On the night of the twenty-second, she sent him a text at 10:41 p.m.

“I want to tell you exactly what I meant by it,” she said, “because I have said it to Deputy Barrett twice and I don’t think anybody has believed me yet.”

“Say it.”

She said, “He’d been at the station lot with me at ten fifteen. He came to say he couldn’t see me for a while because Emily was watching him. And I sat in my car afterward and I got angry in a way I hadn’t let myself get angry in three years, and I texted him.
“She knows. Finish it tonight.
“I meant end the marriage. I meant go home and tell your wife the truth for once in your life and let her have the rest of hers.” Claire’s hands were flat on her knees. “That is what those four words meant. And I have watched a man in a suit read them out loud in an interview room in a voice that made them mean something else, and I understand that I will be dead a long time and they will still mean the other thing to somebody.”

Alan said, quietly, “Why did you go to the house?”

“Because he didn’t answer. For two hours.” She looked at the dryer. “And I decided I was going to stand there while he said it. I thought I was being brave. I have thought about that a great deal.”