by Cate Holahan
“There’s Daddy now.”
I waved to them as Sophia bolted from her chair in his direction. He stretched out his arms, catching her shoulders before she could take him out at the knees. She gripped his hand and swung it, not noticing the woman beside her father. Tom touched his cousin’s arm and pointed to our table. They walked toward us, Sophia pulling her father forward.
I stood for the introductions, hand extended, a large smile on my face. I had to show Sophia that I liked this “Auntie” whom her father hadn’t bothered to mention in four years of marriage. As we shook, I pulled her in for a one-armed hug. “So nice to meet a member of Tom’s family,” I said.
Her eyelashes fluttered. Her smile appeared strained as she examined my face. She wasn’t practiced in handling awkward moments. “Yes.” She smiled at Tom. “He’s kept us away from each other.”
My husband looked down his nose at her, an older brother admonishing a fresh kid sister. “Well, you know, you were always so busy with school and we had the baby. And it wasn’t like we had a big wedding.”
“Justice of the peace and a couple coworkers,” I explained.
She giggled, a tinny sound. “No hard feelings at all. I totally get it. Shotgun weddings don’t leave much time to plan.”
How did she know I’d been pregnant before walking down the aisle? I shot Tom a hard look while maintaining my smile. He should know that I didn’t appreciate his sharing our business with near-strangers.
I walked around the table and touched my daughter’s shoulder. “Hey, honey, this is Auntie Eve, Daddy’s cousin.”
She cracked a shy smile. Sophia was not a timid kid, but all preschoolers treat new adults with an extra measure of caution. Eve responded with a cool “Hello.”
“Maybe we could all go to the carousel. What do you two think? Sophia loves it, and I’m sure she’d like to ride with Auntie Eve.”
Eve looked at Tom for approval. “Is that what you—”
“Sounds great,” he said. “Why don’t you two lead the way?”
I fished a couple carousel tokens from the change section of my purse and pressed them into Eve’s hand. Her fingers wrapped around them. Sophia grasped her fist. She walked forward, taking seriously the command to lead the way.
The merry-go-round beckoned at the end of the food court. The placement was ingenious, providing an obvious reward for parents to dangle so that their children ate something, thereby enabling the mommies and daddies to shop longer. As the menagerie rotated, it played “Pop Goes the Weasel” and other nursery songs. The music blasted through the cafeteria in two-minute spurts, shutting off for sixty seconds in between songs to allow kids to disembark.
Sophia skipped to the beat, jerking Eve’s stiff arm. Tom had hinted that Eve might not be good with children. She seemed particularly bad with our daughter. I took a deep breath and tried to convince myself that I was reading too much into her body language. She was just unsure, and young.
Tom hung behind with me. I reached for his hand, but he was too distracted watching our daughter. He looked straight ahead as he spoke. “I booked the trip.”
“When?”
“At Eve’s. I bought the tickets on her computer.”
“Just the flights?”
“The whole shebang.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Wasn’t cheap. It’s a good thing that you got all that unused leave. They don’t always do that.”
“Yeah,” I said, reaffirming my earlier lie that I’d received eight thousand from Derivative Capital for two weeks of work and three more weeks of unused sick and vacation pay. “How much is the trip?”
“The airline tickets were two hundred dollars each round trip—I couldn’t make any of the ninety-nine-dollar flights work with the ship schedules. The cruise is two hundred thirty dollars per person for two nights. All in, we’re at roughly a thousand dollars after taxes and fees.”
We still had about eight thousand left, given the seven left over from Michael and the grand in the savings in account. We could live on that for six months, as long as we didn’t need to pay rent anywhere. Fortunately, foreclosures took a long time.
Sophia and Eve reached the carousel. Tom’s cousin looked back at us, apparently for visual permission to enter the line with Sophia. My husband waved her forward. Sophia saw the signal and tugged her first-cousin-once-removed behind a mom with a young boy.
“Her favorite is the panda,” I called out.
