MONDAY NIGHT
Erika spent the afternoon sweating about the threatening letters she found in Robert’s locked drawer, vacillating between showing them to LuAnn or the police or keeping them secret, as Robert did. There has to be some justification for why he hasn’t taken them to the cops, because, according to her brief research, Zeke Strickland has committed multiple felonies.
From what Erika’s been able to find out on Google, threatening via the USPS to kidnap or injure someone is punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. And they had to have been sent from Zeke since no one else implied in his letters got his house stolen out from under him. Only him, and, by extension, Erika supposes, his wife, Gretchen. Seems like a slam dunk to her.
The most sensible conclusion Erika’s been able to come up with is that Robert was saving the letters to use as evidence in case Zeke followed through with his threats. If this is Robert’s rationale, then it’s not her place to turn them over to the police prematurely. She might not even have the right, considering they were sent to her employer, not to her, and she discovered them only because she was snooping in his private, locked file cabinet.
On the flip side, Robert and Holly still haven’t responded to anyone’s emails, texts, or calls. It’s been forty hours since they’ve come up for air. Robert’s own father doesn’t know where he is. And Erika hasn’t been able to confirm that they’ve checked into any of the higher-end hotels in Montreal, thereby raising the almost unthinkable question: Has Zeke Strickland somehow gotten to them already?
Erika can barely concentrate on the mundane tasks of being an assistant with the thought that somewhere out there this maniac is on the warpath. He could be camped out in the woods using the same long lens he—might have—used to take the photo of the wedding arch to spy on her at this very moment.
What if he’s lumped her in with Robert and Holly as the thieves who stole his property?
What if he’s holding them at gunpoint and precious minutes are slipping away because Erika’s too chicken to make a move?
To save her own sanity, she settles on a plan. She will hold the file until she reaches Robert and Holly or until Wednesday evening, whichever comes first. If she doesn’t hear from them after that, or if they don’t return as Robert promised, then she’s going straight to the Vermont State Police with the letters and the mysterious photo. If those aren’t enough to get the cops to launch an investigation, she has the advantage of claiming her car has been stolen because Robert took it and he’s missing.
Her previous experience with the police around here hasn’t exactly inspired confidence in their professionalism or abilities. One cop in particular—a Vermont state trooper she actually went through high school with named Andre Picard—is on her radar as particularly untrustworthy, especially when it comes to discretion. He’s known for spilling secrets all over this small town. That said, surely he and his colleagues can handle a basic case of grand theft auto.
In the meantime, there is blessed work to keep her mind occupied. It’s fun work, too, since finally she has permission to do what she’s always dreamed of doing: raiding Holly’s fabulous closet.
Since being hired as their assistant, Erika’s been given free rein to roam through the house in all phases of construction and decoration. She’s familiar with the functional mudroom, with its authentic barn door and antique soapstone sink, the gleaming kitchen and two-story great room and the loft that overlooks it. She’s washed towels in the sunny laundry and once took a nap on the Murphy bed in the guest room. She’s tried her hand at billiards in the basement man cave with its mahogany bar and seventy-inch television. And of course she has access to all of Holly’s office, even her iMac.
The only area that’s been off limits is Holly and Robert’s suite on the second floor.
Until now.
LuAnn and Hector approved Erika’s proposal to dress like Holly for the prerecords. Having already cleared his schedule and arranged his flight and rental car to arrive on Tuesday, Hector, especially, was not inclined to change plans to accommodate a couple of millennials who didn’t have the discipline to honor their commitments. Though he put it much more colorfully.
With tacit permission from the TMB powers that be, Erika is off to shop the stash, as giddy as a kid in a candy store.
Her employers’ bedroom suite takes up one upstairs wing of the house and was the first area to be completed and filmed. Since Holly and Robert took up residence there, they’ve kept the door locked and the cameras out. Last month, Hector shot footage of them pretending to be surprised by the finished rooms, snippets of which have been posted online as a tease to the final reveal.
Erika reviewed the footage to recall what Holly was wearing so she could be sure to don the same for their prerecording. To the Manor Build has clear rules about the talent’s attire. No white or black tops. No green. Jewelry is to be understated so as not to draw the viewers’ interest away from the most important aspects—the appliances and fixtures which will be featured on accompanying, lucrative, advertisements. TMB’s prime sources of revenue.
In the bedroom shots, Holly is wearing a french blue silk button-down blouse over slim camel-colored leggings. Her hair is half-up, half-down and her earrings are the two-carat diamond studs given to her by Robert as an engagement present. Surely Holly will have taken those with her, Erika thinks, secretly hoping she hasn’t, because she would LOVE to try them on.
Not that the camera will be zooming in that close.
With a master key in hand, Erika ascends the floating stairs, stepping quietly on the thick wooden treads as if not to alert Robert and Holly. She hesitates at the balcony, taking in the view of the great room. The setting sun illuminates the twenty feet of windows facing Snowden Mountain, seeming to set its red, orange, and yellow trees ablaze. Here is the aha effect Holly and Robert and their architect struggled to achieve.
