“Cassie,” he said.
“Yeah. So what are the odds, d’you think,” Lily went on, “that the son of the detective who put my sister in witness protection just happens to be the same guy you hired to spy on my daughter?”
From far away, a car horn honked. Both of them went silent, waiting. But no car came around the corner. The neighborhood was in afternoon limbo, too early for rush hour or the dismissal of school. No kids playing, or delivery trucks grumbling by. It was as if the whole neighborhood was holding its breath.
Sam shook his head. “But that’s not how it worked, Lil. Lily.” He took one step closer. “Listen. I didn’t go hire him. Banning came to me.”
CHAPTER 60
GREER
I felt like a kidnapper, there was no other way to put it. If some thuggy cop had pulled up alongside us on Watertown Street, lights flashing and siren keening, I would not have been surprised. No, Officer, this child strapped into the back seat of my Audi is not my daughter, I’d admit. No, I don’t have her mother’s permission to have her with me. Yes, I am doing it at the instruction of someone else.
At least there’d be no one to miss me while I spent the rest of my life behind bars.
“It’s like a snow day with no snow, right, Greer?” Rowen’s ponytail sported her usual penguin ribbon, and she held a glossy book about Antarctica on her lap. She’d buzzed her back window up and down as we drove.
“Like a snow day with no snow. It sure is,” I lied. Lying to a seven-year-old, that’s as classy as it comes. This was Lily’s fault, though, and if I hadn’t been trying so hard to protect her, I would never have agreed to this. I was, like, committing a Class A felony so she wouldn’t be humiliated and canceled by her murderous sister. Nice reality, perfect Lily. I hoped she wasn’t ruining mine as I was trying to save hers. And sure, save my job and reputation, too.
“What happened to Petra’s car?” I was making conversation now, how civilized of me, watching Rowen through the rearview mirror. But in the back of my mind was the potential collision that was in progress. If Sam Prescott was at Banning’s house, and Banning had seen Lily in his driveway, then either Banning had to get Prescott out of there, or we’d be witnessing a confrontation worthy of a soap opera. We lurched over the patched asphalt of the stone-sided Watertown Bridge. It was bad enough—
“Ducks! Look!” Rowen crowed, pointing to the Charles River. “And a man is fishing. Think you could catch a duck? And Petra’s car had a broken thing.” She shrugged. “The tow truck came.”
“Interesting,” I said, using my all-purpose filler word for when I was thinking about something else. It was bad enough that Banning had strong-armed me into bringing Sam Prescott’s daughter to see him—though I still felt sorry for him—but then Banning had amped the consequences to make me the victim. Me! That not only would Lily—and I—be trashed by the publicity surrounding the notorious Cassie, but I would face devastating consequences when Lily discovered my betrayal.
Just one happy family. But in the end, and in the beginning, it was Lily’s fault. I wasn’t the one with the slutty life-baggage.
“So your mom will meet us at a friend’s house,” I said as we drove closer, “and then you and your mom can spend the rest of the day together. Maybe you can ask her to take you to see the ducks.”
“Ducks and ice cream,” Rowen said.
“You drive a hard bargain, Rowey.” I offered her an over-the-shoulder smile I didn’t feel. But Banning was waiting at the house on the corner. He’d seen Lily in the driveway. He knew Rowen and I were on the way. Why hadn’t he called to stop me?
Lily in the driveway.
We stopped at a red light, and Rowen buzzed down her window. A waft of spring air washed into the car, fragrant of green and damp earth. Outside on the river, ducks quacked in insistent conversation; and a fisherman, all floppy hip waders and short-sleeved shirt, sloshed farther into the water.
Lily in the driveway.
If she knew I was bringing Rowen there to meet with Prescott, it meant she was there waiting. For me. Like a sitting duck in a shooting gallery. Once we arrived, there’d be no way to explain it.
CHAPTER 61
LILY
“Banning came to you? Is that how detectives work?” Lily squinted at Sam as if trying to squeeze some logic out of what he had just told her. “What did he say? Maybe, ‘Hello, sir, just inquiring at random if there’s any detectivey thing I can do for you’? Please. Spare me.”
