The morning after the benefit, Adair was wild with worry trying to remember the events of the night before. She vaguely remembered a mirror breaking in the bathroom, but she didn’t remember how it broke. Her foot throbbed and looked like it had been professionally bandaged.
Did I go to the hospital? She tried to remember. I think I got stitches. Adair was too hungover to investigate what was under the dressing. Her head throbbed and she couldn’t focus. She continued to have waves of nausea after dry heaving on and off all morning. Her beautiful pink sari was in a ball in the corner of the room. The bottom of it was drenched in blood.
As she looked in the mirror, she saw a makeup-streaked face, and something was off about her hair. Adair didn’t remember this, but one of her front hair extensions got caught on a hookah at the end of night, leaving her hair lopsided. She couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong. Hugh wouldn’t speak to her.
What did I say to him in the car on the way home? she wondered, though she was sure it wasn’t kind. Did I demand he have sex with me? Did I force myself on him? Did I call him a closeted homosexual? Today was Sunday, which was typically their nanny’s day off, but Hugh had called her and asked her to watch the kids before leaving for the day.
Adair’s phone rang. She saw it was Jack and hesitantly picked up. At what point in the night did I cut my foot? she wondered.
“Hi, Jack,” she said as brightly as she could muster given her pounding head.
“Adair,” Jack said. “I’m disappointed in you.”
“You are?” she asked.
“Yes,” he responded. “Do you remember what you did last night? You got embarrassingly drunk and shattered the powder room’s custom-designed, original mirror. Then you limped through the Glass House bleeding and didn’t even realize it, which horrified the guests and sent many of them home. You told Lorenzo Musto that I’m sleeping with his wife, and I’ve since found out that you have been stalking me. What the fuck, Adair?”
“Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry,” Adair said, apologizing quickly. “I just had too much to drink last night. I was so nervous about the party’s success. You know I’m not supposed to drink on my meds, and I shouldn’t have. Most of the night is a total blackout for me. I’m so sorry.”
“And what about following me to Le Beau Château and spying on me? That’s unforgivable,” Jack said. “You’ve gone too far this time. I need to sever our professional and personal relationship.”
“Jack, no!” Adair cried. “No, no, no. Please no.” She felt a violent wave of nausea and realized she was about to dry heave again. “Wait,” she said into the phone as she dropped it onto her bed and dashed into her bathroom, bracing over the toilet. Jack did not wait.
Adair tried to reach him the rest of the day as she remembered details from the party piece by piece. By three o’clock, she could get down a piece of dry toast and a Gatorade. An hour later, she thought she could drive. She got in her car and went looking for Jack. She couldn’t find him at his apartment, the charity office, or the yoga studio. She couldn’t enter Le Beau Château because there was a cop car blocking entry into the driveway.
She figured he must be there and looked at her watch. She knew he had an evening six thirty class to teach at his studio. She pulled into a neighbor’s driveway—the Smiths, who wintered in Florida. Positioned a short distance into their driveway behind a row of evergreens, she had a view of the estate’s entry gate and waited.
A half hour later, she saw Tory Blume’s car exit followed by Jack and then two pickup trucks full of what appeared to be landscape help. The truck drove right past the cop car.
Isn’t it illegal to drive with people in the cab? she wondered. Those trucks are weighted down like refugee boats. Why didn’t the cop pull them over?
The following day, Adair set up at her surveillance spot again, this time writing down the license plates of the cars that came and went from the estate. She saw Cecily Morgan pull out just before Jack and two other cars.
The same routine took place the following day, but there were two occurrences of Jack coming and going with local women and a few men. That’s when it dawned on Adair.
Jack is running a prostitution ring, she thought. He’s being paid for the private sessions, and he’s providing sex partners for the women in town like he did for Kate! That’s pimping!
She decided to spend the next week videotaping the driveway. She saw close to ten prominent women in town going in and out of the château, but wasn’t successful in identifying all of the men. Carloads of guys pulled into the estate often, and Adair couldn’t tell if they were landscapers, tradespeople who tended to the large home and property, or if they were involved with Jack and the sexual activities inside the home.
After downloading the videos, she emailed them to herself and attached them to an email she drafted to the managing editor of Neighborly News. Given the patrol cars stationed at the estate, she knew she couldn’t go to the police with this evidence.
First, she called Jack. He didn’t pick up or respond, so she went and waited for him at his yoga studio just before one of his classes. When he saw her, he tried to bypass her and walked toward his studio.
“Jack, I have recordings you will be interested in,” Adair called, which stopped him. Adair told him about her surveillance. She threatened to go to the newspapers with the recordings. “You’re running a prostitution business,” she said. “I can expose and ruin you as well as your clients.”
“What do you want, Adair?” Jack asked, playing along but already determined to destroy her if necessary.
“I want our private sessions to resume,” she said. “I want access to you. I want to work for your charity again. Even though I now realize I have to share you with more women than I realized, I miss you and I need you. Without you, I can’t function.”
Jack agreed and then called the police.
* * *
On a crisp, cool day with a slight chance of snow, the following was front-page news in Breaking News Today: Cannondale:
“Well, I guess now we know why Adair Burns was so devoted to Yogi Jack,” Elizabeth overheard Christine Bellow say to Helen Michaels in the Village Market checkout line.
“It’s really shocking,” said Helen. “Who would have guessed that Hugh was gay?”
“Not me,” said Christine. “He plays squash with my husband. I don’t think anyone had a clue. It must be so hard to live with a man going through that. I heard Adair’s dad was gay, too, as well as Hugh’s.”
“Really, wow!” Helen said.
“And you know what they say: you marry a version of your father,” Christine said.
“I haven’t seen her at school pick-up lately,” Helen said. “Where is she?”
“I heard she rented a suite at the Mayflower Inn & Spa,” said Christine.
“Good for her,” Helen said. “I’m going to give her a call in a few weeks and see if she wants to get a drink.”
Adair was, in fact, at NYU Langone Medical Center for what would become an extended stay. Adair didn’t know that the anonymous tip that led to Hugh’s very public and, for Adair, mortifying arrest came from Jack.
Several years before, she had told Jack that she suspected Hugh was gay. She explained about Hugh’s father. “I think he only stays with me as a cover and because he wants to raise kids in a two-parent household,” Adair told Jack in tears. “After his dad left his family when he was eight, he swore he would never do the same to his children.”
Adair told Jack about her own troubled history growing up with a father who was a closeted homosexual and eventually died from AIDs. Jack stored that information away and knew that if he ever needed to blackmail or crush Adair and/or Hugh, all he had to do was have Hugh followed. Given Adair had told no one but Jack, she should have put two and two together, but she still had blinders on for him despite her upset.
To ensure Adair never revealed what she threatened, Jack visited her once a week at NYU. He played the concerned, trusted friend. He told her that given the circumstances, the stalking and drunken party incidents were behind them. He brought her kids to see her, who continued to live in the Burns’ home with Hugh and his mother.
When the trial began, the kids would go to live with Hugh’s mother until Adair felt strong enough to check herself out. “I can’t be on the outside now,” she told Jack. “I know my kids probably need me, but I’m too ashamed to be in that town until the sentencing is over.”