Eve looked back at me puzzled. I pointed to a panda as it went around. There were only two of them on the carousel. Sophia preferred the one with the pink saddle, but either would do. To get one, they’d have to make a beeline for it. Lots of kids liked pandas. In my mind, whether Eve managed to get one was a test. Could she cater to our daughter for a few days?
Tom and I watched it play out. Eve and Sophia were four groups back from the front of the line. The first group went to the rocking chair. The second group took the unicorn right in front. A bunch of boys scattered. A younger boy took the panda with the purple saddle. Sophia pulled Eve around the carousel, hunting for the remaining panda. A minute later, the rest of the groups had boarded and they still wandered around.
“All aboard,” the conductor shouted. “Everyone choose your seat.”
“It’s there,” I heard Sophia shout from somewhere behind the carousel’s massive center column.
The merry-go-round began to turn. I waited for Sophia. When she came round, she was smiling atop the pink-saddled panda. Eve had passed my mental test. She’d try to make Sophia happy. What else could I really want from a last-minute babysitter?
Tom continued to watch our daughter and evaluate Eve. Was he as worried as I was?
“So we’re headed back home for dinner.”
“I need to bring her back.”
“I haven’t even gotten to talk to her,” I said.
Tom continued to watch the carousel go round. “Sophia will be fine.”
“But—”
“She has to get back. Roommate’s birthday. It was nice of her to agree to come out at all.”
“Sophia has barely got to spend any time with her.”
“They’ll be fine. Look, Sophia likes her.” He waved at our daughter, hugging the painted panda, Eve standing by her side. “I’ll bring Eve before our flight, so you can show her the lay of the land.”
“When are we leaving?”
“Friday.”
My vision swam. My gaze retreated from the carousel, unable to watch something spin as the ground shifted beneath my feet. Friday was just three days away.
29
November 30
Ryan sat in his car, two doors down from the Bacon house, waiting for the BMW parked in the driveway to leave. Three hours of breathing the stale air inside the vehicle had coated the car windows with condensation. For the fourth time, he cleared a visibility circle with his wool coat sleeve. He couldn’t miss the bimmer backing out of the driveway.
If, of course, Eve ever left. He was beginning to wonder whether Tom’s “friend” planned on sleeping over and at what point he’d have to call off his stakeout. He wanted to catch Eve alone. The girl would never confess any affair while Tom stood over her shoulder.
Ryan bounced his good leg to generate warmth, and for something to do. There was no one left to call—not tonight. He’d left the maid a message, and he’d done all he could with the cruise line contacts: setting up an interview with the Bacons’ mystery stateroom neighbor for tomorrow at a place called Fun by Design. The still nameless source had suggested the location, and Ryan had little choice but to agree to it, even though it sounded like a nudie bar. Whoever this guy was, he really didn’t want anyone seeing him.
Ryan had also tracked down the folks who had told the Bahamian authorities they’d seen Tom at the pool and left them voicemails. Three people had witnessed Tom on the sun deck. The redhead and two guys who remembered an attractive ginger chatting up “the guy on the news.” Ryan didn’t really want to hear them rep
eat their alibis for Mr. Bacon, but he had to check off the boxes, particularly with the financial crimes crew working Ana’s death as a homicide.
It might not be a complete waste of time. Anyone hired to kill Ana would have been monitoring Mr. and Mrs. Bacon’s movements on the ship. It was possible that the murderer had seen Tom on the pool deck and realized that Ana was alone in the room. And if that was the case, it was also conceivable that one of the people who’d noticed Tom would remember seeing someone else checking him out.
The exterior lights of the home flipped on. Ryan clasped the gearshift. The tiny blonde he’d glimpsed before exited a side door. He watched through his peephole as her headlights illuminated the space in front of where he’d parked, behind an overgrown hedge. He waited for Eve to get a hundred feet past the corner stop sign before peeling out behind her.
