Now
Tuesday, August 17
Woodstock, New York
I woke to the sight of Willa, lying in the bed beside me, the sheets pulled up high around her.
It was a surprise to see her there, but only for a moment, like when you wake on the first morning of vacation, in unfamiliar surroundings, light peering through a strange window.
But then your mind catches up to the visuals in front of you. Remembers.
Between sips of wine, bites of pizza, I’d called Frank and Ruth countless times, desperate to see Alex, but had never gotten an answer. Eventually, it was late enough that I knew Alex would be in bed. And so I’d stopped dialing, let Willa reassure me that George’s parents were probably in shock, had likely spent the whole evening talking to the police, that it would all be clearer in the morning.
So, reluctantly, I’d let Willa pour me another glass of wine, let our old, familiar pattern resume. We’d finished the bottle, left our dishes on the counter and headed out to the back patio, wineglasses refilled, conversation strangely flowing, even if there was an undercurrent of tension, the knowledge that she could destroy me if she showed the police that text, that this scheming woman held my freedom in her hands.
There was a moment, in the drunken haze, that wasn’t real at all, now that I peered back at it in the harsh light of day, but had felt real all the same. A moment when tears came to Willa’s eyes, and she said how much she missed me, when tears sprang in my own as well, and in spite of my better judgment, we held each other, hand in hand. Willa said she was glad fate had thrown us together again, that she hadn’t had a friend like me in so, so long, and I said the same. And when the second bottle of wine was empty, when she said she should walk back to her empty house, since she’d had too much to drive, I’d said that was silly, she should just stay, and when she made her way to the couch instead, I said that was silly, too.
I was drunk, of course. I wasn’t thinking straight.
Now, daylight beaming, head aching a little but clear, at least, I was.
I stared at Willa, tucked under the blanket, hands beneath one cheek, sleeping like a cherub, like a child. Mascara smeared, but otherwise beautiful.
Was she really here as a friend, or was she planning something now? Getting ready to send that text straight to Detective Morales? But why? What could possibly be in it for her?
I pushed back the covers, thoughts swirling. There were only a few real possibilities as to who had killed George. First, one of Henry’s many enemies had actually gotten mad. Really mad. Maybe it wasn’t even some random person from the internet. Maybe it was someone Henry had screwed over. I had no doubt that Henry screwed over a lot of people. They could have gone to that house yesterday morning, expecting to find Henry, seen his brother, and assumed it was him. They either were responsible for the break-ins, and DIE RICH PIG was the whole point, or they knew enough about the break-ins to write that on the wall as a decoy.
The next option was clichéd but obvious. If George had been seeing someone, and maybe he really had, then there could have been some argument between him and the woman, whoever she was. Maybe she wanted to get back together and found him up here, trying to reconcile with me? It was far-fetched, but the possibility couldn’t be entirely written off.
And the last one—the truly terrifying one—one that had only even occurred to me in the depths of my drunkenness last night, was that it was Henry. Maybe George had told him he was going to give Cassandra’s jewelry back. Maybe they’d argued about it, and Henry had killed George in the struggle to get the stash. Could Henry, for all his faults, really murder his own brother over some jewelry? Sure, he wanted to keep Cassandra away from anything that could be liquefied into cash, but he and the Haywoods didn’t actually need it. Did Henry’s desire to punish Cassandra go above everything else? Or was it so spur-of-the-moment, so casually violent, that Henry had been acting on anger above all? The thought gave me chills.
God, George, I thought. What did you get caught up in?
Carefully, I climbed out of bed and grabbed my phone. I pushed myself out of bed, dialed both Ruth and Frank—again, nothing. What game were they playing?
The ache in my head came on stronger, pulsing, as I stared at the phone in my hands, unsure what to do next. I found my bag on the floor, dug around for my toiletry bag, thankfully located a pair of Advil. In the bathroom down the hall, I scooped water from the tap, swallowed the pills in one gulp, my mouth sticky from the wine, then used the bathroom and made my way back to the living room.
I paused, frozen to the spot. There, in the corner, was Willa’s purse.
I thought of her phone. She’d promised the text was gone, but for all I knew, that was a lie.
I knew my first priority was Alex, but Ruth and Frank weren’t answering—and this was a priority, too, wasn’t it? I peered into the bedroom to check that Willa was still asleep, and then without hesitating, without even stopping to put pants on, I set my phone on the hall table and bolted for the bag. It was a basic leather tote, not at all the sort she would have carried when I knew her back in Brooklyn. Nary a designer label in sight.
