by Greg Herren
My cheeks burned. Did everyone know about the goddamned angel costume?
“I don’t suppose you ever found my gold medal,” he went on. “I really need to find it.”
“I asked Carlo about it, and he said Timothy was buried with it.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I should have let you know. But—”
“You didn’t want to rock the boat with your precious hubby.” He mocked me. “It’s okay, I’m very well aware of how Carlo feels about me. He doesn’t hide his feelings very well. He must be a terrible poker player.” He peered at me. “Like you. You might be fooling everyone else at this party, but you’re not fooling me. You’re miserable.”
“That’s none of your business.” I stood up.
“So Carlo said Timothy was buried with the medal, interesting.” He tapped his chin with his index finger. “He wasn’t wearing it when his body washed ashore…”
“So? That doesn’t mean he wasn’t buried in it.”
“I had a chat with the funeral home. Timothy wasn’t buried with any jewelry. And there’s something else rather curious about the body that was buried—the autopsy showed he had broken his arm as a child.”
“So?”
“I knew Timothy his entire life—and he never broke a bone. We grew up together, remember? His family lived down the street from mine. I would know.”
A chill went up my spine. “What are you trying to say?”
“The body that was buried in Timothy’s grave wasn’t Timothy.”
I stood up. “You’re crazy. Are you saying he’s still alive? That’s impossible.”
“Maybe Timothy got tired of being in an abusive relationship, and faking his own death was the only way he could think of to get away from Carlo.”
“What you’re saying is Carlo identified the wrong body? Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he would do that if he killed Timothy and got rid of the body, and staged the whole little scene at the beach.”
I heard Nell saying, Someone took the boat out that night.
I walked to the door, but he grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away from him but he was too strong. He shoved me up against the door and pushed his body up against me, getting body paint on my clothes. I struggled against him. “Let me go!”
He pressed his lips to mine, but I turned my head and finally brought my knee up between his legs. With a loud noise, he let go of me and staggered backward, dropping finally down to my knees. “If you ever touch me again like that I will kill you,” I seethed.
“Your…husband…isn’t…the…man…you…think…he…is,” he gasped out, pulling himself up to his feet again.
I opened the door just as Carlo was reaching for the doorknob. He took one look at me, at the paint on my clothes, and then back at Taylor Hudson. His lip curled.
Without a word, he turned and walked away.
I closed the door to the studio behind me.
I went up to my room and changed my clothes yet again, and came back to the party to try to find Carlo. I wandered through the crowds of costumed people and didn’t see him anywhere. I couldn’t seem to find Frank or Joyce, either—until the party started winding down and the guests started leaving.
“Have you seen Carlo?” I asked Joyce when I finally found her.
“Not in hours,” she replied. “I’m so exhausted.”
“Everyone’s gone,” Frank said as he entered the den.
“We need to talk, Mouse, but I’m just too tired now.” Joyce shook her head. “Come on, Frank, let’s go up to bed.”
They left me alone in the den.
I went upstairs and undressed.
I climbed into my bed, and Minette cuddled up to me.
I hoped I’d be able to sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Despite the ease with which I fell asleep, I didn’t sleep well—which wasn’t really a surprise since I dreaded the coming of the morning.
It seemed like most of the night was spent in that horrible kind of half sleep where you’re asleep yet still very aware—every tick of the clock, every wave on the shore, every time Minette moaned or groaned in her sleep and moved. And when I would finally fall into a deep sleep, I had the most horrible dreams. I’d wake up, panting and sweating, and sit up in the bed as the dream and the terror it evoked slowly faded from my memory. Minette would open her eyes and look at me, thump the bed with her tail a few times, and then close her eyes with a sigh and go back to sleep. I would lie back down, staring at the ceiling for a few moments before closing my eyes and drifting back into that horrible state that provided no rest for my exhausted body and mind.
The sun was starting to come up, my bedroom getting lighter, when the utter exhaustion finally overcame my tension and stress, enabling me to fall finally into a deep dreamless sleep.
My eyes opened again at just before ten, and I was wide awake. I didn’t feel the least bit rested but knew I wasn’t going to fall back asleep. I burrowed in deeper under the covers. The bed was so comfortable, and every muscle in my body was tired. My eyes were also tired and burned a little. I closed my eyes and rolled over onto my side. I just wanted to stay in bed—it certainly was preferable to facing the day I had in front of me.
I could just stay in my room, I reasoned, keeping my eyes firmly closed. No one would think anything of it, and I’d be able to put everything off till tomorrow. I can deal with it better then—I can’t face everyone and everything this morning when I haven’t slept well.
I knew it was cowardly, but if my marriage was indeed over, damaged beyond repair, couldn’t facing that be put off for yet another day? What would it hurt? I liked the idea of simply hiding out in my room. I could more easily figure out how to deal with Carson’s hideous betrayal with the extra time. I could more easily decide what to do about my marriage. Wasn’t it, after all, better to let emotions cool and talk to Carlo about everything with a cooler head, rather than with my emotions out of control?
The more I thought about it, the better it sounded.
