Of course, to find her, he’d have had to know that Caroline and Lily were at the Hotel Phoenix in Copenhagen, a city Caroline loved and that Lily had never seen. Lily had not been abroad in her life, since her father didn’t travel and didn’t like her that far out of his orbit. They were going to make a leisurely tour of the continent, drifting wherever the fancy took them.
But how to find his wife and daughter was far from Hugo’s thoughts as the front door of the apartment swung inward with his keys still in the lock. He could see . . . and hear and feel . . . that the place was as empty as the day they bought it. Every painting, every carpet, every stick of furniture, every book on the shelves was gone.
He dragged his suitcase in and took his keys from the lock. She must have hired the best to empty the place so fast. It looked exactly as they had first seen it as newlyweds nineteen years ago: empty, scarred, and lifeless.
He walked into the powder room. There wasn’t a hand towel. Even the toilet paper was gone. He relieved himself, rinsed his hands without soap, and dried them on his pants.
He walked into the living room, where they’d sat together watching the sunset and planning the California trip. He flipped on the light switches and nothing happened. The floor lamps were gone and so was the chandelier.
The den. There was recessed light in there. They wouldn’t have taken the bulbs. And indeed they had not. He flipped the switch and the lights came on. This room too was empty of books, art, everything. The glasses and bottles were gone from the wet bar, whose door stood open, but in the middle of the room there was a folding lawn chair, metal tubes with nylon strapping that the cook had sat in to watch television in her tiny room at the back of the apartment. Beside it on the bare floor was a Charter Arms revolver and a box of bullets.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Vicky Bijur and Franny Taliaferro for their assistance with various research questions, and even more for their friendship. Lauren Belfer, Molly Munn, David Gutcheon, Lucie Semler, and Kitty Clements read and commented on the manuscript in ways that were incredibly helpful. Frank Richardson, Tom Clements, Page Bond, Shelley Kehl, and Tom “Boaty McBoatface” Richardson all contributed in invaluable ways. I thank them all. Benny Chan and Tai Vardi provided vital tutorials on IT matters and social media, and Michael W. Taylor readily shared a tiny fraction of his encyclopedic knowledge of classic and antique cars. Well, of anything with wheels and engines, really. And as always, everything I know about the world of school I learned from Robin Clements. For that and for so much more for which no words suffice, he has my gratitude and my heart.
I am so lucky to have Emma Sweeney for a friend and literary agent and am also grateful to her cheerful and helpful assistant, Kira Watson. To my wise editor and comrade in arms Jennifer Brehl, and to Kaitlin Harri and the rest of the team at William Morrow, my utmost thanks for their enthusiasm and support.
About the Author
BETH GUTCHEON is the critically acclaimed author of ten previous novels: Death at Breakfast, The New Girls, Still Missing, Domestic Pleasures, Saying Grace, Five Fortunes, More Than You Know, Leeway Cottage, Good-bye and Amen, and Gossip. She is the writer of numerous film scripts, including the Academy Award nominee The Children of Theatre Street. She lives in New York City.
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Also by Beth Gutcheon
Death at Breakfast
Gossip
Good-bye and Amen
Leeway Cottage
More Than You Know
Five Fortunes
Saying Grace
Domestic Pleasures
Still Missing
The New Girls
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the affliction. Copyright © 2018 by Beth Gutcheon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Digital Edition MARCH 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-243201-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-243199-8
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Beth Gutcheon, The Affliction
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