Read Online The Serial Killer's Wife by Blake Crouch, Robert Swartwood - Free Book Online Page A

time you mentioned your father.”  
    “I know.”  
    “I’m assuming you’re talking about your real father.”  
    “Yes.”  
    “What about your real mother?”  
    “Breast cancer. She found a lump one day and decided not to do anything about it. Apparently she had been in a kind of depression ever since my father’s heart attack. She wasn’t suicidal, per se, but just didn’t have the will to continue living. So she found the lump and let it go and it wasn’t until one of her regular checkups did the doctor find it. He wanted to start treatment immediately, but she refused.”  
    “So what happened?”  
    “In the end the doctor did something he probably shouldn’t have done: he called me. Right after that I got my brother involved and we pretty much forced her to start treatment.”  
    “I didn’t know you had a brother either.”  
    “Jim,” she said. “I never even had a chance to say goodbye to him. He was in Africa when the FBI came for my husband.”  
    “Africa?”  
    “He was in the Peace Corps. He called me up, apologizing, saying it was all his fault.”  
    “His fault?”  
    “He and my husband were college roommates. That’s how we met. Jim set the two of us up together, and Eddie and I immediately hit it off.”  
    “Eddie is your husband?”  
    She nodded. “Edward Piccioni.”  
    Todd was quiet for another moment. “So your brother blames himself for you marrying a serial killer.”  
    “Pretty much.”  
    “Do you blame him?”  
    “Of course not. How was he supposed to know? I was closer to Eddie—had been close for almost seven years—and even I didn’t know.”  
    Todd reached into the bag of coffee beans between his legs, plucked out a bean, went to put it in his mouth but paused and offered it to her.  
    “Sure you don’t want one?”  
    She shook her head. “No thanks.”  
    “Are you positive? They’re not that bad once you get used to them.”  
    “I drink coffee, Todd. I don’t eat it.”  
    He popped the bean in his mouth, chewed it like a mint, and said, “So what about your mother?”  
    “What about her?”  
    “You said you and your brother forced her into treatment.”  
    “Yes.”  
    “And?”  
    “And what?”  
    “Fine,” Todd said. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to talk about it.”  
    Elizabeth stared out at the highway in front of her, watching the oncoming night. She had begun to feel unnerved again, thinking it wrong that they held a conversation like this while Matthew was somewhere tied to a bed with an explosive collar around his neck. But talking was good. She would have to explain everything to Todd eventually. There was just so much that it was impossible to tell all at once. She would have to tell a little at a time, piece it out like that, so she might as well get started.  
    “I don’t really know what happened to my mother. I’m assuming she’s dead. In fact, I’m positive she is. When I ... when I left, she was still alive. Barely holding on, but still alive.”  
    Elizabeth shook her head, wiped at her eyes even though there were no tears.  
    “I’m sorry,” Todd said softly.  
    “Thank you.”  
    There was another brief silence.  
    Todd said, “Who do you think this guy is?”  
    “I have no idea.”  
    “But don’t you have a, like, suspect?”  
    Elizabeth said nothing.
    “I recognize your husband’s name.”  
    She still said nothing.  
    “I sort of remember his trial, too. It was all over the news.”  
    Still nothing.  
    “And I remember a couple people on TV—I can’t remember who now—making these, you know, speculations on why you disappeared.”  
    “That speculation started with just one person,” Elizabeth said. “His name was Clarence Applegate. He thought I was an accomplice.”  
    “Clarence Applegate,” Todd said slowly. “Why does that name sound familiar?”  
    “He was one of the victims’ husbands. He ended