Keep Them Close

Chapter 1

Allison

For some reason I can’t quite understand, it feels good to approach the line. To know that I could do it, that I could get away with it, too. Especially after the precautions I’ve taken.

Like dressing in all black. Black turtleneck, black gloves, black denim jeans, black footwear.

Like unscrewing my front license plate, so any ALPRs—license plate cameras—would be unable to record my vehicle passing and thus place me at a particular location at a particular date and time.

Like leaving my cell phone at home. I considered keeping it with me but turning it off, just like he does every time he visits Anna’s house here on Palomino Drive, just in case his loving wife might do something like, say, try to locate him?

I ran through the calculus and decided that having my phone turned off in the middle of the evening would, itself, look suspicious.

We’ve reviewed your phone records going back years, Mrs. Brice, and we’ve never seen a single instance when you happened to turn off your phone for a period of hours in the middle of the evening.

Any particular reason that would happen for the first time on Wednesday, June 11, 2025?

The same night your husband, Finley, and his mistress, Anna Cortese, were found dead in a bloody heap at Mrs. Cortese’s home on Palomino Drive?

So no, the phone stayed home, powered on. And the bonus: it continues to ping cell towers every so often, placing me at my residence the entire evening.

As long as the police don’t pull me over for a missing front license plate, a possibility I consider remote, I could do this.

I could absolutely do this. Find a way into the house?

Got that covered. I know the code to the Corteses’ garage door pad.

From the garage (where Finley’s car is parked, by the way) I could enter the home.

If I time my entry to coincide with a moment of peak intimacy, if I step in while, I dunno, Finley’s on all fours with a ball gag in his mouth, they might not even hear me.

True, there would be reason to suspect me. The aggrieved wife? Check. A former longtime prosecutor who knows the ins and outs of police investigation and would know how to cover her tracks? Yup.

Still, prove I did it. Place me at the scene.

You can’t. Show me what gun I used. You can’t, because I have an untraceable one.

Find gunshot residue on me? Please, the gun will be wrapped in a clear plastic bag.

And I’m wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater and running gloves, pliant enough to manipulate but nevertheless covering my hands and wrists.

Plus I’ll scrub myself clean and toss these clothes before anyone even knows the loving couple is dead.

Hell, prove that I even knew he was stepping out on me.

You can’t. There are only two people who know that I know.

My private investigator, Harp, for one, but nothing connects me to her.

For personal matters like this, I pay in cash and text her on a burner phone.

The other person who knows is my brother, Luke, who would never in a million years give me up.

I blow out a breath. It matters, I guess, that I could get away with this, yet choose not to do so.

It provides at least some twisted sense of empowerment: I could hurt you if I really, really wanted to; lucky you, I don’t want to.

Regardless, sitting here now, ready and able, I know I won’t go through with it. I won’t kill my husband or Anna.

I might set fire to her house, though. Now that I’ve thought about even more—

Movement in her upstairs window. A faint silhouette through the curtain. It’s Anna, no doubt. She is naked, it appears. And approaching from behind her, wrapping his burly arms around her tiny frame, is my—

“No.” I look away, heart racing so hard I struggle for breath. I didn’t expect to actually see them. You can’t put up opaque curtains, Anna? What, do you want people to see you fucking my husband?

I dare another look. She has turned and hopped into his arms, legs wrapped around him as he carries her—

I open the door of my car and step out just in time to vomit on the curb.

I’ve never actually seen them in the act.

I’ve had Finley followed many times, seen him on video sneaking in and out of her house, watched him punch in the garage door code, even a stolen goodbye kiss.

That was enough. My imagination could fill in the rest; I didn’t think he was coming over for Bible study. I never wanted to actually watch them.

The June air is thick and damp, far hotter than it should be. I catch my breath, wipe spittle of vomit from my mouth as I get to my feet. As if I couldn’t feel worse.

“Y’know what? Screw this,” I say to no one. I pop the trunk of my car and grab the small, rusty gas can. Grab the cloth. Pat my pockets to be sure I have matches.

But I move no farther. My chest burning, eyes filling with tears, I am locked in place, unable to step away from the car and jog to the house. I can’t do it.

And the reason only deepens my humiliation. If I do this, he’ll know I know. I may get away with it in terms of the authorities, but Finley will know. And that will inevitably cascade downward to the end of our marriage.

You still want him, Allison. You’re not ready to let go. You think there’s still a chance to salvage this, that this will pass, that he’ll find his way back to you, that you didn’t waste the last twenty years of your life with him. You’re a coward. No. You’re a fool.

My head falls back on my shoulders as I let out a moan. Above me, a full moon hangs low, a bright reddish-pink. The Strawberry Moon, or so my son, Grayson, told me this morning before leaving for a friend’s cabin in Michigan.

Grayson. Yet another reason to keep my powder dry for the time being. Do I want to put him through this right now? He just graduated high school a week ago and will be off to college—NYU—in about two months. Let him enjoy the summer.

Once he’s gone, I can deal with this, with Finley, with this joke of a marriage.

I jump back in my SUV, a dull pain in my gut.

I drive through the subdivision toward the main road, Woods Edge, that will lead me south to Grace Village.

I turn right on Woods Edge, the road ahead empty save for the thin stripe of my headlights cutting through the dark, the trees on either side blurring into black walls, my vision cloudy from tears—

Out of nowhere, a harsh light floods the interior of my car. My rearview mirror fills with a truck flying up behind me, its front grille like the jaws of something built to devour. A horn blares, a deep bellow that vibrates in my bones.

I grip the steering wheel and brace for impact.