The Better Sister

by Alafair Burke

  The moment sat in the air. His hand felt warm against my skin. I honestly don’t believe I’d ever thought about the possibility before then, but it was there now. I waited for him to say more. To do more, but he went back to fiddling with the castle he was building.

  “The last thing I need right now is to grovel for a date,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just leave the empty chair next to me and let my friends nominate potential candidates.”

  He showed up at my apartment at six o’clock, because after a year in New York, he knew no one ever started a party before six. He had a gift box from Williams Sonoma. It was the platter I wanted, even though I’d never told him that part.

  Nothing happened that night, but we were definitely different than we were before. He wasn’t Nicky’s ex, or Ethan’s dad. He was there for me. It was like we had a pact. It was going to happen. It was inevitable.

  5

  When my eyes opened the morning after the gala, I saw the crystal typewriter with my name etched into it, next to a tumbler of water and a container of melatonin from Vitamin Shoppe. Last night, I had won a prize. Before I registered anything else, I recognized Adam’s scent, a mix of grocery store soap and something like salt. My right leg was hitched over his thigh, and my face was pressed against his chest. I felt a dribble of spit as I lifted my head.

  Adam was already awake. He was holding an iPad above his face, reading the news. The image on his screen was a photograph of me standing next to Darren Pinker.

  “Hey, I know that lady,” I said, planting a peck on his sternum.

  He tilted the screen in my direction. “Should I be jealous?”

  Apparently Darren, the honorary gala host, and I had landed a spot on the front page of the New York Times’ Arts section.

  “Pretty boy’s not my type,” I said, stretching my arms above my head.

  “Sweet of you to say, but he’d be exactly your type if he ran for president. First Lady Chloe? Can you imagine?” I felt his chest sway slightly as he sang an old Nas song that featured Lauryn Hill. “‘If I ruled the world, I’d rule all of the things.’”

  “You know those aren’t the words, right?” I thought I detected an edge to his compliments. I had always been successful in my field, but in the past year, I had been on a professional elevator that seemed to be missing a down button. On the heels of the #ThemToo series, I had signed a multimillion-dollar publishing deal for two books: a behind-the-scenes detailing of the series, plus a memoir-slash-advice-for-the-savvy-career-woman kind of thing. My general profile had risen, too. I’d been stopped for autographs more than once, and even had a GIF on Twitter from when I danced with Ellen. Apparently people were surprised that I had “money moves.”

  With the big shifts in my career, Adam and I were now one of the roughly 25 percent of heterosexual married couples in which the woman outearned the man. I wish I could say we followed all the advice we’d published in Eve—“healthy steps” for couples when the “traditional financial script gets flipped.” Maintaining the balance of the marriage, both emotionally and practically. Adjusting the roles each person plays in the relationship as necessary. And most of all, communicating openly about the dynamics that inevitably change when money threatens masculinity. If we took one of those questionnaires that were so popular with readers, our score would be in the red zone: danger.

  The one time I confronted him about the prospect that he might resent my success—just the month before—he had been vehement in his denial, insisting that he was “insulted” that I’d even raised the possibility.

  To Adam’s credit, I was certain that any bitterness he held was subconscious and not even related to money. He had never been one to chase riches or keep up with the Joneses. When he graduated from law school, he probably could have landed a job at a decent-sized firm in Cleveland, earning a six-figure salary, but he wanted to be a prosecutor. Being on the side of justice was part of Adam’s identity. He told me once that it was his way of assuring himself he was nothing like his father, who had gone to prison a few times, but not for the crimes he was committing against his own wife and son when he wasn’t locked up.

  After I introduced Adam to the head of the criminal division of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York—who was dating the head of publicity at City Woman when I was on the editorial staff—he went from being a county prosecutor to being an assistant US attorney for the most prestigious federal prosecutors’ office in the country. His Ohio State education and rough-and-tumble county-court trial experience stood him apart from the former appellate court clerks whose office walls were lined with degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford. But Adam quickly earned a reputation for bringing a gut instinct to his cases, intuiting precisely how jurors would react to certain facts. And he was absolutely fearless in the courtroom.

  It had been nearly three years since his last big win at trial . . . as a prosecutor, at least. The chief had encouraged him to take a plea on a human trafficking case against a supposed nail salon owner who had been using his chain of shops as a cover for horrific abuses against the scores of young immigrant women he employed. Adam convinced his boss to let him take the case to trial, where he prevailed. The defendant was sentenced to thirty-seven years, meaning he’d likely die in prison.

  The New York Times had published a front-page article using the case to expose a pattern of abuse that was often just beneath a couple coats of polish on a discount mani-pedi. As I reread the article while drifting in and out of sleep, I told him again how proud I was of him. The way I remembered it, he pulled me into the crook of his arm and said something about those kinds of cases making it all worthwhile. He asked me whether it bothered me that he was still working for a government salary, when many of his colleagues had upgraded their lifestyles in the private sector.

