How to Kill Your Best Friend

by Lexie Elliott

  And mothers are always careful. There’s a plan A, B, C—and the rest of the alphabet, too, if need be. What mother ever says, I don’t know what to do? It’s not permitted; your children cannot be allowed to see such uncertainty in their bedrock. Their little worlds couldn’t withstand such an earthquake.

  I dry myself and find a dress to wear. It’s tempting to dispense with hair and makeup, but that will be noticed. So I go through my normal routine: attempting to tame my frizz as much as I can before the humidity can have its way with it; attempting to lengthen my lashes and widen my eyes even though it will all end up wiped on a beach towel long before the day is out. But it’s all armor now—the armor of normality. Someone has been planning an elaborate framing. I have a different plan.

  And my plan starts with Duncan, who sits in neither oval, and who is too clearheaded and clear-eyed and, frankly, too rich to be part of whatever is going on here. Should I force myself to go to breakfast first, or would I be expected to check in on Jem at his villa first? Jem, I think, on balance. And Duncan might well still be there, too, anyway, given he apparently passed out on the sofa. Perhaps I can get on Jem’s computer again. Kill two birds with one stone.

  Well. Not kill.

  * * *

  —

  There’s music playing as I approach Jem’s villa, something gritty and streetwise that I don’t recognize; not my cup of tea, though it’s exactly the sort of thing that Duncan professes to love—as if his deep knowledge of hard-core hip-hop and his black wife might suddenly make him look less like the kind of middle-aged white guy who would leap onto the dance floor for Livin’ On a Prayer. Anyway, the door is ajar, which is how Jem habitually leaves it—he makes a point of telling all the staff that he literally has an open-door policy, and they can come to him on anything. If I was Lissa, that would have annoyed me; shouldn’t your home be your private sanctuary?

  “Knock knock,” I call as I push open the door to be faced by Lissa: someone has rested the photo from the memorial on the table in the hallway, obscuring the photos that I know lie behind of both of Lissa’s weddings (though none from Jem’s first marriage, seeing as it ended in divorce). Up close there’s both too little detail and too much: I can see separate strands of hair, yet there’s no shape to the color variations. It’s the sort of photo that needs a certain distance to resolve itself.

  “In here,” calls a voice over the music, which I now realize is in French. Jem’s choice, then, presumably, though the voice is not Jem’s. It’s Duncan, sounding as if he smoked a thousand cigarettes last night. Which he may have done—well, not a thousand, but he’s partial to a naughty cigarette or four when he’s drinking. I follow his voice to the lounge. He’s in last night’s clothes, sitting hunched forward on the sofa, his elbows on his knees, cradling a cup of coffee, though there’s a glass of water on the table in front of him, too. He looks up as I enter. “Morning, Bron,” he says blearily.

  “You look rough.”

  “I feel rough. I don’t do this enough anymore; no tolerance.” I stop myself from making the obvious point that increasing the frequency of his drinking is not the solution. He contemplates his coffee again. I look around. The curtains are open on the wide wall of glass, exposing the view over the entire resort. The computer in the corner sits quiet and dark.

  “Where’s Jem?”

  “In the shower.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Surprisingly so. Unlike me.” Duncan grimaces. “Though actually, maybe he’s still drunk.”

  “Does he know about Georgie yet?”

  Duncan looks up from his coffee, his thick, sandy brows aloft. He doesn’t know yet, either, I realize. So I give my secondhand account, and Duncan, being Duncan—even hungover Duncan—asks forensic questions that I can’t answer, which make me realize how little I asked last night. Jem comes to join us partway through my account, his hair still wet from the shower and unshaven, and I have to start again.

  “Jesus,” says Jem when I’ve finished. He’s wearing his usual clothing, a white linen shirt and tailored shorts, but he’s not his usual self. The jawline he’s rubbing is unshaven; his eyes are bloodshot. And he seems smaller, somehow. “I’d better call Steve.”

  “Can you put me on the computer again first?” I ask quickly. “I’ll do some more digging.”

