I’d been too close to see it. Too comfortable to recognize the missing pieces I’d been seeking were sleeping beside me every night.
Twenty-Five
Everything was dark when I arrived home.
The sky, the streets, the front porch—even the air swelled with darkness.
I’d been unable to secure an earlier flight home, so I’d spent six hours in the Lincoln airport, steeping in the revelation I’d been plunged into. Doubt infiltrated every thought, despair tinting each one, anger weaving them all together.
The attorney in me placated my disbelief by assuring that there wasn’t enough evidence to ascertain that Noah was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Huntsman. All I had were a couple of plants growing in the gardens of two victims’ families—circumstantial at best—and a piece of dark history from Noah’s youth.
As far as I knew, I was the only one who’d made the white clematis connection between the victims’ families. Despite confirming with the other families, I knew what I’d discover if I asked a simple question about a resilient plant.
It was all that would be simple if I burrowed deeper into this lead.
Parking the SUV on the street instead of in the garage, I made my way inside the home I’d shared with a stranger all this time, not knowing what I would say to him.
How would I confront my husband with the accusation that he was the killer—the Huntsman? With accusation? Betrayal? Contempt?
Would I say anything at all, or would I, as I had on countless nights preceding this one, climb into bed beside him and put the unsaid to rest at the same time?
My mind was a cluster of unknown as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside the dark space. It was just past midnight, and I had no idea if Noah was home or still at work or engaged in one of his favorite hobbies—I supposed I could add killing pedophiles to his list of after-work activities.
God, what a fool I’d been. My husband had been killing men for over a decade and I hadn’t so much as suspected him capable of jaywalking.
I’d ignored his texts and calls that had started coming in earlier this evening. We usually shot off a message to each other when flying to let the other know flight numbers, arrival times, the standard information one shared with a spouse.
We shared inconsequential details and segments of ourselves, hiding our true essence and deeper pieces—a hallmark of a relationship that lacked trust.
Every light in the house was off. Even the usual slice of light cutting beneath Andee’s bedroom door was out. Opening her door noiselessly, I checked to make sure she was asleep. Her even breaths and her long, pale arms twisted around her pillow confirmed it.
After sealing her safely inside, I didn’t make a sound as I prowled down the hallway, craning my neck to peek inside our bedroom. The bed was still made, Noah’s nightstand absent of his wallet and keys.
Making my way back to the main floor, I considered, for the countless time, what to do. Confirm my suspicion with the other victims? Consult with the task force? Call the cops? Search for additional evidence? Wait for more proof?
Pretend the knowledge away entirely?
It was clear I wouldn’t be able to answer that question until I first and foremost confronted Noah. I needed to talk to him and either have him tell me I was crazy and way off base or attempt to give me an explanation for the taking of so many lives.
Stopping in the kitchen to grab a glass of water, I noticed a glow coming from the backyard. The small window in the shed was streaming light out in the thick dark, as if it were a lighthouse. Both a beacon and a warning.
When a shadow interrupted the light, my heart seized. Noah was here.
My eyes cut to the butcher block.
What could he have been doing out there at this time of night? There was nothing inside but yard tools and storage bins stuffed with holiday décor. It was too late for yard work and too early for Christmas decorations.
My mind was on autopilot when I pulled the large carving knife from its slot, my body running on the same command as I stepped out back, heeding the beacon and ignoring the warning. My hand clutching the knife didn’t tremble and my mind didn’t waver. In a fog of uncertainty, I was one assured wisp.
No sounds came from inside the shed, but the door was cracked open as though expecting someone. I didn’t knock or call his name; I didn’t hesitate. Pulling the door open just enough to allow me entry, I didn’t survey the surroundings before sealing the door behind me.
Perched on a metal stool beside the workbench was my husband, though he didn’t appear anything like the man I’d spent nearly half of my life with. It was Noah, but a variant that existed in some alternate reality.
His usual ensemble of dress slacks, button-down shirt, and oxfords had been exchanged for black, utilitarian clothing. His dark combat boots were a harsh contrast to the chestnut wing tips he lived in most days of the week. His hair wasn’t carefully parted and combed back but disheveled and untamed, the mop of obsidian falling across his forehead and ears.
Even the way he sat in front of me—his posture, the way he held himself, the flash in his eye that hinted at the danger lurking within—nearly everything I’d come to know about my husband appeared to be false given the man in front of me now. The Noah sitting before me was the submerged mass of the iceberg I’d spent seventeen years unacquainted with.
He’d been waiting for me. That was clear from the acknowledgement in his eyes, a sentiment that shifted when he noticed the knife clutched in my hand.
One dark brow crept into his forehead. “’Til death do us part?”
My breath echoed inside me. “Don’t mock me.”
“I know better than to mock a woman clutching a ten-inch blade of steel.” He shifted his position on the stool.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m clutching a knife?” I asked, trying to keep from staring at the objects he had precisely arranged on the workbench, a collection of items whose existence I wanted to pretend away.
His head moved indiscernibly. “I know why.” His gaze moved from the knife to my face. I looked away before his eyes could connect with mine. “When I couldn’t get a hold of you earlier, I called my mom. She told me about your visit, what she told you, and how you left so abruptly after inquiring into the origins of a plant. I take it that wasn’t the first white clematis you noticed growing in the yard of a victim’s family.”
When his hands clasped, I found myself surveying them with new eyes, knowing what those hands were capable of. Lives had been taken at their bidding.
The same hands that had held our daughter as an infant, the ones that had drawn me to him in a moment of passion, the instruments that changed light bulbs around the house—the same tools used to snuff out the lives of thirty-three men.
The knife wobbled in my hand.
The corners of his eyes creased when he examined the quivering knife my fingers were clutched around. “Give me the knife, Grace.”
Tightening my grip around it only made the shaking intensify. “Why? You’ve got plenty of weapons in your arsenal to pick from.”
My eyes dodged to the workbench, surveying the items he’d emptied from a black backpack, no different than the kind students carried to school, though its contents didn’t include textbooks and pencils.