She made a right onto the main road through town. Ryan guessed she headed toward the highway. As predicted, the BMW led him to the Interstate. He tailed it over the George Washington Bridge and onto I-87 South, toward Queens, maintaining a one to two car-length distance, depending on the traffic.
After forty minutes of driving, the white car exited into Long Island City. Ryan followed, widening the gap between the Dodge and BMW to compensate for the relative lack of street traffic in the outer boroughs. Eve’s car passed a glass skyscraper before turning onto a block of two- and three-story brownstones. It slowed down the street, pausing beside a fire hydrant. She was looking for parking.
The car pulled close to the side of an unevenly spaced row of parked cars and angled into a space. Ryan passed Eve and then stopped his car half a block up in front of a townhouse driveway. A sign on a gate threatened to tow anyone who blocked the “egress.” The car was visible beyond the gate. It was already ten. Chances were the homeowner wouldn’t head out for the night. And if he had to grab his car out of the impound lot, so be it.
He watched Eve in his rearview. She crossed the street and then ascended the steps of a seven-story building. It looked new. Fancy. The kind of place with a doorman. Good. A concierge could call up to “Eve” with a description.
As soon as she went inside, Ryan counted to ten and exited his car. He entered the same building and wished the linebacker of a guard good evening in the cheeriest tone he could manage. “I’m here to see Eve,” he said. “So sorry, I forgot her apartment number.”
The doorman gave him a once over. He tapped his keyboard. “Eve Dreher? She expecting you?”
Was he being tested? He had no idea if Dreher was really Eve’s last name or something the doorman made up to see if this visitor was a stalker. His expression didn’t appear suspicious. “I think I just missed her. I’m a bit late.”
He glanced back at his computer screen. “She’s in 206.”
Ryan walked through to the elevator and hit the button for the second floor. He exited into a wide hallway with gray carpet and cream, grass-cloth wallpaper. Eve’s apartment was the second on the right. He rapped twice on the door.
A voice called from inside. The door opened a crack, exposing half of the blonde’s face to the hallway. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you here for Bethany? Cause she’s out.”
Ryan guessed the other name belonged to a roommate. “No, actually, I was hoping to talk to you.” He spoke fast, trying to get through the whole introduction before Eve’s stranger-danger sensors told her to shut the door. She showed a bit more of her face as he supplied his name, title, and the details of the case. “Tom mentioned that you were helping with Sophia and were a family friend.”
The door pulled back. “You have to verify that I watched Sophia when they went away or something?”
Close up, Ryan could appreciate Eve’s appeal. She looked like the cheerleader in high school that everyone wanted to date.
“Yes. I do,” he said.
She invited him inside as though he were from the gas company. Check the meter, make it snappy. There was no offer of water or to sit down.
Ryan entered into a tiny living room. Half of the space had been cordoned off with one of those temporary plasterboard walls that single people in New York erected in order to take in illegal roommates. A loveseat, which mimicked a full-fledged couch in the small room, flanked a furry ottoman. A bar-height counter in the kitchen overlooked the main living area. Eve made her way behind the counter. Ryan leaned on the other side.
“So you are helping Tom take care of Sophia?”
“Yeah. I love kids.” She nodded like a bobblehead. “And Sophia is such a sweetheart.”
“How is Sophia doing?”
Eve tilted her hand in a what-you-gonna-do manner. “Well, I mean, she’s constantly asking for her mama.” She mocked the little girl. “‘Is mama comin’, Auntie Eve? Can you get her? Can you take her to me?’ I’ve explained she’s dead. Tom has. But she just refuses to accept it. Will what you want, right?”
“Poor girl,” Ryan said.
“Yeah. Sure.” Eve shrugged. “But hey, she’s young. In a year or two, she might not even remember her mother. I barely remember mine.”
The comment was odd for a family friend. “How do you know Tom and Ana?”
“I’m a recruiter. I met Tom through work.”
