by Leigh, Tara
Chapter 46
Florida
Wealthy New York Financier and Philanthropist Tucker Stockton was reported missing earlier this week. He and his wife, Poppy Stockton, were exploring the Florida Keys on a leased yacht. The captain grew concerned when the couple, who were celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, didn’t return from an intimate jaunt using a smaller vessel.
Mrs. Stockton was found unconscious, with a head wound and other unspecified injuries, and was immediately transported to the Lower Keys Medical Center. Mr. Stockton, twenty-nine, has not been found.
The couple met at Worthington University as freshmen, marrying less than two years after their graduation. By all accounts, their marriage is a happy one, and Mr. Stockton is extremely successful and well respected among his Wall Street peers.
The U.S. Coast Guard, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, and the Marine Enforcement Unit are searching for Stockton, and a forensics team is scouring both vessels for any evidence of foul play. Police have labeled his disappearance as “suspicious” but are not ruling anything out at this early stage in their investigation.
The police seized my phone as part of their forensic examination. I gave my password to Detective Diaz without hesitation, although if they expect to learn much, they will be disappointed. A few pictures. To do lists. Emails, most of them mass mailings from retail stores or online shopping sites. Contact information for Tucker, Wren, my mother, and sister. Doctors. My dentist. My therapist. A few other people I haven’t reached out to in months, if not longer.
They won’t find any of Gavin’s messages. He stopped leaving them after that afternoon in my apartment, the week before my wedding. And at Tucker’s insistence, because I refused to drag my iPad with me wherever I went, I switched to an iPhone when I became pregnant so we could FaceTime while he was traveling. I lost everything from Gavin in the process.
Since Sadie walked in on me talking to Gavin, she’s been at my bedside practically around the clock, which unfortunately means he hasn’t. I used Sadie’s phone to speak briefly with our mother, who lives in northern Maine now, courtesy of Tucker. She’d relapsed, again, a couple of years ago and after another long stint in rehab, Tucker discovered a place, a commune really, that believed in living off the land and avoiding all chemicals and additives, including caffeine, alcohol, and drugs. It works for her, and allowed Sadie to leave Sackett and move into Manhattan with me. The community also takes particular pride in remaining “unplugged.” In my mother’s case, ignorance is bliss.
According to Sadie, news of Tucker’s disappearance has “grown legs.” A few reporters had even trekked out to Worthington University to report from campus, standing right outside the dorm we shared during our freshman year. My thumb had hovered over the remote, unable to change the channel as the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, goose bumps sweeping down my arms and prickling my skin.
My years at WU belong firmly in the past. No good will come of unearthing that particular skeleton.
And from what Gavin told me, there are plenty of other skeletons in our closet, ones I had no idea about. The talking heads on the twenty-four-hour news programs are having a field day, and they don’t even know about the criminal accusations being levied at Tucker. Yet.
On-screen, our marriage looks so glamorous, filled with luxurious vacations and black-tie galas. In reality, those vacations were usually business trips, with Wren joining us as often as not. And at most social events, I’d felt like a mannequin in a designer dress, so afraid of saying the wrong thing I barely said anything at all.
Tucker expected me to be perfect, or at least a perfect reflection of him. Anything less was unacceptable. Not just to him, but to me, too. It was almost as if, by marrying him, I’d been given a cloak of invincibility. As long as I looked like a Stockton and acted like a Stockton, I could think like a Stockton, feel like a Stockton. All the bad things that happened to Poppy Whitman—they never happened.
Walking down the aisle, I’d believed that each step toward Tucker took me closer to a fairy-tale life. Back when I felt like Cinderella about to marry her Prince Charming and live happily ever after.
How wrong I’d been.
I’d sworn to love, honor, and cherish Tucker Stockton. I’d married him with the best of intentions, planning to be a good wife. A perfect wife. The kind of wife Tucker deserved. Because of him, I could afford to work at TeenCharter. Because of him, I didn’t have to worry about my mother. Because of him, our children would have opportunities I’d never dreamed of. They would never go to bed hungry, or become wards of the state, or rely on the charity of others.
The life I see on screen is not the one we lived. There are no photos of me sitting alone in our apartment, waiting on eggshells for Tucker to get home from the office, hoping he’s in a decent mood. None of a pink-tinted puddle on a white sheepskin rug, or of our empty nursery. No reporter cutting to a video of Tucker and I in the hospital, saying a final goodbye to our babies.
A year ago, I thought Tucker and I had it all. He’d just taken over his family’s business and I was pregnant with not just one—but two Stockton heirs.
Until I wasn’t anymore.
The stability I’d been thirsting for my whole life was ripped away from me, ripped out of me. I learned that being a Stockton didn’t guarantee happiness or security or anything at all.
No marriage certificate could patch the fractures and blemishes that marked our relationship, glazing it with a glossy sheen. Once we lost our babies, our elegant Manhattan penthouse became the loneliest place in the world.
For the thousandth time, I try to imagine my last moments with Tucker. Alone, on the open water, had we finally given up what little pretense remained of our marriage? Did I bring up divorce, as I’d planned? Had we hurled insults and accusations at each other?
