Page 41 of Chasing the Horizon

“My dad just got up and left?” Valerie muttered.

Alex turned his head to trace Victor’s path to the front door. “Maybe he’s just going to the bathroom?”

But that’s when they saw him putting on his coat. Esme stood beside him, waving her arms around, trying to reason with him. Valerie’s mouth went dry.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“What’s up?” Bethany asked, noticing Valerie’s duress.

“Dad’s leaving?” Valerie reported.

“What are you talking about?” Rebecca demanded.

But there was no way around it. By the time the three Sutton girls got to their feet and hurried over to the front door, their father was already in a cab and buzzing away. Esme stood at the glass door, her arms folded over her chest, watching him go. Her face was resigned.

“Mom? What was that?” Valerie demanded. “Where is he going?”

Esme looked surprised to see her daughters there at all. “He said he needed to help someone. A patient. He said something clicked, and he has to make a few calls.”

Valerie watched her mother’s face, wondering if she believed her father.

“Do you think it’s the truth?” Valerie asked.

Esme’s cheek flinched. “I have to believe he’s different than he used to be. I have to believe his heart is in the right place.”

Chapter Seventeen

December 2024

Meanwhile, Victor Sutton was in the back seat of a taxi cab, on the verge of a panic attack. All evening, he’d tried to keep it together. He’d focused on his breathing, laughed at his wife’s and daughters’ jokes, teased his grandchildren, and ate enough, or almost enough, picking at the last bites of food on his plate and only half remembering where he was. All the while, he hadn’t been able to escape the thoughts circling the back of his mind.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Catherine and her husband, Max.

He couldn’t fathom what kind of monster would do that to Catherine.

More than that, he needed to understand why Max had done it.

He knew all this wondering and needing to understand had something to do with himself, with his own story. A part of him wondered if, in tracking down Max, he could finally understandwhy he’d left his family and run off with Bree. His memories were so murky and heavy with grief. He needed somebody else to help him through. He needed somebody else to explain what it felt like in the moment to do something so cruel.

That somebody else, right now, was Max.

It wasn’t so difficult to figure out who Max Marrow was. In the summertime, he frequented Nantucket’s sailing club and therefore knew many of the same people Victor did, and because he was wealthy and well-connected in the Manhattan social sphere, Victor soon learned that he was probably spending this evening at one of four swanky night clubs: The Satellite, The Grand Jewel, Vixen, or Alabastor. Victor was prepared to dip in and out of those clubs all night, searching for him. But he didn’t really want to waste that kind of time.

Ultimately, he called his brother for help.

Aaron was resting after a beautiful dinner with his wife and their extended family. Victor could picture him on the phone, cozied up in his easy chair, his eyes half open. But Aaron had a pretty wild Manhattan history and had partied with everyone from the Rockefellers to the Fitzgeralds to the Roosevelts to the Kennedys. It meant he could pinpoint exactly where Max Marrow was tonight if he made a few phone calls.

He had sway, whereas Victor did not.

Victor spent no more than two minutes explaining the situation. “Right now, I have the taxi headed for The Grand Jewel, but I’m prepared to reroute him at any time,” he said.

“Does Esme know what you’re up to?” Aaron asked.

“I couldn’t tell her everything.”

Aaron groaned. Victor could see him kneading his forehead, trying to come up with a reason to help his brother. Finally, he said, “You promise you aren’t up to no good? You aren’t trying to, I don’t know, cheat on Esme or something? Because I will nothelp you destroy your relationship with her. I’m pulling for you. I’m pulling for all of you.”

Victor promised that he was all-in on Esme.

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