Statistics flashed in Ryan’s mind. Though only 36 percent of affairs were with coworkers, more than 60 percent of extramarital relationships started at work. About a third of these “work-related” affairs were with people met at the office, like a recruiter. Ryan reminded himself not to jump to conclusions. Eve had not spent the night at Tom’s house, after all.
“And you said you watched Sophia while Ana and Tom were away? You guys must be close.”
“Well, there wasn’t anyone else. Tom’s folks are dead.” She snorted. “Ana’s parents might as well be given that they’re in Brazil and have zero to do with Sophia.”
“Didn’t Ana have friends?”
“Guess not.” Eve glanced around the kitchen, as if debating whether to offer him anything, or looking for an exit. Ryan made it easy on her. “May I have a glass of water?”
She filled a glass beneath the kitchen faucet and handed it to Ryan with an expression that warned against becoming comfortable. He took a long sip. “So you and Tom are just friends or . . .”
“Yup, just friends.” She smiled. No teeth showed. “More like a cousin. I just really feel bad for him, you know? He was always good to me when he worked. He’d hire people I suggested or, at the very least, agree to interview them—often only as a favor to me. I wanted to return the kindness.”
She glanced at the door, undoubtedly wishing she hadn’t let a private investigator into her home. “You should really hurry up and give Tom the policy. Things will be much better when he can hire a team of people to take care of Sophia. That way he can really concentrate on grieving and moving on.”
Ryan put the glass down. She immediately scooped it up and placed it in the sink. “So you have everything you need, then.”
It was more of a statement than a question. Ryan fished his phone from his pocket. He opened the photo that Dina had sent him the prior day and slid the screen across the breakfast bar. “Do you know this woman?”
Eve picked up the phone. Her face changed from guarded to aghast. “Who is this?”
“Apparently another family friend. I was hoping you might know her and how to get in touch with her.”
Eve tried to zoom in on the image. She cursed under her breath.
“You sure you don’t recognize her?” Ryan asked. “Tom’s neighbor says she works for a wine store. She thinks they might have been having an affair.”
Eve shook her head and pushed the phone across the counter. Ryan nudged it back in her direction. “No. No, no, no.” She grabbed her arms and rocked back and forth a bit, on the verge of having a fit. “No. He wasn’t seeing her.”
“Because he loved Ana?”
Eve glanced again at the screen waiting on the counter. Ryan repeated his question.
“Yeah. Ana.” Sh
e pressed her fingers over her eyelids. “No way he was sleeping with this bimbo.”
“You’re sure you don’t know her?”
“I don’t know her!” She turned and strode to the door. “I’ve answered your questions.”
Ryan pressed Eve for her number on the way out while giving her his card. She hesitated before supplying her cell with an eye roll that indicated she wouldn’t pick up. That was fine. He knew what buttons to push for her to call back.
After the door shut, he lingered for a moment, listening. He only heard the hiss of the heating system. New construction codes and noise ordinances ruined eavesdropping.
He had a feeling that Eve was phoning Tom.
30
August 28
The ocean spread out below the balcony, an opaque blue, darker than the blackout curtains in Sophia’s room. I couldn’t see through to the depths beneath. I couldn’t see beyond it. The sea was infinite. Like death.
I covered the thought with a mental stream of positivity. I would survive this. I was a strong swimmer. The balcony was on the fourth floor, extreme sport height. I had studied how to jump. Cliff divers had a system. First, they leapt straight out, ski jump style: hands pressed to sides, toes pointed. After that, they arched their backs, enabling gravity to pull their bodies straight. They always entered feet first. Finally, they extended their arms to keep from falling too deep.
Once I resurfaced, the ship’s motion would push me from the boat. Swimmers often avoided large vessels, fearing they would be sucked under. But the phobia wasn’t warranted. Cruise ships displaced so much water that a nearby floater was more likely to be sent miles away—or so said an article I’d read at the library. The waves cresting away from the boat’s sides toward the horizon confirmed my research.