Sam leaned against the chassis of Lily’s car, almost at the headlights, his legs out in front of him, showing battered cordovan loafers with no socks. “Nice to see you, too,” he said. “Been a while.”
“Come on, Sam. Just tell me the deal.”
Sam shifted position, steadying himself on the white hood of the car. “He called me. In Denver. He said he had information that Rowen might be in danger.”
“What?” Her voice went up, fueled by fear and panic. “Danger of—”
“Lil. Hang on. He said your career was in trouble, and asked if we’d kept in touch, and if I knew where your sister was. He said Cassie was about to come out of witness protection, that she was hell-bent on blackmailing you. That she was dealing drugs, had murdered someone, and was about to ruin your life. With something that had to do with Rowen. He said if I cared about you, about Rowen, that I should come get my daughter and take her far away. He told me if I knew where Cassie was, or thought you knew, I should tell him. And that he’d help you deal with Cassie.”
Lily’s chest twisted with the possibility that might be true—she’d worried about that, a version of it, herself. The dark side of Cassie’s return. The destructive side. Ridiculous of her, as she let this looming disaster sink in, that she’d allowed herself even one vision of a happy ending.
“Why didn’t he talk to me, then?” That was the question. “Mightn’t that have been easier? His father was the cop who sent Cassie away. Seems like I’m the one he should’ve come to.”
“Honey—” He clamped his lips together. “Sorry. Lily. But he did come to you. And to answer your question, I don’t have any idea. All I heard was that Rowen might be in danger, and you, and what else could I do?”
“What does your new wife think of that?” Lily asked it, her tone arch and unnecessary, before she could stop herself. Standing here in someone’s driveway, in the middle of suburbia, she almost couldn’t decide if she was fighting for fighting’s sake. Or if she really wanted to know.
“My wife—Isabel—wants me to be happy. I told you that when I called that time. She’s great, we’re fine, but she knows how I feel about Rowen and about your decisions. We all made choices back then, Lil. But she says now, this one is between you and me. She’ll be happy if I’m happy.”
Happy, Lily thought. That word again. As if that were a word that had meaning these days. Now she had an impossible choice.
She had signaled Cassie to meet her. Which might have been the worst thing she had ever done. Now she had to decide whether to stay and face Cassie—no matter what was about to happen—or leave to protect Rowen.
“Danger from what? I need to go get Rowen at school. But I can’t because—wait. So why are you here?”
“I might ask you the same thing.” Sam looked at his watch.
The one she gave him, Lily saw. So many years ago. Without engraving, without connection, without evidence. But she recognized the chunky metal band, still sitting perfectly against his wrist.
“You’re waiting for someone.” Lily scanned the second-floor windows of the house behind her. Empty, not a flutter of a curtain, or motion of a shadow. A cat, went through her mind. There was no damn cat. “Who?”
“It’s almost two.” Sam lifted his arm, and the watch crystal flashed in the sun. “Yeah. I always liked it.”
“Sam,” Lily said. There was no way out of this. “Listen. Cassie is on the way, and she’ll be here any minute. But I have to go get Rowen. What if what Banning told you is right? What if Cas
sie is planning to—”
“I’ll be here, too,” Sam said. “With you. We’ll handle it together.”
The rumble of a car engine murmured into the silence between them. Lily moved to the center of the driveway where she could see both ways. Sam stepped beside her. There’d be no way for her to recognize Cassie’s car, but she imagined it’d be moving slowly, trolling for the white house on the corner. She’d see Lily before Lily saw her.
“That’s an Audi,” Sam said. “Does Cassie have an Audi?”
“No idea,” Lily said. The car came closer. Lily took a step toward the street, and then another. “Kidding me?”
Sam joined her. “What?”
The car came closer. Slowed. Slowed even more.
The back seat passenger window buzzed down. A thin, white-shirted arm waved out of it at them, followed by a smiling face and a flutter of penguin ribbons.
“Mumma!” Rowen called out. “I see you!”
CHAPTER 62
GREER
I’m not sure what choice words would have come out of my mouth if Rowen hadn’t been in the seat behind me.