  And the way I remember it, I told him that of course I wasn’t bothered. I said something like, “I mean, you could always do the partnership thing at a big law firm if you wanted to, but you love your job. It’s what you do.”

  My response was “so Chloe,” he said. When I asked him why, he quoted my words back to me. “‘You can always do the partnership thing,’ like it’s a given. And of course it would be for you . . . if you were a lawyer, because you’re Chloe. I love it that you have that kind of faith in me.” I remember he kissed me, in a sweet way, not sexy. On top of my head.

  I told him it wasn’t about faith. It was simply a fact. I said he was the best lawyer in the Southern District, which made him one of the best lawyers in the world. I told him that any law firm would be thrilled to have him.

  And then he told me all the reasons it would never be that simple, because the world wasn’t as fair as I thought it was. That, with my prodding, he may have talked his way into the US Attorney’s Office by pulling at a hiring committee’s guilt about always hiring from the same pedigree pool, but he’d never be good enough for the white-shoe law firm crowd. “They let guys like me do the public service work. We don’t get to be partners in big law.”

  Not wanting to hear him run himself down that way, I said something like, “Wanna bet? Just make a few calls.” And the next day, I made one of the calls for him—to my friend and lawyer, Bill Braddock.

  That’s the way I remembered it happening, at least.

  I hadn’t realized until the month before—when I finally asked Adam if he felt any resentment about the way my career was blowing up—that he recalled the conversation and what happened afterward differently. He had never been the one who cared about money, he reminded me. It was me who had pressured him to leave a job he had loved, all “to fit some idea of who your husband is supposed to be.”

  He had “sold out to the man,” as he called it, by joining Rives & Braddock. And he hated it. Every day, I could see how much he hated answering to a client. He wanted to be one of the good guys again. But instead, he hated his job, and he blamed me for it. And despite the compromise he had made, I still managed to earn more money than he d
id.

  Now, as I lifted my leg from Adam’s thigh and prepared to slip out of bed, I replayed that history in the face of Adam’s comment about my wanting to be first lady. The last thing I wanted was to start another round of backhanded resentment bingo.

  “I don’t think we need another celebrity running for president, thank you very much. On another note, thank you again for making it in time for my speech. It wouldn’t have been the same without you there.”

  “I think I nearly gave the driver a stroke on the way in from JFK, bird-dogging for any empty pockets on the LIE.” I always teased Adam that he drove like a bank robber. “Hopefully the tip I gave him will keep him from destroying my Uber rating.”

  “Speaking of the LIE,” I said, “what time do you think you can leave today?”

  We hadn’t been to the house in East Hampton for three full weeks, and the weather forecast looked glorious—almost as warm as summer, without the post–Memorial Day crowds. I even had our pool opened early for the occasion.

  “Bad news. Part of the reason I was able to make it last night was that the Gentry people decided we had more work to do and decided to stay over another day. I have to go back to their hotel in an hour. I’ll just get a car from there when I free up, and you and Ethan can head out without me.”

  “What’s up with them staying near the airport? I got the impression these were high roller clients.”

  We had met Gentry’s in-house counsel and his wife at a summer garden party four years earlier. After Adam made the transition from the US Attorney’s Office to law firm life and was being pressured to bring in additional clients of his own, I cajoled him to join me when I flew to London for a publishing conference. Once he agreed, I pulled up the wife’s contact information and scheduled a dinner. It was a big deal at Rives & Braddock when Adam announced he was pulling some of Gentry’s business into the firm. The law firm press release that followed described the London-based Gentry Group as a “global powerhouse” in the industry, energy, and health-care sectors.

  “Maybe they want to be able to fly out to a nonextraditing country in case of emergency.”

  I searched his face for some kind of a smile as I crawled out of bed, but found none. He didn’t even bother to hide his disdain for his job and his clients anymore.

  I pulled off the Blondie T-shirt that had doubled as last night’s pajamas. “I’ll send your regrets to Catherine?”

  It hadn’t been enough for Catherine to give that gracious introduction at last night’s gala. She was also hosting a little party at her house in Sag Harbor to get some of the old gang from City Woman back together for a celebration.

  Now Adam was smiling. He had the best smile—sweet but a tiny bit naughty. “I wouldn’t exactly call it regrets.” Catherine was a little too much for Adam to handle. She was too much for most people.

  I was tugging a sports bra over my head when he pulled me toward the bed and kissed me above my belly button. “I’ve got an hour.”

  I glanced at the clock. “I don’t. Pilates. If I miss it, Jenny charges me.”

  “That woman’s a Nazi.”

  “And my abs love her for it,” I said, giving him a quick kiss on the lips before yanking on my workout tights. “I’ll see you tonight. And tell those Gentry people to pay for a proper car for you.”

  That was the last time I saw my husband alive. At least, that’s what I told the police, but I could tell they didn’t believe me.

  6

  I had no idea how long I had been at the police station. It could have been twenty minutes or three hours. It was as if time had stopped the moment I found Adam, his legs splayed unnaturally, his heather-gray T-shirt and white jersey pajama bottoms soaked with blood.

