Now
Tuesday, August 17
Woodstock, New York
The door quaked beneath Henry’s knocks.
“One second,” I said. I rushed to the bedroom, pulled on pants and a bra, then returned to the door. I turned the handle, let the two of them in.
“Where’s Alex?” I asked immediately, turning to Ruth. “I’ve been calling you and calling you. Is he okay?”
Ruth ignored my questions, and the two of them pushed past me and into the living room. Henry’s eyes widened at the sight of Willa. Ruth’s did, too. “Who are you?” she asked.
“She’s a friend in town who came over last night,” I said quickly. “Now, where is Alex?”
Willa quickly shuffled off into the kitchen, giving us our space.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Where is my son?”
“He’s fine,” Ruth said. “He’s with Frank. He’s safe.” Ruth’s eyes were sunken, bloodshot, makeup caked into the fine lines of her face, her black dress askew on her shoulders. The implication in her words was clear. My son was okay, when hers was not.
“Then why weren’t you answering me?” I asked.
“You think you get to interrogate us?” Henry roared. “What the fuck happened, Mary?” His eyes were vicious, his face reddened with anger. And it was like I could see it then, his towering over George, lifting something over his head, bringing it down. Smash.
Two pairs of eyes were trained on me, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said desperately. “I don’t know.”
“The cops said you found him,” Henry said, his words full of ire. “Care to explain that?”
“I did,” I said, looking at Ruth, not Henry, willing her to understand. “George was supposed to come over here yesterday morning, but he didn’t. So when enough time had passed, I went over. And I called the police the moment I found him, Ruth. I didn’t hurt him. I wouldn’t hurt him. Whatever was going on between us, I never wanted anything—anything like this—I swear to you.”
Henry scoffed, but Ruth’s eyes locked on mine, and even if part of her wanted to blame me for everything, there was a hesitation there, too. “I know about the custody offer he sent you,” she pressed. “Our lawyers drew it up. You must have been furious.”
I looked down, then back up at her. The woman who’d had far too much champagne at my wedding, who was a wonderful grandmother to Alex, in spite of everything. “I didn’t even know about it until George showed up. We—George spent the night on Saturday,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t keep anything from her that would eventually come out, not if I wanted her on my side. “When I woke up Sunday morning, that’s when he told me. He thought I knew. Of course I was angry. But not enough to—god.”
“A mother will do a lot to keep her kid.”
I stared at her, caught her cool blue eyes. “How could you, Ruth? How could you let your lawyers do it?”
“You think you get to question my mother?” Henry snapped.
I pressed on, looking only at Ruth. “You know how much I adore Alex, how much he adores me. Why didn’t you tell George to stop? To agree to joint custody? You know I belong in my son’s life.”
“I did,” she said, her voice raised now. “I’m a mother, okay? No matter what you might think of me. I might have had all the help in the world to raise my boys, but I’m still their mother. George assured me that it was a negotiation tactic, that you would eventually come back.”
I shook my head, moisture springing to my eyes. It was all such a waste. So much arguing, negotiating. So many harsh words, bitter threats.
It felt like, if George had only let me go, none of this would have happened. George would never have come up here. He never would have been killed.
“Why were you two meeting yesterday morning, if you weren’t reconciling?” Ruth asked.
I looked at Ruth, then at Henry, who was standing beside her, eyes sharp. Finally, I turned back to my mother-in-law. “Can we speak privately?”
“Whatever you have to say to her you can say to me,” Henry practically spat.
“Mother to mother,” I said. “Please.”
To my surprise, Ruth’s face softened. She turned to Henry.
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
“I want to hear what she has to say.”
“Fine,” Henry said, tossing his hands into the air. “I’ll be out front.” He stalked out quickly, slamming the door behind him.
I peered through the peephole, waited until I saw him walk all the way to the street, and then I turned back to Ruth.
“Look,” I said, my voice soft. “I know you don’t want to hear anything bad about your son, but Henry and Cassandra—”
“Cassandra?” Ruth said, rearing back. “What does that vile woman have to do with any of this?”
“She’s not vile,” I said. “She was my friend, you know.”
“Everything that went wrong with this family started with her. She’s cruel, you know. Violent.”
“Violent?”
“You don’t know the half of what she did to Henry. She never tells you that part. Screaming at him, pushing him around. I saw her actually hit him once, you know. Smack him straight across the face like it was nothing. Left a mark and everything. Just because she didn’t think he should have another cocktail. As if she didn’t go quite hard on the sauce herself.”
