Page 30 of The White Oak Lodge

“We’re just having dinner, darling,” Francesca explained.

“Have some!” Angelo urged. “Anyone want seconds? Oh, and Francesca, we really need to open that bottle of wine.”

Not long after that, Charlotte, Allegra, and Lorelei slunk off to their bedrooms, maybe to paint their nails or talk about their boyfriends, things they never invited Nina to do with them. Alexander, too, left for the night, his motor rippling as he sped away. This left Nina alone in the living room, listening as Jack and Tio Angelo told outrageous stories, doubling over with laughter that, in turn, made the cops wallop. It was clear that Tio Angelo had them wrapped around his finger. It was even more clear that Jack wanted to imitate Tio Angelo’s every mannerism and word. Nina’s mother and father were out of their depth. Jack and Tio Angelo ran the show.

It wasn’t long after that when the cops left for the night. Nina listened to them thank everyone and say goodbye until the very last moment, when she scurried out of the living room and went to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. Francesca liked to say it wasn’t becoming.

Upstairs, Nina sat on her bed and wrote in her diary—a diary just a few weeks from burning to ash—that something weird was going on with Jack. But maybe because she was only eleven, she really couldn’t say what it was.

Chapter Fourteen

Nina

June 2025

What Daniel said echoed through the little kitchen of the cabin on stilts.Half of that money is mine. Money?Nina had no idea what he was talking about. But if she knew Daniel—and she did, for better or for worse—she knew that the amount of money was important, that it was such a startlingly high amount that he’d taken himself out of the South American mountains, away from his brand-new and beautiful love, gotten on a plane, and traveled all the way to Nantucket to manipulate her into giving him half of it. After all, they were still married. But Nina still didn’t understand. If she wanted him to tell her anything, to give himself away, she had to be crafty. She had to play a part.

Nina let her face fall. Daniel huffed, still with his finger out, looking confident, like he’d won something. Nina reached for a kitchen chair, pulled it out, and sat down. She played the part of the defeated. Daniel watched her every move. Amos waswatching her intently, too. Amos probably thought she’d lied to him about what she was after and that he’d been a pawn in a bizarre marriage game. But the truth was, all she wanted to know was whether Jack survived the fire. That was it.

But she wouldn’t be a good anthropologist if she didn’t acknowledge a human truth: so much more was always hiding beneath the surface.

There was always more to the story. And it seemed her dearly beloved husband knew far more than he’d ever let on.

Nina took a staggered breath, one that filled her eyes with tears.Yes, make yourself cry, she thought, grateful that her acting was kicking in. (That, or she really was that terrified of Daniel. Maybe it was a little of both.) Nina gestured at Amos and said, “Please, sit down, Amos. There’s, um, something I need to say.”

Amos hesitated, then reached for another chair, pulled it out, and sat. He looked at her warily. He didn’t know where to put his hands. But when Nina gestured for Daniel to sit, he hung back, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. He needed to remain above her so he could keep her in her place.

Nina clasped her hands and said to Daniel, “I should have known you would figure it out eventually.”

Daniel’s eyes glowed.

“I mean, this is you we’re talking about,” Nina said. “After all we’ve been through together, after the tribes we’ve studied and the papers we’ve written, after you got tenure before me, I can’t believe I thought I could keep something this enormous from you.”

Daniel looked triumphant. “I knew you were here in Nantucket from the minute I heard your voice on the phone,” he shot. “I could hear the water sloshing outside. I could feel that northeast wind. I reasoned that you’d come here when you really didn’t need me anymore. When you’d stopped using me for mymoney, you realized you finally needed to dip into your own. That sweet Whitmore treasure.”

Nina wanted to protest, to fight back against this horrible idea. She’d never wanted nor needed Daniel’s money and would have been just fine on her own. But she couldn’t throw sand into her beautiful web just yet.

Amos remained quiet as a stone.

“It didn’t take long to figure out where you were staying, either,” Daniel said. “I couldn’t find anything on the credit cards or the bank statements, but it turns out that you used PayPal. Almost genius, Nina! But most of your passwords are the same across all channels, so I got into your account.”

Nina cursed herself for doing that. Over and over again, she’d given him every conceivable entrance back into her life. But when you made up passwords, built up the boundaries of your life, you never imagined it would be your husband to break them down.

“Brilliant,” Nina echoed.

Daniel grinned. Nina had a flashing image of their wedding day, slicing the cake, saying promises they couldn’t keep.

Keep your eye on the ball, Nina, she thought.

“But I just can’t understand when you figured out the money stuff,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t know till recently.” She pressed her palms against the table and gazed into his eyes, hoping she looked half as cute as she had back in 2012, when they’d come here on their honeymoon.

Daniel smirked at her.

“I mean,” Nina said, poking around the subject she feared the most, “did you know about it when we were, um, here? In 2012?”

Daniel put his hands together and clapped. Nina’s blood ran cold.

“I’ve known about the money since before I met you,” Daniel said. “There have always been rumors flying aboutthe Whitmore riches ‘hidden beneath the monstrosity of the burned-down White Oak Lodge.’ Maybe those gossip channels didn’t reach Nowhere, Michigan, but they were all over New Jersey. I wasn’t sure whether to believe them, that is until I found that old letter.”

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