Now
Tuesday, August 17
Woodstock, New York
I stared at the door’s lock. My little Woodstock hideaway, which should have been so safe. My face felt hot, as if I were an old thermometer, temperature rising, the glass about to explode, mercury spill out.
I turned back to Willa. “You promise you didn’t go out there?”
Willa shook her head solemnly. “I promise.”
She could be lying—she lied about everything—but this was seemingly such a small detail, such a random thing to lie about. She might not be telling the truth, but if she was?
“Then I can’t be here,” I said. “We have to go.”
“Okay,” Willa said, obviously trying to instill some calm into a situation that was very quickly spiraling out of control.
“Can we go to your place?” I asked.
A moment of hesitation, impossible to ignore.
“I mean, you said that no one’s even there, right?”
I had to be out of here, but I also didn’t want Willa out of my sight, not so long as she still potentially had that text.
“Yeah,” Willa said. “It’s just, it’s a bit of a mess. Maybe I should walk over first? Just give me an hour to clean things up?”
“No,” I said, quickly. Firmly. “I don’t care about the mess. I don’t want to be alone right now. Not with a killer out there. Not when someone has come into this place.”
Willa blinked, one time, then two.
“Is that a problem?” I asked, a slight edge in my voice now.
“No,” Willa said, plastering on a smile. “No. It’s not a problem at all.”
Following Willa’s car, I backed out onto the street and toward the main road. I found myself clenching the wheel at the perfect ten and two, checking and rechecking for oncoming cars and pedestrians, teeming in the streets this time of year.
I missed Alex—desperately—wanted to squeeze his thick toddler thighs, feel his weight in my arms, see his smile. As soon as I was at Willa’s, I would call Frank. And if he didn’t answer, then Genevieve. I had to talk to my son.
I followed her onto the main road, left toward her house.
My heart sank. There, right on the corner, next to the turnoff to Henry’s place, to George’s murder scene, was a news van, unmistakable, with a satellite dish on top, logos plastered on all sides.
This is it, I thought. They’re descending.
Another minute, and we were in front of the deep-blue farmhouse, as proud and stately as the mountains behind it.
Willa got out of her car, then came back to help me grab my bags, and led the way up the porch steps. She fished in her purse for her keys and slipped one into the lock, turned, and opened the door. The light was the first thing I noticed. Bright, warm sunshine, pouring through the front windows, illuminating wide floorboards, pockmarked with age, with life, casting hard shadows where the windowpanes were.
I saw the mess next. Children’s books tossed onto the bottom steps of the staircase, Legos littered across the rug in the living room to the right, dishes and cups still stacked on a large table in the dining room to the left.
“I told you it was a wreck in here,” Willa laughed. “Poppy and Rich cleared out pretty quickly when they got the call about his mom.”
It was all so normal, so familial, so pedestrian, almost. The couches were deep teal and looked cozy, lived-in. The dining table’s fancier modern chairs were set apart with a plastic high chair. The only thing I wasn’t fully expecting was a set of books on the coffee table—a biography of Karl Marx, the Comprehensive Guide to Workers’ Rights, The History of the Modern Labor Movement.
“Make yourself at home,” Willa said. “The guest room—just about the only thing that’s clean—is the first door up the stairs on the right. I’m going to run a load of dishes and vacuum up Poppy’s Cheerios before they fully meld into the rug.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I grabbed my bag from Willa and headed toward the stairs, then turned back.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I can’t relax until I see that that text is gone from your phone.”
“Of course,” Willa said. She dug in her pocket, then pulled out her phone. “Shit,” she said. “It’s dead. See?”
She turned it to me, and I saw nothing but black.
“I didn’t charge it last night. Let me just pop it on the charger, okay? Then I can show you.”
She turned and walked to the kitchen, not looking back.
A slight chill crawled up my spine, but what was I supposed to do? Follow her in there, rip the phone from her hands? No, I had to play nice with her. Had to keep Willa on my side so long as there was a chance she still had that text. Because if she did have it, if she showed it to anyone, Ruth and Henry would find a way to destroy me. Make it so I’d never see Alex again.