  “Yeah. You know, I’ve been thinking,” he says over his shoulder as we cross to the desk. “Since it wasn’t me, it must have been Cristina. I guess she thought she was about to be found out when I asked Duncan to go through the budgets with her. That must be why she left.” Ever the gentleman, he pulls out the chair for me, then shakes his head slightly. “Though I wouldn’t have believed it of her.”

  I look up at him, at the hollows lying behind his eyes, and put my hand on his arm. “Jem, it’s going to be okay.”

  He finds a smile, but it’s his practiced manager smile. “I know. Thanks, Bron.” He pats my hand. “Right, let’s get you logged on.”

  He gestures to the chair, and I sit in it obediently. He will be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like that to him right now. People like him always are. Women want to sleep with him, and men want to be him; it’s a gift in life. Even now, I’m conscious of how close he is as he leans over to open up all the right applications. I’m conscious of the hint of alcohol still on his breath, of the smell of his lemon shower gel, and something else underneath, something that’s just him. It’s not that I want to sleep with him—I’ve learned my lesson on that score. It’s just that in another lifetime, in another universe, some world in which Rob and Kitty and Jack never came to be—in that universe, I know that I would.

  Jem leaves me to it, and I start my hunting: methodically, carefully scanning for any other payments that look awry while simultaneously waiting for an opportunity to speak to Duncan alone. But Jem switches off the music and makes his phone call to Steve in the living room, and a couple more calls after that, too. Duncan stretches out on the sofa with his eyes closed, his head on one of the arms and his bare feet extended out over the other. I check first of all whether there are any payments that have been instructed and not yet paid, in case there’s more thievery waiting silently to be enacted, but nothing. There’s nothing particular of note about the payments that have been made, either; certainly there’s no way of telling who exactly instructed them. Then I concentrate on the numbers, flicking between the different systems to follow the flows and find the patterns. Once you have the measure of that, whatever doesn’t fit sticks out, even if you don’t know why. Just like how you can know a word is spelled wrong, even if you’re not familiar with the word itself. The minutes stretch out with Jem murmuring quietly in the background.

  “Have you eaten breakfast?” asks Jem, suddenly behind me. I hadn’t heard him approach.

  I shake my head, then look at my watch. “Haven’t we missed it?”

  “Yes. But I can do something here. Scrambled eggs on toast okay?”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  He turns and shakes the prone Duncan by the toe, causing him to murmur sleepily in protest. “Duncan, eggs?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Yes. Please.” He sits up and yawns widely, then glances over at me. “Have you found anything? It must have been Cristina, right?”

  So he’s the one who has been putting that thought in Jem’s mind. Jem is in the kitchen now, safely out of range. “It’s not Cristina.”

  “Well, you don’t know—”

  “Duncan, it’s not Cristina.” I spin on the chair and pull myself over by the heels toward where he sits on the sofa, the casters rolling easily across the smooth wooden floor. I’m careful how I pitch my voice. I don’t want Jem to come in and think we’re whispering about something, but equally I don’t want him to hear me. “I’ve traced the money. I know where it was moved to.”

  “Wha
t? Where?” He’s awake enough to be careful with his own volume.

  “My children’s Child Trust Fund accounts.” He looks at me blankly for a moment. “You know, the government-backed tax-free scheme? The money is legally blocked in there until they’re eighteen. And Cristina wouldn’t have had a clue what those account numbers were. I doubt she even knew I have children.”

  His mouth falls agape, but his brain is working. “You’re sure?” I nod. “I take it you didn’t move the money yourself,” he says, though it’s barely a question. It sounds more as if he’s talking to himself.

  “Of course not! I’m being framed.”

  “Yes. Yes.” He’s nodding seriously; he’d already reached that conclusion. “Okay. Right.” He looks round the room as if taking inventory of the contents. “I don’t get the impression that anyone other than Jem and Cristina had access to the business systems.”

  “And Lissa. At least, I think she did.”