Here is what makes their house the winner of the To the Manor Build contest.
She checks the time—five o’clock—and makes a mental note to tell Hector that’s when he should shoot the final scene at the outdoor entertainment area. Robert will be manning the grill while Holly pulls herself from the heated pool, the setting sun glistening on the glasses of wine and beer being hoisted in salute by their fake friends. The entire To the Manor Build run has been leading to this coup de grâce, and Erika is determined that Holly and Robert will not disappoint.
Turning left, she walks along the balcony to the southern side of the house where a set of white double doors marks the entrance to the primary suite. Erika inhales deeply and tries the knob. It opens easily.
Hmm, odd. If Holly and Robert planned to go away for the week, surely they would have locked their bedroom, considering they lock their bedroom when they’re out for a jog.
Erika checks her phone again. A brief text from Robert or Holly would set her mind at ease. A simple “hello” or “checking in” or “thanks.”
Nothing. Always nothing. Maybe she should stop expecting anything else.
Sliding her phone into her back pocket, she follows a short hallway to the bedroom, most of which is taken up by a king-size bed. The bedroom’s relatively modest square footage is offset by the high-pitched ceiling and workable skylights, to let out heat in the summer. Two walls are painted a light dove gray. One wall is lined with six small mullioned windows. The accent wall is a darker gray to coordinate with the zigzag Nordic pattern in the authentic rya rug. The opposite wall isn’t a wall at all but a pair of thermal-paned french doors leading to a private deck.
The deck is big enough for only a glass table and two cushioned chairs and faces east to take advantage of the morning sun. There’s even a weatherproof cabinet with a built-in coffee maker so the lord and lady of the manor can enjoy their first cups of the day without the interference from guests—or children.
Back inside, a narrow unlit Scandinavian gas-fired stove stands in the corner next to a geometrically stacked triangle of polished logs. In the other corner is an antique mahogany fainting couch, so minimalist you wouldn’t want to lie on it if you were actually fainting. Robert made a big joke about the fainting couch on the YouTube snippets, bringing his hand to his forehead as he collapsed and immediately rolled off. He had a point.
The bed is unmade. A half-drunk bottle of champagne lists to one side in a bucket of what was once ice and is now warm water, an empty flute on each side table. Erika leans down to pick up what she mistakes for a tissue and discovers to her horror it’s Holly’s white lace thong, perhaps flung in a moment of passion.
Her cheeks go hot as she catches sight of Robert’s plaid boxers tangled in the Egyptian cotton sheets. Witnessing the aftermath of their lovemaking makes her feel slightly dirty, as if she’s a scummy Peeping Tom. She should leave immediately before she stumbles upon another personal item she has no business seeing. Her employers would be furious if they had any idea she was invading their privacy.
Then they should have locked the door, her inner voice says.
No, that’s not right. This is their house. They can do whatever they want, Erika thinks, focusing on the task at hand—getting Holly’s outfit and getting out—as she rounds the corner into the walk-in closet.
The his-and-hers closet isn’t so much a walk-in as a walkthrough, connecting the bedroom to the primary bath. The closet is the only part of the house to be degraded with wall-to-wall carpet in a fragile beige and was installed at Holly’s insistence. Because carpeting negates the benefits of a radiant-heated floor, Robert had a fit.
Or, rather, pretended to have a fit.
Staged, harmless disagreements are a cornerstone of To the Manor Build, and Robert and Holly have not been above repeating the standard fare. When shown this expansive walkthrough closet, for example, Holly asked where Robert was going to keep his clothes. They’ve “bickered” about his “need for a man cave” and Holly’s “need for a massive European stove” even though, as Robert noted, the only things either of them can make are reservations. They’ve gone tit for tat over whether the tiled backsplash in the kitchen should be in a herringbone or subway pattern. (Erika wanted herringbone; Robert didn’t want tile at all.) They chose a hand-painted blue and yellow fleur-de-lis to match the French range.
That said, Robert’s side of the closet is indeed half the size of Holly’s side. It’s constructed of manly, dark mahogany with tidy rows of suit coats and wool pants on wooden hangers. Abutting the built-in chest of drawers is a stack of cedar shelves, each displaying a neatly folded thin cashmere sweater in a rainbow of colors.
Erika sinks her nose into the stack of sweaters, inhaling a trace of Robert’s citrusy bergamot cologne. She used to make fun of her mother for sniffing her late father’s coat the same way, but now she gets it. She picks up a sweater and gives it a squeeze, but it’s not the same. He’s not wearing it.
Wait. This is Robert’s favorite pullover, a heathered gray guernsey he bought in London when he was in grad school. He was wearing this sweater when they met in her mother’s office last winter. He would never think of taking a trip to Canada in autumn without it.
Which is when she notices his socks, balled up on the floor next to his Santoni suede chukkas. Okay, now something really is off. Robert’s style for kicking around a city like Montreal would be that guernsey, dark, slim-fitting jeans, and those expensive Italian boots. Also, he would definitely wear his beloved leather jacket, which is still on its hanger. He never would have forgotten that.