And I’m also not sure what I thought I could delay by driving more slowly, because the endgame was staring me in the face, and there was no way to escape it. Like an “at home with the stars” photo from a glossy magazine: the tousle-haired Lily, wearing sleek black pants and a black blazer, standing with the craggy Sam Prescott, in blue jeans and a plaid shirt. Standing side by side. Clearly waiting. For us.
“Mumma!” Rowen’s voice, joyful and innocent, made it all the more horrific. Yes, she had her handwritten note from the headmistress, but I didn’t have much faith in its persuasive power. And the inescapable fact that Lily’s loathed Sam Prescott was standing right next to her meant my days were numbered. Even if he hadn’t told her what happened, Rowen would recognize him, and no amount of zigging and zagging could cook up a reason why Prescott was at this house. My “coincidence” story was shot to freaking smithereens, and so was the rest of my life.
It crossed my mind to gun the engine, and bat-out-of-hell it away, but that would probably be kidnapping. Literally, federal offense kidnapping. Even more than it already was. I hadn’t participated in concocting Banning’s plan, but I was part of it. And a reporter and a lawyer were witnessing it.
Banning. Where was he anyway? He’d clearly been here when he called—he said Lily was in the driveway. And that he’d get rid of her before we got there. Or take care of her. Or whatever he’d said. That obviously hadn’t happened. I was on death row right now, the only way to describe it. And no way to avoid the consequences.
Rowen unclicked her seat belt, and had clambered out almost before I’d pushed off the ignition. Again, it was tempting to slam it into drive and head for the hills. But it wasn’t as if I could disappear. Unlike Cassie, I had no detective to help me. I would stick with the headmistress story, I decided. Banning would back me up, and the headmistress would, too. Last thing she’d want would be for Lily to get wind that she’d been paid off. Maybe Maryrose Glover and I could run off together, all Thelma and Louise.
“Mumma! Look, Aunt Greer, it’s Jabberwocky man!” Rowen ran to Lily for a hug, and now her ponytail whipped back and forth as she looked at each of us. I stayed as far from them as I could. “Mumma, this is the man who—is he a friend of yours, too? How come you didn’t tell me? And why is he here now? Does he live here? Remember me?” She held out her hand for him to shake it. “I’m Rowen. We met yesterday. At the—”
“I know, honey.” Lily’s voice was as measured as I’d ever heard. She looked me square in the eye, with the same expression I’d seen so many times when she had trapped a white-collar bad guy in his lying tracks. Stronger folks than I had collapsed under its laser focus. “I know all about it. All. About. It.”
She blinked twice. “Why do you have my daughter now?” she asked me. “If I may be so bold.”
“There was a thing at Graydon,” I began the agreed-upon explanation. “Your phone didn’t work, the headmistress said, and Petra was at the car place, and my name is next on the contacts list.”
“Right,” Lily said. “The headmistress.”
“Of course I remember you,” Sam was saying. He’d crouched next to Rowen, and they were now almost eye to emerald eye. I’d always thought she was a miniature Lily, but seeing them together, she was as much Sam Prescott as she was Lily Atwood. “My name is Sam.”
“Sam. Do you know my mother?” Rowen, infinitely polite in social situations.
“I do,” Sam said. “In fact—”
“Mr. Prescott and I are old friends,” Lily said. As if she were providing lines in a script. “And we haven’t seen each other for years. Many years. He lives very far away. We—”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say,” Sam said. He stood, eye to eye with Lily now. “I’ll be leaving town soon, though. And probably won’t be back.”
I could watch them, communicating. Understanding each other. As if I were invisible. I wondered how much Sam had told her. Not that it mattered; toast was toast. I also wondered where Banning was. Why he hadn’t come out to join in the fun party. Coward.
“Good,” Lily replied. “Rowen and I will say goodbye, then. Rowey? Say goodbye to Mr. Prescott.”
Lily’s phone buzzed in her hand. A text. She looked at it, a puzzled expression on her face. She pushed at the screen several times as if there might be more. Cassie, I predicted. Oh. Was Cassie on the way?
“Where’s Banning?” I asked Sam. After all, Rowen thought we were pals, and Lily probably wondered the same thing. Might as well do her research for her yet again.