My eyebrows narrowed. “When was this?”
“Oh, years ago,” Ruth said. “Before you met George. Henry said it wasn’t an isolated incident, either. Not in the slightest. Little different than the perfect picture she presented to you, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t imagine Cassandra actually hitting someone, could I? She was hot-tempered, sure, I knew that well, but that didn’t mean . . .
“What does Cassandra have to do with this?” Ruth asked again.
“It was her jewelry,” I managed. “George was going to give it back to me, so I could return it to her.”
“The jewelry she lost and tried to blame on Henry, tried to use as a pawn to hold up the divorce?”
“No,” I said, voice earnest now. “Henry took it. He gave it to George to hide for him so she couldn’t get it back. He knew she was going to sell it so she would have money for a fresh start. He didn’t want her to have a dime.”
“No,” Ruth said, voice firm. “My boys wouldn’t do that. Maybe . . . maybe Henry . . . but never George.”
“They did,” I said. “And he did. I saw the pieces myself, locked in our safe in the brownstone.”
Ruth’s eyes widened, but then she pulled herself together. “You must have misunderstood.”
“If it’s any consolation, George was finally going to give it back.”
I hesitated, replaying the thoughts, the suspicions, that had been trotting through my head this morning, decided I had to ask, since she was here. “Ruth, is there a chance that—that Henry found out George was going to give the jewelry back to me—that they argued, that Henry took it, that George tried to stop him, and—and—”
“And what?” she snapped.
“And Henry got angry and—”
“My god,” Ruth said, backing away from me, as if I were poison, as if she could catch something vile if she stood too close. “He’s my only living son. How dare you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, I know exactly what you meant to do. You’ve made yourself quite clear. Henry told me you weren’t on our side, you know? And I didn’t want to believe him, but now—I can see he was right.”
Ruth turned for the door.
“Wait,” I said. “What about Alex? Where is he? I need to see him.”
“He’s with Frank and the nanny in Brooklyn,” she practically spat.
“But—”
“This is no place for him, Mary. And right now, you’re not even thinking straight. Saying these things about Henry.” She crossed her arms. “Alex will stay with us for the week, just like we planned.”
“No,” I said. “No. I need to see him. Now.”
“Really? Because the police have told us that they’ve strictly forbidden you from leaving town.”
“So bring him to me,” I said.
“You think this is a place for him right now? Any mother could surely see that with a murderer on the loose, with random women we’ve never even met crashing with you, this is no place for him. You smell like booze, Mary. Take a few days and pull yourself together. We’re not keeping him from you. We’re just protecting him from all this.” She eyed me then, dead serious. “Besides, it will give you time to rack your brain, think of anything, anything, that you can share with the police to help the investigation. To figure out who did this to my son.”
“Ruth, I—”
“I’ll have Frank call you this afternoon. You can see Alex on FaceTime. That has to be enough for now.”
“Ruth, please—”
Already, she was walking out the door, pulling it shut tight behind her.
Her words rang in my head as I peered through the peephole again, watching her go.
Any mother could surely see.
Rack your brain. Think of anything.
Already judging me, sizing up my reactions, building her case as to why I wasn’t fit to care for her grandchild. Figuring out ways to punish me. For finding George. For accusing Henry. For daring to go against the family.
“That sounded awful.”
My shoulders jolted, and I turned to see Willa, eyes wide, kind.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I turned away from her, back to the door. Of course I wasn’t okay. My son was hours away, and I was stuck here, practically waiting for the cops to pin everything on me. And even if Ruth did believe me for now, I had a feeling she wouldn’t for long, especially with Henry whispering in her ear, maybe even trying to cover his own tracks. What if whoever had seen me push George on Sunday morning came forward? What if the police somehow got their hands on the history of my texts? And if Henry really had done it, what would that mean, anyway? The Haywoods would throw me under the bus before they ever let one of their own go down for anything.
There was something else, too. Something in front of me, something that very much didn’t fit. Something that was bothering me, something off, like a misplaced sock.
Finally, it hit me.
The door, the one Ruth had just swept out of.
When I’d let the two of them in, I’d only had to turn the doorknob, and then there they were.
The deadbolt, the one I’d checked multiple times when Willa and I had come in last night, had been unlocked.
I turned back to Willa, my heart racing. “Did you go out the front door last night?”
“No,” Willa said. “Just the patio off the kitchen, with you. Why?”
“The deadbolt,” I said, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “It was unlocked.”
I struggled to catch my breath as fear sliced within me.
“Someone came in here last night.”