There was no ice growing from the shore here; the water moved too fast. Only in the worst stretches of winter was the cold powerful enough to send a tentative sheet of ice a few hundred feet into the lake. Instead, there was nothing but angry midnight swells now, frigid whitecaps breaking on the rocks and undulating hills of water that looked like sea monsters wriggling toward the beach.
She tipped the wine bottle to her lips and drank. It was chilled and dry. She had skipped dinner, and the wine went straight to her head. She felt sorry for herself, but with each swig of wine, she cared less and less. She stayed there for an hour, until the wine was gone and her limbs were numb. She threw the empty bottle end-over-end into the fierce waves. She thought about lying down in the snow and not getting up.
Take off her clothes. Die of exposure.
But no. Even though she had nothing to go home to, she knew it was time to go. She climbed unsteadily back to the parking lot and sat, thawing, inside the truck. Her mouth felt stiff. Her face was pale, and her hair was crusted with snow. She was like the Tin Man, rusted over, needing oil.
She drove home slowly, feeling the effects of the wine. Her street was dark and quiet at one in the morning. Everyone had turned off the lights in their big houses and crawled under their goose down comforters. When she opened the garage, she saw that Eric was home, too. He would be sleeping in his office. She thought about waking him up and doing what she had planned to do, but it could wait until morning.
She stripped off her fur coat in the hallway, not even turning on a light. There was an antique chest near the door, underneath a brass mirror. Something was sitting on the varnished wood. Eric had left it behind when he came in. It was a black ceramic coffee mug, and under it, a small folded note with her name scrawled on it in Eric's handwriting. The mug still had remnants of coffee grounds in it.
She unfolded the paper. Even in the dim light, she could make out the words:
I know who it is.
Maggie stared at the note long and hard. It was the same old song, the same tired accusation. She was angry that he still didn't trust her. She crumpled the note into a tiny ball, shoved it into her pocket, and went upstairs to sleep.
Where was her gun?
She could think of only one explanation. Eric had taken it. He had come into their room and taken it off her nightstand. She had not dreamed the gunshot. Except it made no sense at all. Eric was not suicidal; he was a life force, energetic, passionate, pushing his limits. And hers.
Maggie saw a cone of white light shoot through the bedroom. Instinctively, she crouched, then crawled to the picture window that overlooked the lake. She stood up, out of sight, and edged her face against the cold glass until she could see. The blackness in the room kept her hidden. She saw headlights on a car parked fifty yards away, and as she watched, the car accelerated, its wheels spinning in slushy snow as it did a U-turn and vanished. She couldn't see its make or color.
She waited, watching the street. Snow was falling outside, big wet flakes streaking the window. She stared straight down and saw footprints in the white dust, leaving a track down her driveway to the street. Already the wind and snow were making the indentations fade.
Maggie ran for the bedroom door. Turning the knob, she hesitated, then threw it open. The hall was filled with vast shadows. She took a chance and said quietly, "Eric?" She said it again, louder.
"Eric!"
She heard only the oppressive silence of the house. She smelled the air and caught the stale odor of beef she had made for a dinner that went uneaten. Maggie kept close to the wall as she went downstairs. She glanced in the living room and dining room and found them empty. Her feet were bare, and the floors were cold. She tugged the robe tighter and crept up on the open door to Eric's office. She wished she had a weapon.
Near the doorway, she heard dripping. Slow and steady. Drops falling into a pool. Her stomach lurched. She reached around the doorway and clicked on the light, squinting as the brightness dazzled her eyes. From inside, the noise kept on: drip, drip, drip. There was a new smell, too, one with which she was very familiar.
When she went into the office, Eric was there, limbs sprawled, blood forming creeks down his face, soaking the sheets, and splattering into red puddles on the slick floor. A gunshot wound burrowed into his forehead. She didn't run to her husband. There was no point-he was already gone. He was one more body in the hundreds she had seen over the years. Her eyes studied the room by instinct, a detective hunting for answers. She found none, only a terrible mystery-her gun, which had been on her nightstand when she went to sleep, was now in the middle of the floor. Smoke mingled with the mineral stench of blood.
Maggie wished she could cry. More than anything, she wanted to crumple to her knees and weep and ask God how this could have happened. But when she looked inside herself, she had nothing left. She bit her lip, stared at the man she had once loved, and knew that as bad as her life had been in the past year, it was about to get worse.
2
No footprints in the snow, Jonathan Stride thought. That was going to be a problem.
Footprints didn't last long in this weather. Looking down at the front yard, he could see the harsh wind already erasing his own boot prints, which he had left seconds earlier. Even so, he would have felt better if he could have used his camera phone to take a photograph to prove that the tracks had been there.
The tracks of an intruder. Someone other than Maggie.
He hated thinking like that, but he knew how the investigation would go. Maggie knew it, too; she had described the scene to him on the phone. She would be the prime suspect. They had solved murders together for more than a decade, and it was almost an immutable law. If a husband got killed at home, the wife did it. And vice versa. It didn't matter if you were a preacher, a Christian, a politician, a family man, a saint, or a cop. Your spouse gets murdered at home, you did it.
Stride brushed snow off his heavy, black leather jacket and his jeans. He was tall, almost six feet two, and lean. He ran a hand back through his wet, wavy hair, and the silver streaks glistened amid the black. He didn't need to ring the doorbell; it opened while he waited on the porch. Maggie stood in the doorway, looking tiny in a red silk robe. He searched her face for tearstains and didn't see any.
"Hey, boss," she said.
He looked at her, at a loss for words. "I'll leave my boots outside," he said finally. He slipped off his boots and took his coat off, too, and left them in a corner of the porch. As he stepped over the threshold, he bent down to study the lock on the door.
"It wasn't picked," Maggie told him. "I checked."
"Don't try to run the scene yourself, Mags."
"I know whether a lock has been picked," she sniped at him. She bit her lower lip, and then, as if to apologize, she hugged him. She was small but strong, and she spent long seconds embracing him. "Sorry," she murmured. "Thanks for coming."
"Why didn't you call 911?" he asked, not liking the accusation in his voice.
Maggie backed up and folded her arms together. "I know what's coming. Cops tramping through the house. Hours of interrogations. Newspapers. Television. I didn't want to deal with it, not right away."
"This is a murder investigation. Minutes count."
She scoffed. "Investigation? This is going to be a witch hunt. Let's not sugarcoat it. I'm in big trouble."