What if Tucker refused to let me go? The man I married cannot tolerate defeat in any arena—maybe our marriage was no different.
At what point did it become violent?
If I believe Gavin, Tucker staged the scene to escape criminal charges. But Gavin doesn’t have all the facts. He doesn’t know that I’ve spent the better part of the past nine months wishing Tucker dead, fantasizing about a life without him.
But the detectives don’t have all the facts either. They only just learned of Tucker’s crimes. And they cannot possibly understand his uncanny ability to bend any situation to his benefit.
If Tucker knew he was about to go to jail, facing years behind bars… I have no doubt he would do anything he could to evade the law. Including faking his own death.
Will any of us ever know the truth?
Chapter 47
Florida
“Mrs. Stockton, it’s always a pleasure to see you, although I regret the circumstances.” There is something about Douglas Keene, in-house counsel for Stockton Capital, that is almost too slick, too cunning. But for now, the tall lawyer, with his graying hair carefully swept off his aristocratic features, is my best chance of understanding what was going through Tucker’s mind on our last night together.
“Please, call me Poppy.” I extend my hand and indicate the chair Sadie has pushed near my bed. “And thank you for coming down. You really didn’t have to. We could have made our way back to New York.”
“Nonsense. So, I’ve spoken with the Florida Police department, the FBI, the SEC, and Treasury. First of all, you are allowed to leave the state and go back home. I’ve taken the liberty of chartering a private plane. The pilot is waiting to bring you,” he glances at Sadie, “and, of course, your lovely sister, back home. Have you been released yet?”
“Not quite yet. The doctor wanted to review the results of the MRI they gave me earlier, but he said if he’s satisfied with the results, I’ll be released this morning.”
It doesn’t feel quite right to leave Florida. Tucker hasn’t been found—dead or alive. I haven’t remembered what happened on the boat. And Gavin hasn’t been back since Sadie kicked him
out two days ago. But I can’t just sit in a room, flipping back and forth between channels and doing nothing. I want to be back in New York, digging through our apartment for clues about the man I married. The man I thought I knew.
Either my husband has staged his disappearance and is somewhere now, watching his scheme play out.
Or… I killed him.
“Were you able to find out—”
“The questions you raised concerning your husband’s business dealings, criminal or otherwise,” Keene’s smile drops, “I’m afraid I can’t answer them.”
I inhale a shallow breath, frustration tightening its grip on my lungs. “What do you mean? Why not?” That’s the reason I called Keene in the first place.
“I’m legally barred from doing so. Everyone who works for Stockton Capital, from the secretaries to the managing directors, must sign non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements. Even me. I can’t talk about anything related to my work with you.”
“But I’m Tucker’s wife. I need to know what’s going on.”
Douglas lifts his hands, palms out. “I completely understand your concerns, but from a legal standpoint, my hands are tied.”
“So why did you come all the way down here if you can’t actually help me?”
“Wherever Tucker is, he would hardly want me to leave his wife to the mercy of government hacks looking to pin blame on the easiest target, which, the way I see it, is you.” He adjusts the Windsor knot of his tie. “I’m here to ensure you arrive back in New York safe and sound. But beyond that, I’ve compiled a list of excellent criminal attorneys you should consider.”
“Okay,” I mumble, the enormity of the mess Tucker left me with finally beginning to sink in.
Keene isn’t finished though. “However, in my opinion, there’s only one person you should hire. If she’ll take your case, that is.”
I hadn’t realized hiring an attorney would be such a difficult task. “Who?”
When he says her name, my stomach sinks. I must really be in trouble.
Chapter 48
New York City
My stomach dips as I eye the dozen or so reporters and cameramen gathered on the sidewalk outside the door to our building. “Can you please use the underground entrance?” I ask the driver.
Once Sadie and I are crammed into the elevator with all of our luggage, waving off help from a porter, I lean my head against the mirrored wall. “I keep expecting to wake up and discover all of this is just a bad dream.”
“Well, if anyone can make lemonade out of lemons, it’s you, Pops.” The blasé tone of her voice scratches at my frayed nerves and I wonder if I’ve finally reached the limit to Sadie’s empathy. She put her life on hold when mine fell apart and taking care of me has to be getting old by now.
But her words reverberate inside our small enclosure, taunting me. Sadie has no idea what loss—true loss—really is.
I do. It is like a vacuum, ripping out your hair, shearing off your fingernails, stealing your screams. No end in sight. Just unrelenting, unimaginable pain.
Until the very moment I held my dead babies in my arms, I believed marrying Tucker would shield me from the worst life could throw at me.
I’d been such a fool.
Lemonade, my ass.
“I’ve buried two children. My husband, soon to be an accused criminal, is either missing or dead. And I might just be blamed for it. Those are not lemons, they’re tragedies.”
The elevator comes to a smooth stop and we maneuver our luggage into the quiet apartment. Isla left on a vacation of her own while we were in Florida and won’t be returning for a few days.
I drop my bags at the door to Tucker’s office. It’s the one room in our apartment that had always been off limits to me. Tucker never explicitly said I couldn’t come in, but just the way he always closed the door, even when it was just the two of us, told me I wasn’t welcome.
