BOOK PREVIEW: THE WIFE BETWEEN US
BY GREER HENDRICKS & SARAH PEKKANEN
If you’re a fan of psychological thrillers, you’ve probably already heard about THE WIFE BETWEEN US (on sale 1/9/18). Written by duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, this domestic thriller is garnering major buzz for early 2018: bestselling author Karin Slaughter calls it “[a] clever thriller with masterful twists,” and Library Journal writes that “[r]eaders who were enthralled by B.A. Paris’s Behind Closed Doors and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl will love the skewed psychology and shifting perspectives of this domestic thriller.” Intrigued? You’ve come to the right place!
I want to give you an early chance to dip into one of 2018’s buzziest psychological thrillers! Today I’m sharing an excerpt of THE WIFE BETWEEN US, as well as a glimpse at one of the book’s chilling trailers and a chance to win an early copy of the book.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing Crime by the Book readers with this fantastic preview of THE WIFE BETWEEN US by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen! THE WIFE BETWEEN US releases 1/9/18.
In this post, you’ll find:
- Plot information
- One of the book’s three fantastic book trailers
- An excerpt of the book’s Prologue + Chapter 1
- A chance to win an early copy of the book for yourself!
About the Book
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
Twisted and deliciously chilling, The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
Read between the lies.
THE WIFE BETWEEN US Book Trailer
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions. You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement. You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.
THE WIFE BETWEEN US Prologue + Chapter 1
St. Martin’s Press; January 9, 2018
PART ONE
Prologue
She walks briskly down the city sidewalk, her blond hair bouncing against her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, a gym bag looped over her forearm. When she reaches her apartment building, her hand dips into her purse and pulls out her keys. The street is loud and busy, with yellow cabs racing by, commuters returning from work, and shoppers entering the deli on the corner. But my eyes never stray from her.
She pauses in her entryway and briefly glances back over her shoulder. An electrical charge seems to pulse through me. I wonder if she feels my stare. Gaze detection, it’s called - our ability to sense when someone is observing us. There’s an entire system of the human brain devoted to this genetic inheritance from our ancestors who relied on the trait to avoid becoming an animal’s prey. I’ve cultivated this defense in myself, the sensation of static rising over my skin as my head instinctively lifts to search out a pair of eyes. I’ve learned the danger of dismissing that warning.
But she simply turns in the opposite direction, then opens her door and disappears inside, never looking my way.
She is oblivious to what I have done to her.
She is unaware of the damage I have wrought; the ruin I have set in motion.
To this beautiful young woman with the heart-shaped face and lush body - the woman my husband Richard left me for - I’m as invisible as the pigeon scavenging on the sidewalk next to me.
She has no idea what will happen to her if she continues like this. None at all.
Chapter One
Nellie couldn’t say what woke her. But when she opened her eyes, a woman wearing her white, lacy wedding gown stood by the foot of her bed, looking down at her.
Nellie’s throat closed around a scream and she lunged for the baseball bat leaning against her nightstand. Then her vision adjusted to the grainy, dawn light and the pounding of her heart softened.
She let out a tight laugh as she realized she was safe. The illusion was merely her wedding dress, hanging on the back of her closet door, where she’d placed it yesterday after picking it up from the bridal shop. Ensconced in plastic, the bodice and full skirt were stuffed with crumpled tissue to maintain the shape. Nellie collapsed back onto her pillow. When her breathing steadied, she checked the blocky blue numbers on her nightstand clock. Too early, again.
She stretched her arms overhead and reached with her left hand to turn off the alarm before it could blare, the diamond engagement ring Richard had given her feeling heavy and foreign on her finger.
Even as a child, Nellie had never been able to fall asleep easily. Her mother didn’t have the patience for drawn-out bedtime rituals, but her father would gently rub her back, spelling out sentences over the fabric of her nightgown. I love you or You’re super special, he’d write, and she would try to guess the message. Other times he’d trace patterns, circles, stars and triangles - at least until her parents divorced and he moved out when she was nine. Then she’d lie alone in her twin bed under her pink and purple striped comforter and stare at the water stain that marred her ceiling.
