“Don’t you think it’s time to figure that out?” he asks.
I thought itwasfigured out. I thought we were in thistogether. And now he’s telling me that he’s leaving—checking out, dying, forcing me out into the world by myself. Catching this alleged murderer billionaire is his final gift to me. He thinks it will redeem me, but what if he’s wrong? What if nothing does?
“Go get ’em, Margaux,” he says. “For both of us.”
Fourteen
I don’t want to see Bertram today. When I leave the hospital, I’m especially annoyed about having to go anywhere else.
When I ask for him at the front desk, a part of me hopes I’ll be turned away. Let Elodie charm him and I’ll go play social media influencer with Skylar. Even as I think it, I know it would never work. She’s too aggressive for him, which works well as my research partner, but not as the one manning this particular helm. Bertram needs to be finessed. Billionaires and murderers have that much in common. It doesn’t matter whether he’s just one of those things or both.
I can feel the absence of my wedding ring on my finger, and it makes me think about my brother’s words. I imagine myself talking to the alternate version of me—the Margaux whose parents are still alive, and who went to college, and who met and married her husband in the typical way.The Margaux who has a normal career, friends, and lunch dates. I imagine telling that Margaux about what I’m doing with my life.
Why?she would ask me.It’s an awful lot of work. Surely you know you can’t save the world.
I don’t know, I would reply.It’s just what I have to do.
The man at the desk ushers me to the elevator, and I’m on my way to the penthouse.
Bertram stands in the foyer when the elevator doors open. He nods to the security guard who rode up with me, and we’re alone as soon as the doors close behind me.
His expression is guarded as always, but there’s something different about it today. Something I can’t put my finger on. Elodie warned me not to come here—she wanted me to meet Bertram someplace public. But Bertram doesn’t do public, and it’s far too cold for another impromptu seaside picnic. My argument was that this is the safest place to meet him, in a building where every exit is marked by security and cameras are watching us at all times.“Not if he flings you from the balcony,”Elodie said. I couldn’t work out whether she was being hyperbolic.
I’m loaded up with pepper spray and a switchblade just in case.
Inside, the apartment smells like freshly ground espresso and cinnamon. It’s a light, pleasant scent that definitely wouldn’t cover up the stench of a dead body if Annie Clarke was buried under the polished floorboards.
“You don’t listen to instructions, do you?” Bertram asks in an eerily neutral tone. He leads us to the couch. “I’ve told you that it isn’t safe for us to keep meeting.”
I shrug. “Yet you let me in.”
“What do you want?” He sits and leans one elbow into the couch behind him. He crosses his ankle over his knee, like he’s posing for the cover ofFortune.
We have more in common than he realizes. We both dress and groom ourselves immaculately and then hope nobody sees whatever it is we’re hiding.
“I’m a storyteller, as you know,” I say. “And I’ve been thinking about what you said. Nobody believes you about Annie, and you won’t go to the police, but you say that she’s ruining your life.”
He looks like he’s bracing for the other shoe to drop, for me to accuse him of making the whole thing up. Maybe he realizes how ludicrous the story sounds now that I’m relaying it back to him. But all he says is, “Right. Yes.”
“Well, I believe you. And my experience has been that people will believe the written word when there’s no name attached to it. When they don’t know who the author is, there’s no one to scrutinize. Nothing to judge but the story itself.”
He raises a thick, neatly trimmed eyebrow. “I don’t understand.”
It would be easier to do this Elodie’s way. I could undo the top buttons of my blouse, bat my eyelashes, and be exactly what he’s into. I’ve seen the women he dates. I know how to mimic.
I could seduce him. He’s the type who would be chatty in bed, trying to impress women with his vulnerability. It’s something I did once or twice before I got married. Back when it didn’t matter, when I didn’t even like myself enough to have a code of ethics. Waylen is the one who changed that, as perplexing as it is for me to grapple with.Our marriage is one of the few things about my public persona that isn’t an act.
But seducing a man like Bertram isn’t theonlyway to get him to talk. I can make his ego an offer that it can’t refuse: the opportunity to speak about himself for hours at a time to a captive audience.
“I can write it as though it’s fiction. A novel, with the names all changed. I have connections at major publishing houses, and I can practically guarantee it will sell.”
“I see.” Bertram gives me no reaction to work with. “How does this help me?”
“Didn’t you see that Netflix show that turned out to be a true story after the fact? Something about a stalker, not that different from your story. Anyway, point is, millions of people watched the show for the entertainment factor, and then people did a little digging and realized a lot of the story was true, and the victim got vindication.”
“And this person who stalked the victim…” Bertram says. “Did that person go to jail?”
“I don’t think so,” I admit. “But there was retribution in the form of social stigma. Everyone sided with the victim.”