  His eyes meet mine sharply. “Lissa?” He glances around the room again, though this time I think he’s checking whether anyone can see or hear us. “Yes, Lissa had access, too. Jem said she was much better on that side of things than he was.” He taps his teeth thoughtfully with a thumbnail, before focusing on me again. “It wouldn’t be Jem,” he says positively. “And Cristina makes no sense, even if she somehow had those account numbers. But . . . Lissa makes no sense, either. I mean, why would she have wanted to frame you?” He looks at me, perplexed, and I put every ounce of my being into trying to look similarly bewildered, but he suddenly says, his mouth twisting, “Oh God, Bron. Tell me you didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Tell me you didn’t sleep with Jem.”

  “No!” I’m able to be suitably outraged only because of my surprise at the speed at which he reached that (erroneous) conclusion; my own hypocrisy hasn’t escaped me. “Of course not, I—”

  But I can’t say anything else because someone is calling hello from the front door. I spin away from Duncan such that when Adam enters the living room, I’m back in front of the computer and Duncan is on the sofa, picking up his coffee mug from the table.

  I twist in the chair. “Morning, Adam.” I look behind him, but no Georgie.

  “Morning,” Duncan says, putting the mug down again. The coffee must be cold by now anyway. “I’ve just heard what happened. How’s Georgie?” He’s taking it for granted that Adam would know. I suppose they must have talked about his relationship with Georgie, insofar as men ever talk. “Freaked out?”

  “Well. She’s Georgie,” says Adam wryly, with a small shrug. “I don’t know that I’d go quite that far.” Duncan chuckles a little, and I smile, too, but it’s forced. Everything I do is forced, second-guessed before I do it. “She’s certainly stiff and sore, though.”

  “What was she doing at Kanu Cove?”

  “I don’t know,” he says uneasily. For once I can read his emotions clearly: anxiety. “She seems a little obsessed by it. Which is not exactly healthy for someone like Georgie . . .” Someone like Georgie? I don’t understand. But he’s already changing gears. “Steve has arranged for the chief of police to come over. There wasn’t much point last night; the attacker had already scarpered.”

  “That won’t look good for the guests,” I comment.

  Adam shrugs again. “We’re the only guests left now.” We look at one another in silence for a moment. It’s inescapable. The hotel is done for. Nobody says it, but we all know it. Should I say it, though, given I’m supposed to be unflinchingly blunt? Is my silence uncharacteristic? But Adam is speaking again. “How is he?” he asks Duncan.

  “Resigned, I think. He knows he needs to take some time to regroup.” He runs both hands through his hair. “He’s going to have to speak to the staff. He’s arranged a meeting with them all later.” Silence falls between us again.

  “Where is Georgie anyway?” I ask Adam, after a respectful interval.

  “Swimming,” he says. My mouth opens in shock. “In the pool, not the sea,” he says quickly, forestalling my alarm. “No kids to dodge and no head-up breaststrokers to annoy. She thought it might help her loosen off.”

  “The holy grail of a pool to yourself,” Duncan says lightly. “See, there’s always a silver lining.”

  Not just an empty pool. An empty resort, too. And no need for staff in an empty resort. I look out through the glass wall, at the tropical idyll it displays, so perfect that it almost seems fake. The cloudless blue of the sky, the vibrant greens of the sun-drenched leaves wafting in a gentle breeze. The short lawn in front drops steeply away, and the foliage that lies beyond is so dense that it obscures most of each of the villas, even though we’re at the highest vantage point of the entire resort. I expect there’s quite a program of maintenance to keep the vegetation from running rampant. I wonder how long it will be before it invades the paths and gardens and the villas themselves. I wonder how long it will be before there’s barely a trace of the resort to be seen.