I headed up the stairs, finding the room at the top. It was simply outfitted, with a double bed and a small nightstand, and painted a pleasant shade of gray. I tossed my bags on the bed and pulled out my phone, trying Frank first, calling and FaceTiming, but got nothing. I sent a quick text:
I saw Ruth and Henry, she told me Alex is with you and Genevieve. Just want to say hi to him. Please call me back. And please don’t tell him about his dad until I can do it myself.
I waited a couple of minutes and then texted Genevieve, as well.
Mary here. Just want to see Alex for a minute. FaceTime me when you can, please.
Please god, let them do the right thing. Please just let them call me, let me see Alex.
I stared at the phone, willing it to ring, but when it didn’t, I tapped back into my contacts.
Thinking of the news van, I made the other call I knew I needed to make.
Rachel answered on the second ring. “Mary! I was just thinking about you. How’s my little boo-boo?”
My voice caught in my throat at the sound of my sister. My sweet dear sister who had no idea of the mess I was in. “He’s with—” I hesitated. “With his grandparents this week.”
“Oh, he’s not with you? I’m sure you mentioned that. Sorry, I’ve been so busy with Mom . . .”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I just, I called because—” There was no easy way to say it. “It’s George.”
“Lord,” Rachel said. “What did he do now? He’s not fighting you on custody again, is he?”
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so close to panicked tears. “He’s dead, Rachel. He’s been murdered. It happened yesterday.”
A pause, brief. And then “Oh my god. Mary, you can’t be serious, he can’t be—”
“He is,” I said. “I found him.”
“Jesus Christ,” Rachel said. A patter of her feet, shuffling to a different room, protecting my mom from this until Rachel could explain it calmly. “What happened?”
I told her the story, the one I’d trotted out to the police multiple times now.
“Oh god,” Rachel said. “What should we do? And is Alex okay?”
“Yes, he’s with Frank and his nanny in Brooklyn.” Saying it like it was my own plan, not Ruth’s, made me feel the tiniest bit better.
“But why don’t you go get him?” Rachel asked.
My chest tightened. “Because I still need to sort all this out with the police. They said I shouldn’t leave town yet.”
Another pause, and I could practically hear Rachel’s wheels turning. “You’re not—you’re not a suspect, are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope not, but—”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
Then I really did laugh. “I have no money for a lawyer. Everything is tied up with the Haywoods.”
“We can get a second mortgage on Mom’s house,” Rachel said. “I have a little bit saved. We can—”
“Stop, Rachel. It’s too early for all that.”
“Should I come down? I mean, Mom isn’t supposed to travel, but—”
“No,” I said. “Stay there. Hopefully they’ll catch whoever did this, and it will all blow over soon.”
“You really think so?” Rachel said.
I could hear it, the fear in my little sister’s voice. A sister I’d always done my best to protect.
So I lied. “I do, Rachel. I really do.”
I spent the afternoon watching bad TV with Willa and dialing Frank and Genevieve, waiting for them to call me back.
Willa had shown me her newly charged phone as soon as I’d come downstairs, and like she’d said, there were no texts older than a month, yet it still didn’t put me totally at ease. I knew she could have saved them, plenty of places. But there was nothing else to do. So we’d changed into loungewear, and I’d done my best to distract myself while I clutched my phone, waiting for a call. From Frank or Genevieve, letting me speak to Alex; from Detective Morales, asking me to come down to the station again.
Two calls did come. One from the CEO I was supposed to interview for Forbes, which I’d completely forgotten about in the chaos; another from the real estate agent I’d been set to meet. I’d mumbled “family emergency” to both, had gotten off the phone as quickly as I could.
Eventually I went back upstairs, dialing Frank and Genevieve yet again, then falling asleep at some point, the weight of everything practically melding me into the covers. When I woke, it was well after seven.
I checked my phone immediately, my heart leaping at a text from Frank.
Sorry to miss you before. Been busy here. Thinking of hiring our own investigators. Alex is doing just fine, fell asleep early. Will call you tomorrow. And don’t worry, we haven’t told him anything yet.
