The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist, Joël Dicker [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF

STEPHANIE MAILER

Also by Joël Dicker in English translation

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

The Baltimore Boys

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF

STEPHANIE MAILER

JOËL DICKER

Translated from the French by

Howard Curtis

This ebook edition first published in 2020 by

MacLehose Press

An imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Editions de Fallois, 2018

English translation copyright © 2020 by Howard Curtis

The moral right of Joël Dicker to be identified as the author of this work has been

asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Howard Curtis asserts his moral right to be identified as

the translator of the work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,

recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

ISBN (HB) 978 0 85705 920 8

ISBN (TPB) 978 0 85705 925 3

ISBN (Ebook) 978 0 85705 927 7

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places

and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is

entirely coincidental.

Ebook by CC Book Production

www.quercusbooks.co.uk

For Constance

Contents

The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer

Also By

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Concerning the events of July 30, 1994

Part One: In the Depths

-7

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

BETSY KANNER

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

BETSY KANNER

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

-6

JESSE ROSENBERG

BETSY KANNER

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

BETSY KANNER

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

-5

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

Part Two: Toward the Surface

-4

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

-3

JESSE ROSENBERG

JERRY EDEN

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

-2

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

-1

JESSE ROSENBERG

CAROLINA EDEN

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

CAROLINA EDEN

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

0

JESSE ROSENBERG

BETSY KANNER

DEREK SCOTT

Part Three: Rising

1

JESSE ROSENBERG

2

JESSE ROSENBERG

BETSY KANNER

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

MEGHAN PADALIN

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

3

JESSE ROSENBERG

DEREK SCOTT

JESSE ROSENBERG

4

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

JESSE ROSENBERG

2016

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Concerning the events of July 30, 1994

Only those familiar with the Hamptons in New York State knew what happened on July 30, 1994, in a small, swanky oceanside resort called Orphea.

That evening, the town’s very first theater festival was due to open, an event of more than local significance which had attracted large crowds. From late afternoon tourists and locals alike had gathered on Main Street for the many festivities organized by the town council. The residential neighborhoods had emptied of their inhabitants: no people strolling on the sidewalks, no couples on porches, no children on skateboards on the street, nobody in the gardens. Everybody was on Main Street.

Around eight o’clock, in the deserted neighborhood of Penfield, the only sign of life was a car slowly crisscrossing the abandoned streets. At the wheel, a man searching everywhere with panic in his eyes.

He had never felt so alone in the world. There was nobody around to help him. He was looking for his wife. She had left to go jogging and had not come home.

Samuel and Meghan Padalin were among the few inhabitants of the town who had decided not to go to the opening night of the festival. There had been such a demand for tickets that they had been unsuccessful, and they had no wish to watch the open-air activities on Main Street or at the marina.

At 6.30, as she did every day, Meghan had left home to go jogging. The only day she didn’t go jogging was Sunday. She took the same route every evening. From their house, she went up Penfield Street as far as Penfield Crescent, which formed a semicircle around a little park. She would stop in the park to do an exercise routine—always the same—then run home by the same route. It took forty-five minutes, fifty if she extended the exercises, but never more.

At 7.30, Samuel Padalin was thinking it strange that his wife was not yet home.

At 7.45 he started to worry.

By 8.00 he was pacing up and down his living room.

At 8.10, unable to stand it anymore, he got into his car and set off to look around the neighborhood. The logical way to proceed was to follow Meghan’s habitual route, which was what he did.

He drove along Penfield Street as far as Penfield Crescent, and there he turned. It was 8.20. Not a soul in sight. He stopped to look into the park, but there was nobody there. As he was starting the car again he noticed a shape on the sidewalk. At first he thought that it was a heap of clothes. Then he realized it was a body. He jumped out of the car, heart pounding. It was his wife.

Padalin would later tell the police that his first thought was that his wife had fainted from the heat. Then he was afraid that she had had a heart attack. But as he approached Meghan, he saw the blood and then the hole at the back of her skull.

He started screaming for help, unsure if he should stay with his wife or run to the nearby houses, ring the doorbells, and beg someone to call Emergency. His vision was blurred, and he felt as if his legs could no longer carry him. His cries finally alerted someone from a parallel street, and they called the emergency services.

Only minutes later, the police cordoned off the neighborhood.

One of the first officers on the scene noticed that the door of the mayor’s house, close to where Meghan’s body lay, was ajar. As he went closer he saw that the door had been kicked in. He took out his pistol, ran up the front steps and announced himself. There was no answer. He pushed the door open with his foot and saw a woman’s body lying in the corridor. He at once called for backup, then slowly advanced into the house, pistol in hand. In a small room to his right he was horrified to discover the body of a young boy. And then in the kitchen he found the mayor, also dead, lying in a pool of blood.

All three had been shot