When she finally dozed off, she usually slept hard for a good seven or eight hours - so deeply and dreamlessly that her mother commented that Nellie “slept like the dead.”
But following an October night in her senior year of college, that suddenly changed.
Her insomnia worsened sharply, and her sleep became fractured by vivid dreams and abrupt awakenings. Once, she came downstairs to breakfast in her sorority house and her Chi Omega sister told her she’d been yelling something unintelligible. Nellie had attempted to brush it off. “Just stressed about finals,” she’d said. “The Psych Stat exam is supposed to be a killer.” Then she’d left the table to get another cup of coffee.
After that, she’d forced herself to visit the college counselor, but despite the woman’s gentle coaxing, Nellie couldn’t talk about the warm, early-fall night that had begun with bottles of vodka and laughter and ended with police sirens and despair. Nellie had met with the therapist twice, but cancelled her third appointment and never went back.
Nellie had told Richard a few details when she’d awoken from one of her recurring nightmares to feel his arms tightening around her and his deep voice whispering in her ear: “I’ve got you, baby. You’re safe with me.” Entwined with him, she felt a security she realized she’d yearned for her entire life, even before the incident. With Richard beside her, Nellie was finally able to succumb to the vulnerable state of deep sleep again. It was as if the unsteady ground beneath her feet had stabilized.
Last night, though, Nellie had been alone in her old, ground-floor brownstone apartment. Richard was in Chicago on business and her best friend and roommate, Samantha, had slept over at her latest boyfriend’s. The noises of New York City permeated the walls: Honking horns, occasional shouts, a barking dog…. Even though the Upper East Side crime rate was the lowest in the borough, steel bars secured the windows and three locks reinforced the door, including the thick one Nellie had installed after she’d moved in. Still, she’d needed an extra glass of Chardonnay before she’d been able to drift off.
Nellie rubbed her gritty eyes and slowly peeled herself out of bed. She pulled on her terry-cloth robe, then looked at her dress again, wondering if she should try to clear space in her tiny closet so it would fit. But the skirt was so full. At the bridal boutique, surrounded by its poufy and sequin-encrusted sisters, it had looked elegantly simple, like a chignon amidst bouffants. But next to the tangle of clothes and flimsy Ikea bookshelf in her cramped bedroom, it seemed to veer dangerously close to a Disney Princess ensemble .
Too late to change it, though. The wedding was approaching fast and every detail was in place, down to the cake topper -- a blond bride and her handsome groom, frozen in a perfect moment.
“Jeez, they even look like you two,” Samantha had said when Nellie had shown her a picture of the vintage china figurines that Richard had emailed. It had belonged to his parents and Richard had retrieved it from the storage room in his apartment building’s basement after he’d proposed. Sam had wrinkled her nose. “Ever think he’s too good to be true?”
Richard was thirty-six, nine years older than Nellie, and a successful hedge fund manager. He had a runner’s wiry build, and an easy smile that belied his intense, navy blue eyes.
For their first date, he’d taken her to a French restaurant and had knowledgeably discussed white Burgundies with the sommelier. For their second, on a snowy Saturday, he’d told her to dress warmly and had shown up carrying two bright green plastic sleds. “I know the best hill in Central Park,” he’d said.
He’d worn a pair of faded jeans and had looked just as good in them as he did in his well-cut suits.
Nellie hadn’t been joking when she’d replied to Sam’s question by saying, “Only every day.”
