Sam leaped from the Queen Anne and bolted through the foyer toward the commotion that had come from the kitchen, toward the scream that sounded as if it had come from Chloe.
Caroline chased after Sam, but by the time she caught up, Chloe was crumpled on the floor and Sam was cradling her head.
“Can I help?” he asked. “Can I do anything?”
Chloe sobbed.
Caroline loved her daughter but despised theatrics, which Chloe tended to employ, a vice from Jack’s side of the family. She resisted telling her to stand up and stop acting like a baby. But Sam was there: She couldn’t let him run home and tell Dana that Caroline might be a great fund-raiser but she was an uncaring mother. So she stooped in an unladylike manner, jeopardizing the lifespan of her hundred-dollar French hosiery.
“Chloe, darling,” she said, nudging Sam out of the way. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Mommy, it’s awful.”
Caroline also hated that Chloe sometimes still called her Mommy. It sounded so juvenile.
She turned to Sam. “I need you to leave now.”
“But can’t I…can’t I do something?” he asked again, rising to his feet.
“Kill him,” Chloe sputtered, her green eyes—Jack’s eyes—turning dark, her thin lips—Caroline’s lips before plumping—growing narrower, tighter.
“Now, now,” Caroline said, “no one is going to kill anyone.”
“You might change your mind when you know what’s going on.”
“Sssh, sssh,” Caroline said, then looked at Dana’s son again. “Sam,” she said, “thank you, but please leave.”
Chloe wriggled from her mother and stood up next to Sam. “You can only leave if you promise to kill the bastard,” she said.
“There are a lot of bastards in the world,” Sam replied while Caroline tried righting herself without a zip or pull.
“This one is named Lee,” Chloe spit out the word. “Lee Sato. My formerly intended. He just broke our engagement.”
Caroline sucked in a loud breath that probably could be heard in the next room and down the street and into the next county.
“He’s been cheating on me. He says he’s in love with another girl. A Russian girl, of all things. She doesn’t even speak English.”
Caroline didn’t mention that Lee barely did. “Is this girl…wealthy?”
“Her father is an international businessman. He has piles of money, Mommy. Much more than we do.”
And that, Caroline knew, said it all.
“I don’t care what that lawyer says,” Dana seethed once she and Kitty escaped Paul Tobin’s office and were safely ensconced back in the car. “The fact that Caroline asked if you wanted a hit man is relevant, Kitty.”
Kitty shrugged. “He’s right about one thing. It was a long time ago.”
“Kitty! Think about it! How many of our friends do you know who would even think such a thing?”
“True. But Jack is still alive. She obviously didn’t have him bumped off.”
Hit man. Bumped off. Lawyers. Dana turned onto the main road back toward Tarrytown, wondering how their quiet lives had come to this, and hating that the disruption was so reminiscent of Indiana. “But how the heck does Caroline know a hit man?” she asked. “He probably isn’t in one of Jack’s foursomes.”
“She didn’t say. She just gave me his name.”
Dana debated whether she should tell Kitty that Caroline had known it was cold in the jail.
A Jaguar passed. Dana cringed. Thankfully the car was navy, not dark green, and no memorial to Vincent graced the back windshield. Oh God, she thought, what should I tell Kitty? Would she meet up with Yolanda at a traffic light one day? And what if she learned about Vincent and Lauren? How much should you tell a friend when you know it will only cause pain?
On the other hand, Dana thought, she’d learned from her father that, sooner or later, secrets make their way to the surface.
She took a deep yoga breath. “Kitty,” she said, “this attorney isn’t going to help you. He has no intention of conducting an investigation. He probably doesn’t think what you said is relevant because it’s about Caroline. She paid him, don’t forget.”
“Do you think they’re in this together? Do you think Caroline killed Vincent and this lawyer knows it and that they’re in cahoots to frame me?”
Dana recoiled at Kitty’s cahoots. “I don’t know, Kitty. I can’t imagine why Caroline would want to kill Vincent. But I do know two things. First, we are going to the police. Detective Johnson has to know about this.”
