The Couple Next Door

Her thoughts speed up and become less rational; her mind makes fantastic leaps. It's not that things don't make sense to her when she's like this — sometimes they make 'more' sense. They make sense the way dreams do. It's only when the dream is over that you see how odd it all was, how it actually didn't make sense at all.

...nobody makes that much money without taking advantage of somebody. It's much easier to make money if you don't care who you hurt. If you have scruples, it's much harder to get rich.

The wife is always the last to know, right?

She knows how judgemental mothers are, how good it feels to sit in judgement of someone else.

Everyone is faking it, all of them pretending to be something they’re not. The whole world is built on lies and deceit.

She knows she can’t survive this on her own.

Anne remains in the living room, cradling her sleeping

He stares at her back and thinks about how much she has changed since the baby was born. It was entirely unexpected. They'd looked forward to the baby so much together--decorating the nursery, shopping for baby things, attending the birth-preparation classes, feeling the baby kick in her tummy. They had been some of the happiest months of his life. It had never occurred to him that it would be hard afterward. He hadn't seen it coming.

I was crying when I fed her because I was sad about being fat and unattractive, and Cynthia—who is supposed to be a friend—had been flirting with my husband all evening.

They will be judged, by the police and by everybody else. Serves them right, leaving their baby alone. She would think that, too, if it had happened to someone else. She knows how judgmental mothers are, how good it feels to sit in judgment of someone else.

when a wife goes missing, the husband is usually the prime suspect, and probably vice versa.

She makes things work the best she can, but it isn’t easy. Marco

listening to music. When we get home, we have to wake her. So no, I wouldn’t recommend her.” Rasbach nods, makes a note. Then he looks up and says, “Tell me about your husband.” “What about my husband?” “What kind of man is he?” “He’s

he wouldn’t be driving an Audi –

She glances at the baby monitor sitting at the end of the table, its small red light glowing like the tip of a cigarette.

rapidly around the second floor of the house while

Who goes to a dinner party next door and leaves her baby alone in the house? What kind of mother does such a thing? She feels the familiar agony set in – she is not a good mother. So what if the sitter canceled? They should have brought Cora with them, put her in her portable playpen. But Cynthia had said no children.

He must remain objective. He can’t afford to become emotionally invested in his cases. He would never survive.

Whenever there was an opening for a new show, she would invite him; there would be champagne and hors d’oeuvres, women in smart dresses and men in well-cut suits. Anne would circulate around the room, stopping to talk with the people clustered in front of the paintings—wild, abstract splashes of color or more somber, tonal works. Marco didn’t understand any of it. The most beautiful, the most arresting thing in the room, for him, would always be Anne. He would stay out of her way, stand over by the bar eating cheese, or off to the side, and watch her do her thing. She had been trained for it, getting her degree in art history and modern art, but more than that, she had an instinct for it, a passion. Marco had not grown up with art, but it was part of her life, and he loved her for it.

has learned in his years on the job, it is that people are capable of almost anything. Rasbach

Sometimes I wonder if it was right for us to keep things from him when you were younger.

Marco hurries up the front steps of the house he’d left just hours before and bursts into the living room. He sees Anne on the sofa, cradling their tiny daughter in her arms. A uniformed police officer is standing behind the sofa, as if protecting her. Anne’s father and mother are not in the room. Marco wonders where they are, what has happened.

clumsy fingers, feeling faintly guilty about going through his wife’s purse. It feels private. But this is an emergency. He dumps the contents onto the middle of their neatly made bed. Her wallet is there, her change purse, lipstick, pen, a tissue packet—it’s all there. Not an errand then. Maybe she stepped out to help a friend? An emergency of some kind? Still, she would have taken her purse with her if she was driving the car. And wouldn’t she have called him by now if she could? She could borrow someone else’s phone. It’s not like her to be thoughtless. Tom sits on the edge of the bed, quietly unraveling. His heart is beating too fast. Something is wrong. He thinks that maybe he should call the police. He