I’ve never questioned it before. I can’t decide if this makes me a good wife or a bad spy.
I smile sweetly at him, because I don’t know which of those two realities I’m living in. I nod. “A day off sounds nice. It’s been so long, I don’t even know what to do with it.”
“Funny you should say that,” he replies, handing me the coffee. “The Christmas sales are starting to hit. I was thinking it’s the perfect time to shop for Collette.”
It is with great caution that I agree. He tells me he’ll go wrap up some emails and wait for me to get dressed.
Once he’s gone, I retreat to the bathroom and call Elodie.
“Where have you been?” she demands by way of greeting. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of you all morning. Since Mr. X is all off the grid doing God knows what, I thought we’d be relying on each other.”
I was not expecting her to sound so livid. It’s the way I sounded when Collette let her phone die last month and wasn’t waiting at the front door when I picked her up from dance class. That mix of moderate annoyance and nagging fear of worse things we don’t want to entertain.
“I’m all right,” I assure her.I think.
“It wouldn’t kill you to return a message,” she says, starting to come down from her anger.
I think about that word she used the other day.Friends.Would that look like the things we saw on nineties sitcoms as kids, meeting up on a couture couch in a coffee shop? Should we be having these conversations by a picturesque fountain, sprinkling in mentions of our meddlesome mothers-in-law?
“You will not believe the strange week I’m having,” I tell her. For just a second, I think about telling her my concerns about Waylen, if only so she’ll assure me that it’s all in my head.
“Well, maybe not,” Elodie says. “But I’m pretty sure your week hasn’t been stranger than the one Skylar Marie is having.”
That’s right. Elodie went into the city yesterday to finalize our event-planning cover for Bertram’s ex. “Did you find anything else out?” I ask. “Did Skylar give you any new information?”
“No, I’m pretty sure Skylar won’t be giving us anything new,” Elodie says.
I run a washcloth under the tap and scrub my face. “Don’t tell me she’s backed out.”
“Oh, she’s backed out, all right,” Elodie says. “She’s dead.”
Seventeen
New England is known for its autumn beauty, but that transition into the Christmas season is what makes us the stuff of cheesy television romances.
There’s a bite to the chilly air, and I’ve taken out my winter coat and Waylen’s. They’re the same shade of beige, mine with a faux-fur trim, his with a lambswool collar. When we park at the store, he sprints around the car to open my door for me.
He’s a living Norman fucking Rockwell painting, I think.
While we browse the arts and crafts section for things our daughter will like, amid the glitter unicorn slime kits and the glow-in-the-dark bracelet kits, I am thinking of Bertram Casimir. He called this morning while I was sleeping, no voicemail.
The thought occurs to me that Waylen could have deleted it. But then, why leave the missed call in my log? Heholds my hand, asks my opinion on a makeup palette. I tell him Collette is too young.
Here is what I know: Waylen wants me to quit my vigilantism so badly that he rented a car just to chase me around town and scare me out of it. Someone is hurting Erin—who, by the way, has not answered her phone since that incident at her apartment. Elodie did a drive past her place to confirm she was still alive, spotted through the curtains while they were briefly opened. Annie may be dead, murdered by her billionaire boyfriend, or she may be alive, operating under some mysterious cloak of darkness to torment Bertram. Skylarisdead, although it’s been ruled an accidental drowning. Slipped and fell over into the Hudson River. It’s believed she was crouched down, looking for her phone, which she may have dropped. It’s a way that people die in movies, but not so much in real life.
Elodie went into a panic when I didn’t answer my phone, thinking that Bertram must have gone on a killing spree and that I’d be on his list of women to take out.
“He’s not done using me,” I’d said. “He wouldn’t kill me now.”
“Not exactly reassuring,” Elodie had replied.
She was upset when I told her I couldn’t meet up today, but reassured when I said it’s because I’d be with Waylen. “Oh good, you’ll be safe,” she’d told me before we hung up.
Am I?
Waylen is humming “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” slightly out of time with the store’s radio.
He loves me. The question is, how much? Enough to kill for me?
