The Serial Killer's Wife by Blake Crouch, Robert Swartwood Page A

for your host before you started filling your faces.”  
    Elizabeth said, “Hey, you snooze, you lose.”  
    Van opened a pizza box. “Ah, extra cheese. My favorite.”  
    Another thing she had forgotten about Donovan Riley—he was a pseudo-vegetarian.  
    “Are those what I think they are?” she asked, meaning the books in his hand.  
    “Yep.” Van pulled up a chair, placed the books on the table, grabbed himself a slice. “I figured you might want to catch up on some light reading.”  
    Todd craned his head to read the titles. “ Never Coming Home: The Edward Piccioni Murders and The Widower Maker .” He glanced at Elizabeth, frowning, then back at the books. “Wait. Isn’t that one by—”  
    “You guessed it,” Van said, chewing his slice. “The one and only Clarence Applegate.”  
    Elizabeth sighed, shaking her head.  
    Van said, “Elizabeth here isn’t much of a Clarence Applegate fan. The truth is, the guy is a god-awful writer. He thought of himself as the next Ann Rule but he didn’t even come close. Of course, now he keeps that blog of his, and has thousands and thousands of followers on Twitter. He does for serial killers what Perez Hilton does for celebrities.”  
    There was a long silence. Elizabeth sat very still, staring down at her plate. She didn’t want to think about Clarence Applegate, about the book he had written and the crusade he had taken to try to track her down.  
    Van took a large bite of his slice, chewed loudly (another thing she had forgotten), and said, “This is the best pizza you’ll find in the city, hands down.” Then said, “Hey, Todd, you curious to know what Elizabeth was like when she worked here? Well, have I got some stories for you.”

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 25

    I T FELT WRONG , it really did, the three of them sitting around the table eating pizza and laughing, like this was poker night and her son wasn’t held captive by a madman, a bomb strapped around his neck.  
    But there they were, laughing despite themselves, Todd the loudest of the bunch, Van telling stories about Elizabeth when she worked here, the kind of trouble she caused.  
    “I swear it’s true,” Van said, taking a swig of bottled water (he was a steadfast teetotaler), “she kneed him right in the balls.”  
    Elizabeth couldn’t help herself, she was laughing, too, though it was a kind of embarrassed laugh.  
    Todd raised a Miller Lite bottle to his lips, paused, gave her a look. “In the balls?”  
    She gave an innocent smile, shrugged.  
    Van said, still laughing, “I wish I had it on video. This fight starts up by the pool tables, all my guys go over there to break it up, and this guy—this greasy skinny brother—starts flirting with E. Guess he sees his chance, that nobody’s watching, so as she’s trying to make her way back to the bar he keeps stepping in her way, trying to talk to her. E, she’s being professional about it, just trying to do her job.” He glanced at her. “All true so far, yes?”  
    Elizabeth, now taking a sip of her Diet Coke, only gave a slight nod.  
    “Right, so he keeps trying to talk to her but she keeps trying to walk around him, until this guy, he starts to get angry. He says something to her, something rude, and he grabs her arm. E’s holding her tray at this point, has glasses and bottles stacked on top, but she doesn’t lose her cool. Remember what you told him, E?”  
    She stared down at her plate. The laughter—at least her laughter—had all of a sudden vanished. It had been a nice reprieve, a couple of minutes to actually feel some joy, but now reality was shoving itself back in her face, reminding her of what was at stake.  
    “Elizabeth?” Van said, and the smile was gone from his face, the light from his eyes, his voice worried. “You okay?”  
    “Yeah. I’m fine.”  
    “Do you remember what you said to that guy?”  
    She said, “I told him if he ever wanted to walk right again, he should