Page 121 of All These Beautiful Strangers
Inside the envelope with no return address were the photographs. Pictures of me and Peter at Hal’s Diner off the interstate, a place I’d carefully chosen because I knew no one would see us there. Only, I was wrong. Someone had seen us. Or rather, someone had been following us. And not only had they caught us together, but they knew. They knew about the case that I was trying to build against them. They knew that I had those pictures that placed them with Jake on the night of his death.
After my conversation with Margot, I realized I didn’t have enough concrete evidence to turn to the police and start making accusations. So, I’d called Peter and enlisted his help. I’d reconnected with Peter at the beginning of the summer when he’d come out to the house to take some photographs for a workers’ comp claim he was investigating that involved one of our landscapers. It was a pleasant surprise to see him—I hadn’t seen Peter since high school. We’d been on the swim team together. He’d been a shy but inquisitive kid, the kind who observed more than he ever let on, so it didn’t surprise me that he’d chosen a career that involved solving puzzles for a living. We’d spoken about his line of work. He’d told me he had studied criminal justice in college and had his private investigator license, that he was planning to start his own investigation firm and was beginning to take on his own cases. When I realized I couldn’t turn to Alistair for answers, Peter was the first person I called.
But Margot must have told someone about the photographs I’d shown her. I wondered which one of them was following me, or if it was more than one. Threats weren’t really Margot’s thing. She’d been so forthcoming, so fearless, at the restaurant. But I knew some of the others were capable of it—thinly veiled threats aimed not just at me, but at my children.
Because the pictures weren’t just of me and Peter. They were of Charlotte and Seraphina. And on the very last one, a close-up of Charlotte, there was a word written on the back: STOP.
When I got that letter, I called my mother to come over to watch the girls while I went out. I told her I was going to the gym. I dressed in workout shorts and tennis shoes, an empty duffel bag thrown over my shoulder. I went to the bank instead. I emptied out our safety-deposit boxes. Alistair had cash stowed away in a dozen different safety-deposit boxes at half a dozen banks. He called it our rainy-day fund. In case of an emergency, he said. But now, this would be my rainy-day fund. Mine, and Seraphina and Charlotte’s. We would get out of there, and we wouldn’t look back.
By the time I returned to the house, it was early evening. My mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway, but Alistair’s was.
“Hello?” I called when I opened the front door.
“There you are,” he said.
I turned to see Alistair standing in the living room, a glass of scotch in his hand.
My heart skipped a nervous beat in my chest when I saw him. I readjusted the strap of my gym bag on my shoulder. It was heavy now, full of money, and the strap cut into my skin.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, calm, as I closed the door behind me. He usually came to the lake house on weekends; it was only Wednesday. I tried to give him a smile but my face felt stiff. “Where are the girls?” I asked.
“I sent them home with your mother for a little sleepover,” he said. “I told Alice we needed some time together, since I’ve been working so much. She didn’t seem to mind.”
Something hard dropped into the pit of my stomach. I’d have to spend the entire night in this house alone with Alistair?
“That was nice of her,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed. “I don’t have anything ready for dinner, but maybe we can go out? I just need to shower.”
I headed for the stairs up to our bedroom, a quick escape, but no sooner was my foot on the first step than he stopped me.
“Grace.”
I paused, my foot frozen on the step.
“Come here,” he said.
He knows about the money.
I didn’t know how he could possibly know, but he did. I could hear it in his voice.
I half turned to face him, my foot still on the step.
He doesn’t know, I told myself. Just be calm. Make an excuse. Get upstairs. And hide it.
“Yes?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Come. Here,” he repeated. “I’m not going to ask again.”
I readjusted the strap of my gym bag on my shoulder and walked over to him, trying to hold his steady gaze.
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He can’t know. How could he know?
I stopped in front of him, so close he could reach out and grab the duffel if he wanted to. I placed a protective hand on top of it.
“Do you really think we’re not going to talk about what you’ve done?” he asked. “That we’re just going to pretend like nothing happened?”
I could smell the alcohol on his breath. I saw the darkness in his eyes—the way the light went out of them. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
The Alistair I knew was softhearted and sweet-tempered. True, we had grown aloof and distant from one another in recent years, but he was a kind and gentle father to our daughters—the man who kissed the skinned palm of Charlotte’s hand when she fell off her bicycle, the man who sang “Splish Splash” to Seraphina at tub time, to her infinite delight and amusement. But I knew others saw a different side of him. He was a wolf in the boardroom; he had teeth, a formidable bite that outranked his bark. I felt it in the way others reacted when he came into a room—the stiffening in their shoulders, the slight intake of breath before they spoke, the subservient way they nodded their heads as he talked—as if they were steeling themselves for the onslaught. Now, for the first time in our marriage, I saw Alistair the way others must have seen him. And it terrified me.
