Lie To Me. J.T. Ellison

I’d like to deposit it before I go. And who knows when Sutton will resurface.”

      “You are a seriously cold woman, Siobhan.”

      “You have no idea.”

      Ethan went to his office, pulled out the checkbook. He filled in the check, dated it, and stormed back to the kitchen.

      “Here.” If only I could lace it with rat poison and watch you die, you miserable, uncaring witch.

      “Thank you. Keep me apprised if she shows up, will you?”

      “Why would I? You’ve made it quite clear you don’t care about Sutton, or about me. All you care about is your precious money.”

      “I care more than you realize, Ethan. But you’re her husband. You do what you think is right.”

      “I will. Trust me.”

      As the door closed on her, she turned. “Ethan? Even after all these years, I don’t think you know my daughter at all.”

       THERE ARE CRACKS IN EVERY MARRIAGE

      Ethan shut the door on Siobhan, proud of himself for not slamming it. He went into his office and poured a crystal lowball half-full of Scotch. He had a nice mirrored bar cart set up in the corner; it felt very Fitzgerald to him, and he’d always taken pride in it.

      Now it looked like failure. He’d been drinking too much this year. Understandable, of course, but he’d been using it as a barrier against Sutton.

      It was early to get pissed, he knew this, but he downed the Scotch and poured another. If it was good enough for Fitzgerald and Hemingway, it was good enough for him.

      He sat at his desk, glanced at the picture of the three of them placed discreetly in the corner, between the drooping spider plant and the phone. He’d never had the heart to put it away. He liked the photo. They were all happy. Smiling. They’d been at the beach, noses sunburned, the baby wearing a silly sun hat, a breeze blowing Sutton’s gorgeous red hair around. Toothy smiles and hugs and goodwill. Their lives, captured, a moment in time that could never be re-created.

      He reached out and touched the silver gilt frame, then drew his fingers back as if burned.

      He’d thought having a baby would fix things.

      It was a stupid thought. Barmy. He should have been committed for thinking a baby would make things perfect again. But at the time, he hadn’t thought it through. He’d been driven by his own emotions.

      Yes, that was it. His emotions had led him astray. Men weren’t supposed to have such deep feelings. It was the artist in him. He wanted things from this life—a career writing, a wife to love him, a home to call his own. Heirs were simply part of things, a fact unstated and understood.

      Still, the baby. He didn’t think the concept was terribly complex. Sutton was a woman. All women wanted babies. Right? She said she didn’t, that her life was perfect the way it was, and really, how would they write with a tyke underfoot, but more than once, he’d caught her looking after women with prams with such bald yearning on her face that he expected she’d start hinting it was time. And she’d told Ivy that she loved kids; he’d heard them in the kitchen one day, gossiping over the teapot.

      But she never did hint, and every time he broached the subject, Sutton always told him no.

      Maybe it was selfish of him, maybe it was wrong. But he’d wanted a baby. He’d wanted to change things between them. He’d wanted Sutton to look at him with wonder in her eyes again. Because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Sutton used to love him.

      He just wasn’t sure when she’d stopped.

      He shook himself like a wet dog, the old images of their once-happy life shedding onto the floor. He didn’t know what to do, so he got up and paced through the house. Went from room to room, replaying memories, seeing shadows of his wife in all the right places—the couch, her feet tucked up under her legs like a cat; her office, head bent over the keyboard in that odd way that made her chin look pointed like an elf’s; the bedroom, where she lay willing and open, ready for him to come into her and make her scream.

      Their life had always been amazing. Sutton used to make him feel sexy, witty, smart. Every word he wrote was meant to impress her, everything he did was a subtle bit of bragging. Look at me, wife. Look at all that I am for you.

      He tried harder for her than anyone he’d ever been with. Gaining a smile, a laugh, made him happy to his core.

      He didn’t know when things went south. Didn’t know when she’d stopped loving him, when she gave up on their marriage. It was well before Dashiell, that he knew. Was it when they’d renovated the behemoth? Weren’t renovations a major driver in divorce cases, like Facebook and affairs? He thought he’d read that somewhere.

      Or was it when the words he wrote for her dried up, and he stopped working entirely? Before he got desperate. Before he made the greatest mistake of his life.

      No, he thought it was maybe before all of that when his warm and sexy wife had grown cold. Frigid. Unwilling. Distant.

      The laughs had become few and far between. She’d looked at him with a mix of derision and bemusement, as if she’d woken up one morning married, and to a stranger, to boot.

      He’d asked her, one very drunken night, why she’d stopped loving him. She’d laughed, harshly. “I love you more now than the day we met. That’s the problem.” And she wouldn’t say anything more.

      And here they were. Five years later, parents of a dead baby, their ruined marriage strewed on the rocks, mistakes piled like a stack of ancient newspapers against the door.

      He was responsible for Dashiell’s death. For Sutton’s madness. For the missed deadline, the stalking, the canceled book contract. Ethan knew this, knew it to his bones.

      He’d made so many mistakes, there was no recovering from them all.

      There was just one problem.

      He loved Sutton to his core. He’d never loved a woman as much as he loved her. He would do anything for her. Anything.

      He had to decide whether Sutton was simply hiding from him for a few days, or if she’d left for good. Problem was, if she didn’t show up by this evening, he was going to have to bring the police in to search for her, because everyone would be suspicious of him if he didn’t, and the subsequent investigation was going to rip apart their very carefully cultivated lives, and who knew what sort of roaches would scurry out of the woodwork?

      If she was hiding out for a few days, all well and good. If she’d actually run, he would have to go after her. For her to disappear permanently and thoroughly would have taken planning.

      Either way, Sutton was a very cunning woman. He simply had to think like her, and he’d find the path to her again.

      And then it hit him.

      The bank account. He hadn’t checked the bank account.

       BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

      Then

      Ethan’s agent nudged him. “There is a woman watching you from across the room.”

      Ethan glanced over, didn’t see anyone of note. Then again, he was lubed up, like a lock drenched in oil. He’d already had a few cocktails, and had plans for a few more before he passed out in his soft king bed upstairs. He liked the rooms in the hotel; they were clean and spacious and pleasant, not at all threatening, unlike some of the aggressively modern places his publisher put him up at, thinking the extravagant price tag was a justifiable expense to keep their cash cow happy.

      All he wanted from the evening was a solid drunk and a good night’s sleep. He didn’t have to