Beneath the text was a photo of Alex smiling, unaware that his father was dead, that his world would never again be the same.
I sighed with relief and let myself relax. Alex was fine, Frank and Ruth weren’t keeping him from me, they were just grieving. Processing what had happened to their own son, deciding how best to throw their masses of money at the problem. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and stole down the stairs to find a smell, rich and earthy, and tinged with meat.
“I made Bolognese,” Willa said, turning from the gas stove, where a red sauce bubbled in an oversized skillet.
“Wow,” I said. “Smells amazing.” I looked around. Everything in the kitchen was gorgeous, right down to a stainless steel fridge, littered with pictures of the girl I’d seen, plus an Occupy Wall Street magnet that fit in with the books on the coffee table. “I have to say, I never saw you dating a socialist.”
Willa laughed. “I know, right? And Rich is really, really serious about it. He somehow found a way to make his contractor business co-op and everything, so the guys he works with get a share of the profits. Besides Poppy, it’s what he cares about more than anything. Anyway, this is just about ready. You hungry?”
I nodded.
“Grab a seat at the table. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Within minutes, a steaming plate of pasta was before me, sprinkled with cheese, blood-red wine sitting in a glass next to it. We dug into the pasta, barely talking, both of us having two servings—I don’t think either of us had had anything all day. When we couldn’t eat anymore, we pushed our plates to the side, and Willa topped off my wine without asking, then took a gulp—and a deep breath. “What I said last night,” Willa started, taking another sip. “About you being relieved, it was callous, I realize that now. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And it’s okay. George really did sound different the last time I spoke to him, like maybe he was going to change. And now I’ll never know.”
Willa hesitated, and then her face softened. “Maybe he was. That must be so hard, Mary, I’m so, so sorry.” She paused a moment, then took a sip of wine. “Do you really think someone came into the house last night?”
“I know I locked the deadbolt, I know I did.”
“Christ,” Willa said. “That’s terrifying. Who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Because it didn’t make sense. If some angry vandal had killed George, mistaking him for Henry, why would they come to my place? Perhaps an ex-girlfriend had some reason to be angry at me—and I suppose she could have gotten the info for my rental off George’s phone, but I had the only key. How would someone even get in?
Then something struck me. I thought of Henry, walking down my street that first day, the way George had told me he’d slipped in the back. I’d assumed that Henry had used the key and put it back into the lockbox, that the key I had with me now was the one he’d used, but what if there had originally been two? What if Henry had taken one, never put it back? I thought of him, just this morning, the rage in his eyes, as if he were out to get justice for his brother. What if it was all an act to point me in the wrong direction?
“You okay?” Willa asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I mean, no.” I took my phone from my pocket, searched for the instructions to the rental. I opened the email, suddenly desperate to see, scrolled down to the check-in instructions. There was the code to the lockbox, a note about always locking the doors behind you, and then, the last line of the paragraph: There are two keys in the lockbox. They both go to the front door.
“Oh my god,” I said. How had I missed this? How had I not put it together?
“What is it?” Willa asked.
It was so clear, suddenly, so beyond clear, that I felt foolish for not seeing it before.
“Henry,” I said. “It had to be Henry.”
“George’s brother?”
I brought her up to speed on my run-in with Henry on Saturday. “What if the jewelry wasn’t there? What if George hadn’t even gotten it yet? Or what if Henry thought George had given the stash to me already, and he came in to my rental to look for it? And then he comes back with his mom in the morning, playing the grief-stricken brother.”
Willa’s eyes widened. “You really think he would?”
“Henry came into the rental on Saturday to set up the flowers. He must have taken a key and kept it. I just checked the rental instructions. There were two keys in the lockbox, but I only ever saw the one. There’s simply no one else who even would have been able to come in.”
“Wow,” Willa said. She looked genuinely shocked. Could I trust her? I didn’t know. Could I trust anyone? Not really.
That didn’t matter. Not compared to this.
I grabbed my phone, googled the number, got an answer after a few rings.
“I need to speak with Detective Morales,” I said. “I’ve got new information. Something she absolutely needs to hear.”