Unfortunately, Minette started whimpering and licking my face, her tail thumping hopefully against the bed. I knew far too well what that meant. No matter how much I wanted to stay in bed and hide, it wasn’t going to happen—Minette would need to be walked, and it was my responsibility. I couldn’t punish her because I was too much of a coward to leave my room. I hugged her and she kept licking my face, whimpering and trying to comfort me. “No matter what happens, Minette,” I whispered to her, “you’re coming with me.”
I got up and pulled on my robe before walking over to the balcony doors and pulling the curtains open. It was gray outside, the sun hidden behind what looked like a ceiling of cotton balls. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the glass for a moment as I relived some of the horror of the previous night, the horrible gossiping women I’d overheard, the outright nastiness of that Midge Huntley woman. Surely, Carlo could be made to understand that I hadn’t arranged to meet with that awful Taylor Hudson in the studio. My cheeks burned with embarrassment as I remembered the look on his face as he stood there in the doorway, that horrible body paint from Taylor smeared all over the front of my suit. I gave the pile of clothing I’d tossed aside last night as I undressed a look when I walked into the bathroom. I winced at the sight of the betraying paint on the front of my jacket.
Surely Carlo knows I would never betray him like that, I thought as I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked horrible. My eyes were red from lack of sleep, and there were dark purplish circles beneath them that looked like bruises. My hair was standing up in every direction in that weirdly fashionable way that a lot of men spent hours with gels and sprays trying to achieve. My mouth was dry, and it felt like fur had grown on my teeth overnight. I gave myself a tired, crooked smile and yawned as I turned on the spigots and reached for my toothbrush. As I brushed my teeth, scraping off the fur, I wondered why no one had bothered to wake me up. It was way past time for breakfast, after all, but maybe that was how things we
re the morning after the Independence Ball. It had been around three when the last guests had left, so maybe the Spindrift tradition of breakfast at seven had been suspended. I rinsed out my mouth and washed my face thoroughly, scrubbing away and getting the crud out of the corners of my eyes. I peered at my reflection and noticed an angry-looking enormous pimple forming on my chin that I hadn’t noticed before. I put my brush under the faucet before running it through my hair, and the wetness managed to flatten my hair into something reasonably presentable. I still looked like I hadn’t slept well, but at least it was an improvement. I threw on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and retrieved Minette’s leash, which excited her.
I knelt down to clip the leash to her collar. “You really have to go, don’t you?” I whispered to her. “I’m sorry I’m such a bad daddy.”
I opened the door and she ran out ahead of me into the hallway. As I followed her, I felt strangely intimidated by the size of the hallway. I’d always been aware it was enormous, but this particular morning it felt huge and empty and cold, as though the house itself were rejecting me as I walked, the sound of my moccasins slapping against the marble floor seeming to echo in the weird silence. How could I have ever thought I could be happy in this enormous mausoleum of a house?, I asked myself, the marble statuary in the little alcoves staring at me with their empty eyes as I walked past them, the vibrant colors of the oil paintings seeming to mock my stupidity. I had never belonged here, and never could have.
“We’re going to stop in the kitchen for some coffee,” I said to Minette as we walked down the grand staircase.
There was a lot of activity on the first floor—the cleaning service we used had apparently hired extra help. Furniture was being dusted, the rugs were being vacuumed, the exposed floors being mopped and polished. Minette ignored them as we walked past, her held regally high as we made our way down to the kitchen.
The kitchen was in chaos. Every sink was piled high with dishes and pots and pans, and enormous plastic bags of trash were piled into a corner, their ties pulled tight against the bulging contents within. Delia looked tired and out of sorts as she stood at the big island in the middle of the room, seasoning an enormous cut of meat—a roast of some sort. She looked up from what she was doing and scowled at me.
“Just want some coffee,” I said with a smile, pouring myself an enormous mug while maintaining a strong hold on Minette’s leash. The scent of the meat on the island was driving her mad with hunger and curiosity—and Delia relented, smiling at her and slicing off a tiny piece, which she gobbled down quickly. “Come along, Minette,” I said, giving her leash a slight tug, and reluctantly Minette turned her attention away from Delia. I opened the back door and we stepped out onto the back gallery.
It was muggy outside—damp and clammy. The ocean breeze, usually so cool and refreshing, felt like a hot wet cloth being slapped over my face and body. A mist was also rolling in off the ocean, and in the distance it looked like a thick wall of fog was hanging over the water. Everywhere I looked, uniformed workers were busy cleaning up the mess from the party. I nodded and smiled at them politely as Minette and I passed by them. I wondered how long they’d been at work—the yard was still in ruins; I could only imagine how it must have looked before they started. Enormous plastic bags of trash were being piled against the hedge between Spindrift and Nell’s estate. One of the crew was fishing trash out of the swimming pool with an enormous net, and it occurred to me that we’d probably have to have it drained and scrubbed. The worker was a Latino, and looked vaguely familiar to me when he looked over at me and smiled—he was young, perhaps my age, and rather handsome with strong white teeth and cinnamon skin. I nodded in response to his smile, but Minette and I kept walking. She was pulling at the leash, and I heard barking from the other side of the hedge. She clearly wanted to go romp with Hetty and Charlie, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Nell just yet—she would be full of questions about the party, and God only knew what she’d been hearing about the party all morning long.
