“Bad investment on my part. I was missing the game, I guess, and I took a risk that was ridiculously stupid—which I feel dumb admitting to you, of all people. The good news is that I contained the situation. There’s no long-term fallout.”
I’m stunned. Roger has always been the master of the smart, well-calculated risk.
“You promise?”
“Absolutely, it’s all good. But it put a damper on myrelationship with Marion. I’ve always known she liked my money, but I didn’t know how much until I revealed what was going on and saw the panic in her eyes. She looked like a horse trapped in its stall during a raging barn fire.”
I’m stunned again, not simply by Marion’s reaction, but by hearing my brother say this, especially after his remark about her boxing me out. I’m relieved she hasn’t totally hoodwinked him, but I’d be sad to see him contend with a second failed marriage.
“Does this mean you’re having doubts about Marion?”
“Some, yes. But like you with Hugh, I’m going to see how it plays out.” He glances at his watch. “Why don’t you enjoy your tea while I see to dinner. I thought we’d eat about seven, if that’s fine with you.”
I manage to flash him a smile. After he heads to the kitchen, I make an attempt to engage with a novel on my iPad, but my gaze slides off the screen and my thoughts are constantly towed back to Mulroney, and Hugh, and Ashley Budd. And what happened to me in this region years ago.
I’m spared further torture when I see a text from Gabby, saying she’s fully returned to the land of the living and wants to meet tomorrow for coffee or drinks. I text back explaining I’m at Roger’s but that I’ll call her at some point this weekend. I can’t help but wonder whether I’d feel less frantic if I’d been able to spend time with her over the past couple of weeks.
I notice through the window that the sun has sunk low in the sky. I grab a throw blanket from the back of the couch, drape it around my shoulders, and wander out to the flagstone patio on the river side of the house.
Some days, if the sun is bright, the river tints blue, but today it’s somewhere between brown and pewter gray. When I was a girl, I used to go tubing on the river with my parents every summer, roping our tubes together and drifting lazily down it for hours. There’s nothing inviting about the water I’m staring at now, though. It’s flat and still, but it seems vaguely hostile, like there are dark things slithering beneath the surface.
I scan the area to the left and right of Roger’s house. I know we’re not as isolated as it feels, but you can’t see the houses on either side of us because of the trees that line the property.
The wind picks up and I return indoors, where I gather my belongings from the den and lug them upstairs to the large, pale-yellow guest room. I’ve slept here only once before, shortly after Roger restored the house, because Hugh and I always stay with my father when we come out to New Jersey. With more than a twinge of wistfulness, I realize how much I’d love to be in my old bed there tonight, hearing my father puttering around downstairs.
As I’m changing for dinner, my phone rings, and with a jolt I see Damien’s name on the screen. Ignoring his calls isn’t working, so this time I hit accept.
“I wanted to follow up after the other night,” he says, his voice disconcertingly soft. “I was really worried about you.”
I pause, considering how much to share.
“I’ve recovered, thanks. But...”
And then I do launch in, telling him about Mulroney’s death and my decision to come to Roger’s.
“This is scary stuff,” Damien says. “Can the cops do anything to help you right now?”
“Ha, you mean the ones from White Plains? I don’t think they have jurisdiction here.”
“CanIdo anything, then?”
“I think the best thing you can do, Damien, is stop calling me. I appreciate your concern, but we shouldn’t be in touch.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“You don’t envision us being friends?”
I don’t. I sort of tried it once before, in my last months at Greenbacks, and there was nothing rewarding about it. Besides, at the moment I can’t envision anything except the next couple hours of my life.
“No, it’s not possible. Sorry, I need to go. Thanks again for calling.”
I tap the red button and hurry downstairs, trying not to dwell on the conversation. The living room is in total darkness, and the only illumination in the den comes from a small table lamp and the dying embers in the fireplace. What earlier seemed so comforting now feels gloomy, almost foreboding. It’s as if the house has shape-shifted, like a woodland fairy morphing into a she-wolf.
“Rog?” I call. No answer.
I ease open the door to the dining room to discover that it’s dark as well, but I see light seeping from beneath the kitchen door at the far end.