  I answered every question they asked, even as my mind was fighting to accept the reality that Adam was gone, and I had no idea what life would look like without him. Then I answered them again and again, doing my best not to appear impatient or defensive.

  And I could tell they didn’t believe me.

  I hadn’t caught the name of every person I’d spoken to, but I had the detectives straight. Bowen and Guidry. B and G, like boy and girl. Bowen was male; Guidry was female. It’s how I remembered.

  Bowen, the guy, said, “We need to call his mother.” He was tall and slender, with dark, wavy hair and angular features. His skin was pasty.

  I could only imagine the look I gave him. A photographer from Cornell’s alumni magazine once told me that my natural expression made me seem “intimidating and inaccessible.” I wore my friendliest smile as I responded that I had no problem with either of those impressions.

  But now I wasn’t posing for a picture. I was in a windowless room with cinder-block walls and blue linoleum floors and a door that probably used to be white—a door that I heard lock behind us after I followed the two detectives into the room. I noticed a camera hanging from the corner of the ceiling and wondered if it was on.

  I wasn’t stupid, after all. The last thing I’d ever been was stupid. Despite the kind gestures—the bottled water, the coffee, the offer to help with any calls that needed to be made—I knew the police had a job to do. And testing me was part of it.

  As I walked them through every horrible step—driving home from Catherine’s party, slipping keys in the door to enter a dark, silent house, finding the bedroom empty, and then circling back to the living room, seeing Adam there, on the floor, with so much blood—another part of my brain was somewhere else entirely. My words were all about that night, but the movie playing on a screen in my head was The Story of Adam and Chloe. Seeing him at the mall when I was a little kid. Meeting him again when he picked up Nicky. The first time he had called me, instead of Mom, when there was a problem. The move to New York. Playing on the floor of his apartment with little Ethan. The first forbidden kiss. Our feet in the sand as we exchanged rings at sunset on Main Beach. I could see all of it, vividly in bright, intense Technicolor.

  The divided halves of my brain finally reconciled when an image of my hand checking Adam’s neck for a pulse managed to break through. I remembered thinking at the time that it was the same spot on his neck that I would press my cheek against when he was on top, making love to me. I could still feel his blood, dried and crusty on my black jersey jumpsuit. I could still taste the vomit that had finally come as a police officer walked me across the lawn to his car after the ambulance departed.

  “Would someone have expected you and your husband to be at your house tonight?” Detective Guidry asked. She had long ash-blond hair, tied into a messy knot that seemed too playful for her profession. “We get a lot of break-ins at the part-time properties. People assume they’re empty.”

  I shrugged. How was I supposed to know what a burglar would expect? “We come out every two or three weekends off-season. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. No real schedule.”

  I felt them judging me. They had to, right? They’d seen the house. Not huge, compared to other homes on the block, but surely more luxurious than what police were used to. And here I was, admitting how rarely we used the place beyond the summer months.

  “Flip side of the coin,” Bowen said. “Did anyone know for certain that you and your husband would be there?”

  “I told you before: I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill Adam.”

  Bowen told me he understood, but then asked the question again anyway.

  “I guess. I mean, I told my assistant when I left a little early today that I was trying to beat traffic. A friend wanted to have brunch in the city on Sunday, but I told her we’d be out here. And the people at the party I was at tonight—I told them that Adam was on his way out, so they might have assumed the house was empty. But obviously they were all at the party with me, and none of them would do something like—” I couldn’t bring myself to use the words to accurately describe what was happening.

  “You told your friends he was ‘on his way,’ but wasn’t he actually already at your house fairly early on during the party?” Guid
ry’s expression was blank, but the tone of her voice made it clear she thought she’d caught me in some kind of lie.

  “Easier on my friends’ feelings than explaining he wasn’t exactly a fan of their company.” I managed a dry smile, but neither detective seemed to appreciate the humor.

  “It’s just a little unusual for one half of a couple to attend a party while the other one’s home,” Guidry said. “The two of you weren’t arguing or something like that?”

  “You can check our texts if you’d like.” I reached into my purse for my cell, pulled up our most recent exchange of messages, and placed the phone in front of her. She glanced down at it.

  7:02 pm

  Heading to Catherine’s soon. ETA?

  7:58 pm

  Sorry, fell asleep in the car. Driver actually had to wake me up! Finally here though. Having fun? Where’s Ethan?

  8:12 pm

  Went to movies with Kevin. Told him he could spend the night, so you’re solo. And, yes, fun here. Bill is telling that story about hooking up with a stranger at Studio 54 before finally realizing it was . . .

  8:13 pm

  Has anyone guessed right yet?

  8:14 pm

  Everyone here has heard it before. I give it three more tries before someone finally says the name.

  And BOOM, there it is. Better go. Catherine’s glaring at my phone. Think she’s about to herd us into the dining room. Not too late to join;-)

  8:16 pm

  Um, yeah, no. Plus ZZZZ. Pro tip: Water down Catherine’s vino when she’s not looking.

  8:17 pm