Now
Wednesday, August 18
Woodstock, New York
In shock, I dropped Cassandra’s velvet bag, and it landed at my feet with a thud, the panther bracelet spilling out, rolling across the floor, as if emerging from its lair.
Willa scrambled to grab it, stopping it in its tracks and then jumping at the bag, too, clutching it to her chest.
Again, I felt so very, very foolish.
The moment I’d learned Willa had been texting with George, I’d imagined such wild things. Her sleeping with my husband, moving in on my life, something going wrong between them. Anger and jealousy. An argument, a fight. Passion and struggle and murder in the end, George’s own ego, his own feeling of being duped, only spurring it all on, bringing the conflict to its mortal conclusion.
Or something even more absurd, that she’d killed him out of some sort of twisted, misplaced loyalty to me.
But that was all fantasy, wasn’t it? Yes, she had slept with him, but Willa didn’t do things for passion. For love. For revenge, even. And certainly not for friendship. She did them for money.
“You were always after the jewelry, weren’t you? A treasure trove, too valuable to pass up. You know, after that night in June, I thought it was my fault you stopped responding to me. I thought I’d freaked you out, saying how sometimes I wanted George dead. And you let me think that.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You did, though. You knew I’d beat myself up about it. But it was never about that. It was never about how drunk I got, or what I said. It was never about me at all. Once you knew about the jewelry, you got dollar signs in your eyes. You moved in on George. What better payday? I practically drew you a treasure map.”
“Mary,” Willa said. “Stop jumping to conclusions. Please just calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I cried, the other pieces of the puzzle clicking together. The way Willa was always prying for details. Birthdates and anniversaries, the name of the cleaning service. The way she had been so quick to become my friend. How she’d always seemed so incredibly pleased to see me. How she’d invited me, only days after meeting me, just a random stranger from the playground, to the opera, to drinks, how she’d offered me such companionship, such curiosity about the nitty-gritty details of my life, and I’d drunk the attention up like nectar.
“I was so stupid to think you actually wanted to be my friend. You always seemed too young, too cool, to choose little old me, but there was a reason for that, wasn’t there? Because it was always a ruse, just a way to get information.”
“Mary,” Willa said. “I wanted to be friends with you, I did—I do—care about you. And I’m practically your age, okay? I’m thirty-five. I just look young is all.”
“Jesus Christ, stop making excuses,” I said. “Stop playing this game! You knew about it all before, didn’t you? You knew there was jewelry. Maybe you even had a hint that George had it. Did you fuck Henry, too?”
“No,” Willa said. “Christ, no. I would never sleep with Henry. I hate Henry.”
I stared at her. Had she known my brother-in-law? How deep did these betrayals go?
“Look,” Willa said. “Did I know you were connected to the jewelry? Is that why I initially struck up a conversation with you? Yes, I won’t lie. But that night at the opera changed everything. I could tell we could really be friends. And I haven’t had a friend in so long. I haven’t connected with someone—”
“Stop lying,” I said. “You do it so easily, I wonder if you even believe it yourself. You didn’t stop talking to me because you figured out my George and your George were the same person. You always knew that. You stopped talking to me because you got what you wanted, and I was disposable. Just like all those men. All those children. Toss them aside, keep the credit cards in your wallet, use them until they catch on.”
“I wanted to call you, I did, but I knew if you found out about George . . .”
I tilted my head to the side. “Were you with George when Alex was there?”
Willa’s face reddened, and I saw real, genuine shame.
“Oh my god.” I’d imagined it, of course, but this monster with my baby, without me to protect him; the thought took my breath away.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen, I promise you. George didn’t, either. But the nanny was late one morning, and Alex recognized me, but he’s not so verbal yet, so—
“How convenient,” I practically spat.
My heart ached as it became clear to me, finally, and without so much of a shadow of a doubt, who this woman was, how she had conned me from the very beginning. “You’re good,” I said. “I’ll give you that. For so long, I believed you. But I was just another person to use. Like you use everyone.”
Willa’s face was pale now. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how it sounds, added up all like this, but I promise you, Mary. I swear. There were other ways I could have gotten what I got. I liked you. I enjoyed your company. I loved the way you were with Alex, the way the boys got along. I considered you a friend. That isn’t a lie.”
“A friend?” I shouted. “A friend? Friends don’t lie. They don’t use people to pull off some jewel heist. Friends don’t screw each other’s husbands, separated or not. You are not my friend. You never will be. I doubt you’ve ever had a real friend in your whole miserable life.”
The tears burst forth then, and I gasped for breath. Willa stepped forward, put a hand on my shoulder, but I pushed her off. I wiped at the tears, at snot coming from my nose.
It was pathetic, I knew, how much I grieved her, knowing now exactly who—exactly what—she was. And yet I did. Because I’d needed a friend when I’d met her, so very badly, and that was what she’d been to me, even if it was all a lie.
Willa grabbed a box of tissues, and I took one, then looked at her, my mind still spinning. “Did George follow me up here—or was it really about you? Did he find out where you were? Track you down? He told me on Sunday night, the last night he was alive, that he didn’t have the jewelry but he was going to get it in the morning. Because it was you who had it. And maybe he knew that all along, but he didn’t know how to find you. But here you are, and so he texts you, and he threatens to—what?—blow up things with Rich? Go to the police? So you go over, Monday morning, agree to talk to him.”
“No,” Willa said.
“No, you’re right. You went over just to kill him. So he’d be out of your way and you could make off with the jewelry.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Willa said. “I swear I didn’t.”
I knew I was risking so much, but I didn’t care anymore. I had to know the truth. “And now, if the cops ever look at you, ever give you a second glance, you can pin it all on me. You have that text, after all. The nail in my coffin.”
“No,” she said again. “Mary, I don’t want you to go down for anything. And I didn’t kill George. I’m guilty of a lot, but not that.”
Tears coursed down my cheeks. “I’ll never see Alex, you know? If the police pin this on me? He won’t have anyone. Not his father, not his mother. How can you live with yourself? How can you be so . . . so evil?”
“Mary,” Willa said again. “Please believe me. It’s not going to come to that.”
“I don’t understand,” I said as sobs began to rack my body. “Why us? Why my family? Other people have jewelry. Other people have money. It’s New York City, for Christ sake. You could have targeted someone else. What did we ever do to you? What are you not telling me? How do you know Henry? How do you know the Haywoods?”
Willa looked down at her feet. When she looked up, her eyes were open, and kind, and tears were swimming within them, too.
“I never did anything like this before,” she said. “Never in my life. I never tricked a friend. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I’d try and pull off something so big. I promise you that. I dated rich men—a lot of them—I took their gifts, yes, and I used their credit cards, if I could get away with it. I grabbed cash here and there, maybe even something valuable—things they wouldn’t miss. But you have to believe me, Mary. None of this is who I am, not deep down. All of this is new to me, too.”
“Then why?” I asked, practically begging now. Feeling, somehow, that if I could understand the answer to this, it would soften the pain of everything else. “Why Henry? Why us?”
Willa took a deep breath, then sighed.
“Because she asked me to.”
“What?” I reared back, trying to understand. “Who?”
Willa’s eyes locked right on mine.
“Cass,” she said.
She pressed her lips together.
“Well, I guess she goes by Cassandra now.”