half-eaten duck breast and held up a hand. “Please,” he whispered, looking around as if anyone had been listening. “You’re always the one saying you don’t like thinking about that. That the past doesn’t matter. So can we please not talk about it on our anniversary?”

“Fine.” It was a reasonable request. He was right. I’d seen a counselor a few times when I first came home, but nothing that anyone would call real therapy. It was almost like I started life over again at the age of nineteen. I didn’t need counseling. The only thing I ever needed was for people to understand that I was fine. I am fine. The couple of times Jason suggested that I “talk to someone,” I shut down the possibility, and not gently. For me to raise the subject in passing over the dinner table was unfair.

But I couldn’t ignore my suspicion that something had changed. What sounded like a pile of annoying paperwork a couple of years ago felt like an actual hurdle now, a line Jason no longer wanted to cross. Maybe it had seemed easier to imagine being a permanent father to Spencer two years ago, when we both assumed we’d have another child, a little brother or sister for our son, together.

I got pregnant the second month after our marriage. Two months after that, I wasn’t. I had never seen Jason cry before. That night in bed, we said we’d try again. I was still so young. It only took four months to get another plus sign on the stick. Then after two months: gone. Two miscarriages in a year.

The third time lasted almost to the first trimester mark. I was starting to look forward to sharing the news. But then we lost him . . . or maybe her. The doctors remained optimistic, telling me that my chances for a successful pregnancy were still over 50 percent. But I felt like I had already flipped that coin too many times, and it was going to keep coming up on the wrong side. I, of all people, needed predictability. I needed to know what was going to happen, and because I knew that about myself, I really only had one choice—to give up. I asked for the insertion of an IUD so I could have control over my body again.

Jason did his best not to seem disappointed. He said that no matter what happened, we still had Spencer, and he was enough. But I could tell that he was trying to convince himself more than anything. And I noticed that I was the one holding him. I was the one doing the consoling. Because we both knew that in some ways, the loss was more his than mine, because Spencer would always be more mine than his. Jason didn’t have a child of his own.

And now Spencer still wasn’t adopted.

“I thought maybe we’d gotten an update,” I said softly.

He reached across the table and held my hand. When he looked into my eyes, he was no longer frustrated. “I love our son. And that’s who he is now—our son. You know that, right?”

“Of course.” I smiled. “It’s been two years since you locked this down.”

“Best decision I ever made.”

“Just figured we’d have locked down Spencer legally by now, too.”

He gave my hand a squeeze. “Time flies when you’re happy. I’ll call Colin tomorrow. I promise.”

He kept his promise. When Colin sat me down and explained the process, he said it would be easy. We simply needed to notify Spencer’s biological father and get his permission to terminate his parental rights. “Or,” he explained, “if he never had any real ties to Spencer, we can argue abandonment and potentially skip the notification if you think it’s going to be a problem.”

I tried to keep my voice completely neutral. “He’s dead.”

“Oh, even better.” He immediately offered an awkward apology, and I assured him it was fine. “Condolences, I guess? Anyway, all we need in that case is a copy of the death certificate.”

“But the father’s not listed on the birth certificate.” I didn’t explain that he was already dead and that Spencer was already two years old by the time that birth certificate was issued, listing me as his only parent.

“Huh, okay.” I could tell that Colin was waiting for a more detailed explanation, but I didn’t offer one.

“Well, that’ll be a little more complicated. The judge might ask if you know who the father is, in which case we could offer up the death certificate. They need to make sure there’s not some guy out there getting his kid taken away. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

I nodded, knowing that Spencer was never going to have a legal father. When Jason got home that night, I told him everything I had learned about the adoption procedure. That was the last time we talked about it.

The paperwork isn’t important. Spencer knows who his parents are. We have Jason’s name. As far as anyone is concerned, Jason is Spencer’s father, and that’s all that matters, right?

About the Author

ALAFAIR BURKE is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven previous novels, the most recent of which, The Ex, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. She also coauthors the bestselling Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

Also by Alafair Burke

- Long Gone

- If You Were Here

- The Ex

- The Wife

The Ellie Hatcher Series

- Dead Connection

- Angel’s Tip

- 212

- Never Tell

- All Day and a Night

The Samantha Kincaid Series

- Judgment Calls

- Missing Justice

- Close Case

The Under Suspicion Series

(with Mary Higgins Clark)

- The Cinderella Murder

- All Dressed in White

- The Sleeping Beauty Killer

- Every Breath You Take

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WAKING KYLIE. Copyright © 2017 by Alafair Burke. Originally published in slightly different form under the title “The Mother” in Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance, a story anthology published by Mulholland Books. Excerpt from The Wife copyright © 2018 by Alafair Burke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Cover design by James Iacobelli

Cover photographs © Dean Mitchell/Getty Images (top); ©Rakic/Shutterstock (bottom)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Digital Edition DECEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-284981-6

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Waking Kylie

An Excerpt from The Wife

About the Author

Also by Alafair Burke

Copyright

About the Publisher