No, I could deal with her later.
As we walked through the damp grass, stopping every now and then for Minette to sniff around a bit and relieve herself, I shivered a little. Nell could be put off, but Carson and Carlo could not. I had to confront Carson about his duplicity and cruelty—even if today wound up being my last day at Spindrift. There was undoubtedly nothing to be gained from it other than my own satisfaction, but it had to be done. And after I was finished with Carson, I had to sit down with Carlo and pick through the wreckage of our marriage.
Last night I hadn’t believed there was anything left worth saving—particularly after that terrible little scene at the studio.
The memory made me wince. Surely Carlo didn’t think—he couldn’t possibly think—that I was interested in that awful Taylor Hudson?
The coffee was chasing the dust out of my mind, and I felt my confidence starting to grow. Carlo knew what kind of person Taylor was, so he would believe me when I told him what really happened. I would also explain about the costume and apologize to him.
The truth was I didn’t want to leave him. I loved him. I’d loved him almost from that very first day when Valerie had flagged him down and made him sit with us in that café. He was so kind to me, and had made me feel special. I’d never felt like that before—I’d never felt like that in my life. I wanted to get that feeling back, and while it had seemed so impossible last night, now, in the light of a new day, it seemed not only possible but probable. All it would take was a little work. I wanted to get that feeling back, the feeling we’d had in Miami and Manhattan, after we first met and fell in love and lived together, gotten married. It was possible, I was certain of it.
No, I didn’t want to give up on my marriage—I wanted it to work. I was willing to do whatever it took to make it work.
But the only way it could work, the only way we could move forward, was if we were honest with each other.
And that meant talking about Timothy, no matter how painful it was. The only way Carlo could finally heal was to open up to me about his previous marriage. And no matter how much it hurt, no matter how little I wanted to hear about how much Carlo had loved Timothy, I had to listen. I had to listen and understand, and be comforting, and put my own feelings aside.
It was the only way to move on.
I heard Taylor Hudson’s voice sneering his nasty accusations again, and quickly pushed them aside.
I didn’t care what Taylor Hudson thought—I refused to believe Carlo had killed Timothy. He wouldn’t have done such a thing—and he wasn’t that kind of a person. It was far easier to believe that Taylor had killed him. They’d fought the day before in a public place, they’d been sleeping together, and the very day after Timothy disappeared he’d left the country and stayed gone for over a year.
That didn’t sound like the behavior of someone who loved Timothy. It was actually rather suspicious, frankly.
And what was the deal with his obsession with that gold medal?
But the accusation that Carlo had deliberately identified the wrong body concerned me. If it was indeed true—and I’d seen the autopsy report, and it did say that Timothy had broken his arm when he was young—why would he have done so?
It could have simply been a mistake, I thought. He was distraught and the body had been in the water for over a week. It would have been an easy mistake to make—his stress and heartbreak and agony, and then having to look at a body that had been in the water for so long, that the fish had been at—it would have been incredibly traumatizing, and a mistake could easily have been made under those circumstances.
It should be easy enough to find out whether Timothy had ever broken his arm. I couldn’t just take someone like Taylor Hudson’s word for it.
I stopped walking, and Minette looked up at me, her face clearly expressing her puzzlement at my abrupt stop.
If Carlo hadn’t identified the body, they would have tried to identify it by other means—dental records, bone br
eaks—things like that. But once he positively identified the body as Timothy, they wouldn’t have looked any more.
So if the body hadn’t been Timothy’s, whose was it?
Someone else who’d disappeared around the same time, obviously.
I could do an Internet search and find out.
My head was starting to hurt as I walked the dog back toward the house. The mist was clearing and it was getting hotter. The Latino who’d been fishing things out of the pool was helping with one of the tents and had taken off his shirt—and I stopped short.
He was one of Timothy’s models—that’s where I’ve seen him before.
He smiled when he caught me looking at him, and winked suggestively. I looked away and started walking quickly back to the house.
I ran into Olivia when we reached the upstairs hallway. I asked her to bring some toast, fruit, and a pot of coffee up to my rooms.
Once safely back in my room, I took a long, hot shower. I felt much better once I was finished, and the confidence that began growing when I was walking the dog was now even stronger. This wasn’t going to be my last day at Spindrift, everything was going to work out.
I was examining my clothes when Olivia knocked on the door. Once she’d set down my breakfast tray on my desk, I asked her if the clothes could be cleaned.
“Well, sir, it looks like greasepaint,” she said, examining them critically. “You never can be sure, so I’ll send them out to be dry-cleaned, sir, and we can hope for the best.” She was leaving the room when Joyce almost knocked her down on her way in.
“That coffee smells heavenly—Olivia, would you be a dear and bring me a cup?” she asked with a large yawn. She sat down on the bed. “I’m exhausted,” she said as she helped herself to a piece of toast from my tray and slathered strawberry preserves on it. “I don’t know why I always forget I can’t sleep in a bed other than my own. But I just couldn’t face the drive home last night. Frank of course is snoring away like there’s no tomorrow.”