I dug in, looking for an iPhone. The bag was deep, dark, and cavernous, way too big for anyone, really, and knowing I had very little time, I tipped it all over onto the rug so it wouldn’t make too much noise.
Coins spilled out, rolling over the rug and across the floor. There was a receipt, a cheap wine opener, a pill box, and a book of matches. Hand sanitizer and bug spray, sunscreen and travel tissues, baby wipes and training diapers. A paperback novel—Patricia Highsmith—and an Amtrak ticket from the city to Montreal, dated in July, just over a month ago.
No phone.
“Should I put a pot of coffee on?”
I turned to see Willa, out of bed now, fully dressed in what she’d worn yesterday, right down to the scarf. When had she gotten up and slipped on her jeans? How had I not heard it? How was I the one kneeling here, egg on my face, wearing nothing more than a tank and underwear?
“I needed Advil,” I said, spitting out the first excuse I could think of. “My head is pounding.”
It was only once the words were out that it hit me properly, the strangeness of it. Willa hadn’t even asked what I was doing. She’d only asked if I wanted coffee.
Calmly, coolly, Willa strode around the mess I’d created and plucked up her pill box with two fingers. She twisted it open, held it out to me. A mess of pills, different numbers and colors, but besides the three blue-green Advil Liqui-Gels, the same ones I’d swallowed myself only minutes ago, there was nothing I recognized. They could be roofies or Ritalin, antipsychotics or antacids, and I wouldn’t know the difference—I’d never been into pills. Reluctantly, I grabbed two Advil.
“Do you want water?” Willa asked.
I bit my lip, and Willa tilted her head to the side.
“Or did you not really want the Advil at all?”
I hesitated, unable to answer, and she only smiled, twisted the pill box open again, cupped the palm of her hand. I dropped the pills in and she put them away, then reached into her pocket.
“You want to know who I really am, I’m guessing.” She pressed a cheap wallet into my palm. “Go ahead,” she said. “Look through it.”
It wasn’t what I was after, and yet, with the chance for answers right here in front of me, how could I not look?
I opened it to find an ID from New York State. The name: Charlotte Anne Williams.
“My mom called me Charlotte Anne. I hated it, obviously, sounded like something straight out of an American Girl book. On the volleyball team, which I was really good at, by the way, we all called each other by our last names. Williams. And then, when I left home, it made sense to go by Willa. Yes, sometimes I go by Annie, or sometimes even Charlie, and when I have legal stuff, yes, Charlotte, but the truth is, I think of myself as Willa. That’s who I am.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Willa continued.
“There are three credit cards in there. All mine. I have a bad habit of maxing out balances, which you caught me in the other night.”
I pushed the wallet back at her. “It’s not this,” I said. “I wanted to check your phone, to make sure that text wasn’t on there.”
“I told you it wasn’t,” Willa said. “And even if it was, I wouldn’t do anything. Don’t you believe that?”
I stepped back, slowly. “How can I know what you’d do, when you’ve lied to me so much?”
“Listen, Mary,” Willa said, voice calm now, smooth. “I know the prick deserved to die. After everything he did to you. Everything he did to your sister-in-law. And even if you did kill him—”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “Jesus Christ.”
“Okay, okay,” Willa said. She stared at me a moment, then nodded. “But even if you did—”
“I didn’t. He was finally talking about changing, he was admitting he was wrong. Why would I kill him when he had actually started listening to me for once?”
“Okay, okay,” Willa said. “All I’m saying is, never in a million kajillion years would I want you to go down for it. This isn’t a fucking Highsmith novel.” She raised an eyebrow, then kicked the paperback on the floor. “And believe me, I’ve read enough of them. I don’t want to pin anything on you, or god, frame you. I just want to know you’re okay.”
I stared at her, trying to understand. There was something missing there, something I wasn’t seeing. Something that should be so very clear. Maybe Willa didn’t want to pin anything on me. But she did want something, I could see it there in her eyes.
“Willa—” I started.
My words were swallowed by a loud knock on the door.
I rushed to the front. Was it the police? Officer Morales? Lord, I was hungover. Half-naked. Were they really here—already—to arrest me, take me away? I hadn’t even talked to Alex yet.
I peered through the peephole to see a smooth black dress, elegant pearls, silver hair cut into a clean, perfect bob. At first, relief. It was my mother-in-law, Ruth. I would finally get to talk to her. To demand to see Alex.
But to the left of her, Henry.
The hairs on my neck stood up as the knock sounded again, loud, persistent. Desperate and grief-stricken.
“Open up, Mary,” Henry said caustically, as if I were a criminal, hiding out. “We know you’re in there.”