On a hunch, she pokes her head into the spacious bathroom of floor-to-ceiling marble. The door to the steam shower is still open, one white fluffy towel bunched onto a rack. Robert’s razor and shaving soap lie in a small puddle of dried suds by the sink. The couple’s matching electric toothbrushes are in their respective chargers next to opened tubes of Colgate.
They’re slobs, Erika tells herself. That’s all. They were in a rush, packed only a few things for a short stay, and left the place a mess, never expecting their assistant would be in their secluded quarters nosing about. It’s nothing more sinister than that, she thinks, going to fetch the next day’s outfit.
Holly’s side of the closet runs the entire width of the bedroom. The shelves are painted bright white with strips of LED lights under her exquisite shoes, museum pieces in their own right. Holly’s wedding dress has been replaced in its white plastic zip-up cover, the veil in its own case.
The kicky plum-colored minidress she changed into for the reception is piled in a careless heap. Erika steps over it and goes to the shirts and pants.
The blue blouse and camel leggings are hanging in their dry-cleaning bag. That makes sense, Erika thinks, taking them down and looping them over her arm. Holly knew they’d be the first things she’d wear upon her return from her trip.
Having retrieved what she came for, she can’t resist one last peek. Carefully laying the blouse and leggings on a cushioned bench, she goes over to the French Empire bureau Holly purchased off the internet. “An antique,” Holly explained to viewers, fingering the brass lion head pulls. “From the 1990s.” All Erika could think was how the drawers would stick in Vermont’s summer humidity.
Not today, however. The top one slides open with ease to reveal neat rows of jewelry boxes in gray, blue, and black velvet. Long boxes for necklaces and bracelets. Smaller ones for earrings and rings. But that’s not what catches her interest, oddly enough.
It’s Holly’s passport.
Erika’s pretty sure you need a passport to cross the border into Canada. Perhaps this one is expired. She opens it to Holly’s smiling face across from her real name: Haylee Dawn Beauregard. The passport expires in two years.
She has a thought and goes back to the top drawer in Robert’s built-in. She pulls it open and finds a navy billfold. Cufflinks. Someone’s old WWII medal. A few loonies. (Could have spent those in Canada.) A Magnum condom in its gold foil packaging. (She will not allow herself to go there.) A photo of him in boarding school wearing a maroon blazer. And a US passport. Also current.
Erika’s phone buzzes and she jumps, the passport flying out of her hand, scooting under the bench where she’s laid the clothes. Robert, is her first thought. Robert is always her first thought when an unknown number streams across her screen.
“It’s my lucky day!” gushes a female voice in a southern drawl. “I’m so glad you answered, Erika. You’re not an easy gal to get hold of.”
The number might not be familiar, but the voice is. Erika’s heard it almost every day on the house landline answering machine. She fetches the passport from under the bench and steels herself for an inevitably awkward conversation ahead. “Hi, Tammy. How are you?” Holly’s mother.
“I’d be a heck of a lot better if my daughter returned my calls. I get she’s a busy gal who doesn’t have a minute to chitchat with her mama, but I must admit, my maternal meter’s been off the charts with worry lately. I got a sixth sense about shit like this, ya know? It’d be such a comfort to hear my baby’s voice. Can you put her on the line?”
Erika deflates as she sits on the bench next to the display of designer bags. “I’m sorry, Tammy, but Holly’s not here. Really.”
“Dang. You got an ETA?”
For once, Erika doesn’t have to lie to run interference for her boss. “To be honest, I don’t. She and Robert left for a spur-of-the moment honeymoon to Montreal.”
“Montreal? Well, that accounts for the incommunicado. With the exchange rate the way it is in Canada, Haylee’s probably up there shoppin’ till she drops.” She lets out a slight laugh, as if this news is a relief. “She’ll come up for air when she maxes out her Amex.”
Maxes out her Amex.
Shoot. Why didn’t she think of that?
Erika snatches up the clothes and hurriedly exits the suite, phone to ear as she rushes down the hallway. “I’ll have her call you back when she gets in,” she says, practically skipping down the floating stairs. “First thing.”
“I do so appreciate that, Erika. And you make sure to take care, too. Don’t let my daughter work you too hard. I can hear the stress in your voice all the way down here in Homosassa.”
That’s not the half of it, Erika thinks, ending the call and rushing into Holly’s office. Tossing the dry-cleaned clothing on the daybed, she boots up Holly’s iMac, opens her browser, and clicks the bookmarked tab labeled Chase.
Holly doesn’t have an Amex—Robert does—but she has a Visa Freedom Unlimited card from Chase she monitors with such regularity her desktop has saved its password. Holly uses the Visa daily, for gas, groceries, online shopping, you name it. Everything except for expenses related to the rebuild. That has a separate, dedicated card. Erika clicks Login and the page automatically populates.
Navigating to Current Activity, Erika scrolls to the most recent transaction, a $462.34 debit from the spa where Holly got a facial hours before she got married.
Since then, absolutely nothing.