Nellie smothered another yawn as she padded the seven steps into the tiny galley kitchen, the linoleum cold under her bare feet. She flicked on the overhead light, noticing Sam had made a mess of the honey jar after sweetening her tea – again. The viscous liquid oozed down the side and a cockroach struggled in the sticky amber pool. Even after years of living in Manhattan, the sight still made her queasy. Nellie grabbed one of Sam’s dirty mugs out of the sink and trapped the roach under it. Let her deal with it, she thought. As she waited for her coffee to brew, she flipped open her laptop and began checking email... a coupon from The Gap; her mother, who’d apparently become a vegetarian, asking Nellie to make sure there would be a meat-free option at the wedding dinner; a notice that her credit card payment was due.
Nellie poured her coffee into a mug decorated with hearts and the words World’s #1 Teacher - she and Samantha, who also taught at the Learning Ladder preschool, had a dozen nearly identical ones jammed in the cupboard - and took a grateful sip. She had ten spring parent-teacher conferences scheduled today for her Cubs, her class of three-year-olds. Without caffeine, she’d be in danger of falling asleep in the “quiet corner” and she needed to be on her game. First up were the Porters, who’d recently fretted over the lack of Wes Anderson-style creativity being cultivated in her classroom. They’d recommended she replace the big dollhouse with a giant teepee, and had followed up by sending her a link to one The Land of Nod sold for $229.
She’d miss the Porters only slightly less than the cockroaches when she moved in with Richard, Nellie decided. She looked at Samantha’s mug, felt a surge of guilt, and used a paper towel to quickly scoop up the bug and flush it down the toilet.
Her cell phone rang as Nellie was turning on the shower. She wrapped herself in a towel and hurried into the bedroom to grab her purse. Her phone wasn’t there, though; Nellie was forever misplacing it. She eventually dug it out of the folds of her comforter.
“Hello?” she said.
No answer.
Caller ID showed a blocked number. But a moment later a voicemail alert appeared on her screen. She pressed a button to listen to it, but only heard a faint, rhythmic sound. Breathing.
A telemarketer, she told herself as she tossed the phone back on the bed. No big deal. She was overreacting, as she sometimes did. She was just overwhelmed. After all, in the next few weeks, she’d pack up her apartment, move in with Richard, and hold a bouquet of white roses as she walked toward her new life. Change was unnerving, and she was facing a lot of it all at once.
Still, it was the third call in as many weeks.
She glanced at the front door. The steel deadbolt was engaged.
She headed to the bathroom, then turned back and picked up her cell phone, bringing it with her. She placed it on the edge of the sink, locked the door, then slung her towel over the rod and stepped into the shower. She jumped back as the too-cold spray hit her, then adjusted the knob and rubbed her hands over her arms.
Steam filled the small space, and she let the water course over the knots in her shoulders and down her back. She was changing her last name after the wedding. Maybe she’d change her phone number, too.
She slipped on a linen dress and was swiping mascara over her blond eyelashes – the only time she wore much makeup or nice clothes to work was for parent-teacher conferences and graduation day – when her cell phone vibrated, the noise loud and tinny against the porcelain sink.
She flinched and her mascara wand streaked upward, leaving a black mark near her eyebrow.
She looked down to see an incoming text from Richard:
Can’t wait to see you tonight, beautiful. Counting the minutes. I love you.
As she stared at her fiancé’s words, the breath that had seemed stuck in her chest all morning loosened. I love you too, she texted back.
She’d tell him about the phone calls tonight. Richard would pour her a glass of wine, and lift her feet up onto his lap while they talked. Maybe he’d find a way to trace the hidden number. She finished getting ready, then picked up her heavy shoulder bag and stepped out in the faint, spring sunshine.
No part of the above excerpt may be reproduced without permission of St. Martin’s Press.
ENTER THE GIVEAWAY
Intrigued by what you’ve seen in this post? One lucky Crime by the Book reader will receive an early copy of THE WIFE BETWEEN US, courtesy of St. Martin’s Press! Entering is easy - just use the Rafflecopter link below. US entrants only.
THE WIFE BETWEEN US is available for pre-order from your favorite book retailer:
Amazon // Barnes & Noble // IndieBound
Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for sharing this book preview with CBTB readers!
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