“Doing some errand, he told me,” he said. “He’s been gone a couple of hours. Three, at least. He should be back any minute.”
“No.” I shook my head. “But he was here, like, an hour ago. He called me to say he’d seen Lily in the drive—” Oh, crap. I stopped. I was on death row, and giving myself the lethal injection.
“I called him to tell him she was here,” he said. “Surprised me, too.”
“Greer?” Lily had put her arm around Rowen, drawing her closer. She was still staring at her phone. “I’m going to need your car keys.”
I reached into the zipper pocket of my bag, then stopped. She was taking my keys? “For what?”
“Sam, I need you to…” She took a deep breath, and I saw something change, a decision, or a moment of clarity, I had no way to decode it. “If you’ll do me a favor, I need you to take Rowen and do something fun for a while. Would you like that, Rowen?”
So Lily was going to kill me, here in Banning’s driveway, and she was getting rid of the witnesses. Probably not, but that’s what it felt like.
“Yes, please!” Rowen’s face glowed with delight. “If it’s fine with you, Sam, and it’s fine with Mumma. We’re having a snow day without the snow. That means we can do a fun thing. Sam, do you like ducks?”
“Ducks are the best,” Sam said. “Can’t wait to see them. Lily?”
“That sounds perfect. If you can give me and Greer about an hour, we have one thing to clear up. But you two should go have fun.”
I handed over the key fob. “GPS Watertown Street,” I said. Fun. Ducks. Lily sending her daughter off with her hated ex-lover. I was in the Twilight Zone. “You’ll see the Charles River.”
“Rowen knows my phone number, Sam,” Lily was saying. “Don’t you, Rowey?”
“It’s 617…” She recited Lily’s number.
“Good, sweetheart. Now, Mr. Prescott is a very trusted friend, Rowen, so you take good care of him, okay? And Sam? Thank you.”
Sam clicked open the doors of my car. I was about to be stranded here, with an enraged Lily and an enraged Banning—whenever he showed up—and who knew what else.
“Sam?” Lily called after him.
He and Rowen were halfway to the car. Sam stopped, turned, looked at her.
“We’ll deal with … the rest of it later, you know?” she said.<
br />
“Together,” he said.
“Together,” Lily said.
CHAPTER 63
LILY
Lily watched her daughter walk away with her father, a duo she’d never imagined she’d see. The engine of Greer’s car purred into life. Rowen, strapped into the back seat, waved as the car pulled away, and Lily felt as if the invisible string connecting them was being stretched to its limits. But knowing what she knew now—Cassie on the way—it was her only choice to get her daughter to safety.
Banning had lied to them all from moment one, she now knew. That story he’d told Sam about Cassie’s motives—it might be true, and it might not be. Either way, he’d lied to one of them. Or maybe even to both of them. She could only imagine what he’d said to Greer. Standing here in the sunshine, the poor woman looked like she was about to faint with humiliation. As well she should. But at least Greer wasn’t about to ruin her life, the way Cassie might be planning to.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me, Greer?” Lily tried to keep the fury out of her voice, facing the woman she’d worked with for almost two years, and who she now realized she hardly knew. “Hardly knew” was how Lily liked to keep it with work colleagues. Maybe, with Greer, she should have dug a little deeper for the stuff they don’t include on résumés. Like honor.
“I’m so sorry, Lily.” Greer nudged a loose clump of dirt at the edge of the lawn with the toe of a black running shoe. As always, she wore jeans and some random tee, today with a thin black blazer. “I can explain, if you’d let me.”
“All ears,” Lily said. Two fifteen now. Cassie was late. Either she had misjudged the traffic—from where, Lily didn’t know—or was lost, or wasn’t coming. What happened next would dictate the rest of Lily’s life. The tightrope of her career, the publicity and the spotlight, and the daily, even hourly knowledge that everyone was always looking at her, judging her. It was the life she’d chosen, she knew that. The volatile life of a “public figure,” as the lawyers called her. The “talent,” as she was in television. #PerfectLily on social media. And once that crashed into smithereens, all the king’s horses would be, as always, worthless.
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