In his office at Stockton Capital, Tucker has an enormous executive desk and an entire wall fronted by bookshelves. Here, Tucker has another desk, but it is smaller, with narrow drawers. No bookcases, just one file cabinet disguised as a decorative chest beneath the window.
Gathering up my nerves, I sit in Tucker’s chair and reach for the handle of the top drawer.
It doesn’t budge. Neither do the other four.
Locked, all five of them. I want to scream in frustration as I look for the key. It isn’t taped inside the kneehole or to the back panel of the desk. It isn’t hidden beneath the rug or in the damp soil of the potted orchid. The chest is empty, too.
Finally, I seize the letter opener from the top of the desk and jab it into the front of the top drawer. The wood around the lock splinters with each frenzied thrust, until the mechanism finally gives way, but my triumphant smile lasts only an instant before discovering it is as empty as the chest.
The weight of the blade in my hand feels welcome and familiar as I attack the remaining locks, the jabbing motion activating a deep-rooted muscle memory that makes me envision my husband. Is this what I did to Tucker?
But furniture is not soft like skin, spongy like muscle. Each time the steel tip makes contact with the metal lock, or the mahogany wood, it reverberates through my arm, making my bones and joints cramp with pain.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
Five locked drawers, not a single thing inside any of them.
My sister chooses that moment to poke her head through the door. “Have you discovered all of your husband’s secrets yet?”
I grind my teeth to prevent saying something I’ll regret and stalk off to the master suite. I need some space from her.
I still can’t get my stitches wet, so I cover my head with a plastic shower cap and face the hot spray without turning my back toward the water. I feel battered and bruised—even more emotionally than physically.
I’ve spent years trying to fuse the disparate parts of me into one cohesive identity and, for a while, I thought I’d been doing a good job. But today I am like a demented child’s toy. Barbie’s body with a GI Joe’s head, missing a limb and naked save for permanent marker all over me.
I am too overwhelmed to be outraged. Too exhausted to be embarrassed. I want to lather myself with every product in my shower, but I feel too fragile, too certain that scrubbing my skin might erase it entirely, inch by inch.
By the time I get out of the shower and dress in an oversized sweater and faded yoga pants, I just want to make a cup of tea and get into bed.
Deciding to do exactly that after I retrieve my bags from where I dropped them outside of Tucker’s office, I pull up short at the sight of Wren standing in the middle of the room, surveying the mess I made with undisguised horror. “What are you doing here?”
Wren spins around at the sound of my voice. “Me?” Her hands flap wildly at the empty drawers hanging from Tuckers desk like loose teeth. “What have you done?”
If there is a silver lining to Tucker’s disappearance, it is that I no longer have to put up with Wren in my life. “Get out,” I say coldly, pointing toward the front door.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Leave you in the apartment that Tucker’s money bought, with everything he’s given you.”
Before I can respond, she yanks at an already open drawer and turns it over, feeling along the bottom and sides. Finding nothing, she tosses it aside and moves on to the next drawer.
“What the hell are you doing?” I could try to stop her, but I’m just as interested in anything Tucker left behind as she is.
Wren still hasn’t answered when Sadie appears at my side. “What is she looking for?” she whispers, the two of us now staring at Wren as if she’s an exotic animal at the zoo.
“I have no idea.”
“Should I call security?” Wren moves on to the chest in front of the window, but when the last drawer bangs down on top of the rest, she is still empty-handed.
“No,” I say, then direct my n
ext words to Wren. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’s obviously not here.”
“It has to be,” she mutters, as much to herself as to me.
“This is ridic—” My tongue goes still as Wren grabs the painting hanging behind Tucker’s desk and takes it off the wall, revealing a safe.
Sadie drags in a quick breath. “Holy shit.”
We both take a few steps closer, peering over Wren’s shoulder as she taps a code into the keypad. “Come on, come on,” she grumbles, her first try failing. But on her second, there is an audible click, and she yanks at the rectangular metal door inset into the wall.
The safe isn’t empty. Wren reaches for the stack of folders inside, flipping through pages and letting them fall to the floor in a stream of paper. “Fuck!” she screams once, then again. When she turns around, her face is red and blotchy, her eyes glassy and unfocused, the pupils blown. She looks like a drug addict who’s just discovered the pharmacy she’s broken into doesn’t stock narcotics.
“Wren…” I say tentatively, not sure how to approach her right now.
She is shaking as she walks toward me, grabbing my shoulders with both hands, her long fingers like talons digging into my skin. “What have you done, Poppy? Where is Tucker’s laptop, where are his papers?” There is a delirious look in her eyes I’ve never seen before, like she’s come unhinged.
I shake her off, though I can still feel the bite of her nails when I reclaim my personal space. “I don’t know. I haven’t taken anything.”
She blinks several times, then smooths down her hair. “Fine. Just tell me where he is, where he really is, and I’ll go.”
Another chip of my composure falls away. “You don’t know?” If Tucker planned his disappearance, surely he would have told Wren. If there’s anyone he trusts, it’s her.
“Poppy, this isn’t a game. The people Tucker—” She cuts off abruptly. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell me where he is.”