“You don’t think it will hurt me?”
“Kitty! It’s the truth! The truth can’t hurt you because you didn’t kill him!”
Kitty silently stared out at the street. “What’s the second thing you know?”
Dana gripped the steering wheel more tightly. “You need another lawyer.”
“I can’t afford one, Dana. I have no money, remember?”
In all the years Dana and Steven had been married, she’d never once asked him for anything. Oh sure, he’d given her free rein over the household expenses and let it be known that she could spend some on herself whenever she wanted. She certainly hadn’t gone without. But Dana was from a cop’s family, where collars were blue and left unstarched, where dining out meant Friendly’s on Friday nights, where grocery shopping was supplemented by coupons. No, she’d never asked Steven for anything.
“I have plenty of money, Kitty,” Dana said suddenly, as if waiting would make her change her mind. “I’ll get you another lawyer. A good lawyer.”
“But your husband…”
“Let me worry about Steven.” She smiled a small, wry smile and wondered if she could convince him this would somehow help Sam get a high mark at school.
Caroline jumped into a cart that was parked outside the clubhouse and took off down the cart path toward the second tee. She did not remember getting into her car and driving over there. She did not remember what she’d said to Chloe after the girl’s announcement. She only knew she must find her husband and get him off the goddamn golf course and put him to work. He had to fix this. No one else could.
Lee Sato, she seethed.
How dare he?
She pushed her foot on the accelerator. Ten fucking miles an hour? Didn’t this thing go any faster? It was bad enough they wouldn’t allow cell phones out on the course, as if one ringy-dingy would break the concentration of some fucking spike-shoed genius.
The cart wobbled up an incline, past Tee Number One. Four men whose wives had been at her luncheon were lining up their balls. God, she thought, don’t any men in this town work for a living?
She gave a short, disinterested wave and jerked the wheel, nearly tumbling the cart onto the pavement. She didn’t care if the men were watching or not. She couldn’t look as ridiculous as they did in their spring greens and blues, shivering to death because for godssake it was only April and this was New York, not Palm Beach.
Around another corner, up another hill. But Tee Number Two was vacant; they must be on their second shot.
Without another thought, Caroline yanked the wheel to the left and sped (sped? ha!) up one side, then down the other of the embankment, then straight onto the fairway where she gained momentum and was flat-ass flying now.
Then she saw him.
“Jack!” she shouted above the tick-tick of the toy motor. “Jack!” Shouting, like cell phones, was not allowed on the fairway. In fact, on this particular dogleg, carts were forbidden, too.
The men were sprinkled this way and that depending on where their balls had landed. Four men and four caddies. All of whom stood still, eyes directed at her.
She spotted the pale aqua cashmere she’d bought at Myrtle Beach and given Jack last Christmas. “Jack!”
He detached from his caddy and took a step toward her. “Caroline? What in God’s name are you doing?” The other men formed ranks and moved in close as if needing to protect Jack Meacham from his wife.
Bob Halliday was there, of course. And Richard Stanley. And Jonathan Gibson. Men whose money had wound up in Jack’s investments, had helped buy their house, helped send Chloe to Mount Holyoke, where she’d met Lee Sato, who had been enrolled at Amherst.
“It’s that piece of shit!” She shouted though Jack was only six or eight feet from her. “He was your choice. I hope you’re satisfied.” She switched off the ignition and pulled herself from the cart, preferring to stand with both hands on her hips.
“Caroline,” Jack said. “Perhaps we should go somewhere to discuss this…”
“There’s nothing to discuss! Just get your ass into Manhattan and find that slimeball Sato. He’s broken their engagement and he’s broken Chloe’s heart!” The part about the heart slipped from her mouth just as tears sprang to her eyes. “Now, Jack!” she cried, then climbed back into the cart before the men might notice that her hands had started to tremble and her dark mascara was running down her cheeks, before they might suspect that Jack’s in-charge wife, the Caroline Meacham, hated her goddamn life.