  * * *

  —

  It’s much, much later before I can find a moment alone with Duncan. We all hang out at Jem’s villa until the middle of the afternoon, fortified by Jem’s (surprisingly good) eggs on toast; I don’t know why I had thought he wouldn’t be able to cook. After all, Rob is a very good cook—though he does tend to use absolutely every pot, dish and utensil in the kitchen and is apparently physically incapable of cleaning up afterward. Georgie makes an entrance after a bit, moving stiffly, but certainly easier than last night, and with a much larger bandage over her knee. I work on the computer for a bit longer, but if there’s something to find, I’m not up to the job—which, without blowing my own trumpet, means it’s overwhelmingly likely there’s actually nothing to find: this is what I do—what I did—and I am very, very good at it. But all the patterns I see make sense: a downward spiral of swirling clouds of figures circling a drain to be spat out into the waiting mouths of the suppliers, the staff, the insurance, the taxes, the booking system fees . . . the list is almost endless, but it’s a completely normal list for a business like this. The only abnormalities are the payments I’ve already discovered. The payments that are sitting in my children’s accounts.

  The others have moved outside to the pool area, and there’s nothing much more I can do on the computer, so I join them, feeling restless and uncomfortable, as if this indolence is wrong, as if there is something I ought to be doing, but what? Nothing springs to mind. I’m careful to stay in the shade—my skin won’t thank me for any more sun—but even in the shade the heat is relentless today. I take regular dips in the water to cool off and pretend to read my book, a no-thought-required airport thriller, even though I can’t concentrate for more than a line or two, and I keep a watchful eye on Duncan for any chance to continue our conversation. But the opportunity doesn’t present itself: Duncan is largely comatose facedown on a sun lounger. Jem is not much different. Georgie applies sunscreen liberally and stretches herself out to soak up the sun, catlike and separate behind her enormous dark glasses. Adam watches Georgie’s application of the sunscreen, his face inscrutably blank, then takes a book from Jem’s shelves and settles down to read in the shade beside me. I’m conscious that he’s making much better progress than I am with his reading.

  Midafternoon, Adam suggests a late lunch, and Jem telephones ahead to warn the main restaurant, an unspoken admission that things aren’t quite running as they should be.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Georgie. She’s shrugged herself into a complicated kaftan thing that seems to float as she walks, though the effect is marred by a purpling bruise on her shoulder roughly the same size and shape as the marks a bag strap would leave, and she’s moving much more stiffly than when she arrived. “Did you do too much in the pool earlier?” She grimaces; as much of an acknowledgment as she’s prepared to give. “Maybe swim with a pull buoy next time?” With a pull buoy between her legs, helping to
keep them afloat, she could drag them and use her arms only.

  “I didn’t bring one.”

  “Jem,” I call. “You must have a pull buoy Georgie can borrow?”

  “For sure,” he says disinterestedly. “Go raid the cupboard by the pool; that’s where everything swimming-related is kept.” He waves a vague hand toward a cupboard with a louvered door.

  “You should grab it now,” I suggest, simultaneously willing Jem to nip into his bedroom to pick up something, anything, so that I can have a few minutes with Duncan. But she shakes her head and says she’ll pick it up later, and Jem appears in need of absolutely nothing, so I have no choice but to join the others in ambling en masse along the path, adjusting our pace for Georgie. As we reach the fork in the road that leads to my villa, inspiration strikes. “I’ll catch up to you; I just need to pick up some sunscreen.” I glance at Duncan, and he picks up the baton seamlessly. “I’ll walk you,” he says. “After the thing with Georgie, it will make me feel better.”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” insists Jem.

  “Do you know how many security guards are working today?” This is Georgie. It’s not said maliciously, but Jem’s face darkens mutinously. I’m only seeing small flashes of it, but Adam is right: there’s a very real enmity toward her brewing inside Jem.

  “We’ll see you at the restaurant,” Duncan says, and we peel off, Duncan falling in step beside me. Neither of us says anything until we’re out of earshot. Then Duncan starts, as if there hasn’t been an hours-long gap in our conversation. “So. Transferring the money specifically to those accounts smacks of revenge. But it doesn’t make sense; it doesn’t seem like Lissa had a reason to want revenge.”

  “I know.” I don’t look at him, focusing on the path instead. If he had asked me directly about Graeme, what I would have done? Would I have owned up? I don’t think so: I told myself long ago that I wouldn’t fall foul of that. You shouldn’t entrust your friends with that kind of toxic secret; it’s like giving a child an ice cream and telling them not to lick it. It’s just setting them up for failure.