'Til Death Do Us Part (23 page)

“Here you go,” Peyton said, coming into the bedroom. She handed me two tablets and a pair of camel-colored socks. I could tell at first touch that they were made of cashmere, and my toes nearly whimpered in relief as I slipped them on.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” I said, trying to sound chipper.

“What the fuck do you think is going on?” she asked, plunking down on the edge of the guest bed. She looked wild-eyed with worry. I knew that part of her concern must be for me but that she must also be anxious about the eventual ramifications of all of this on her business.

“I don’t know, but I’m positive that the person who ran me off the road must be the same person who attacked me in New York—and that it’s all connected to the deaths.”

“Is there
any
chance it was just an accident tonight?” she asked. “I mean, could it have been some obnoxious driver tailgating you?”

“No way,” I declared, shaking my head. “He got right up on my bumper with his high beams on. I’m not sure, though, if he’d actually planned to ram into me. That was partly my fault because I swerved and hit my brakes. But he was definitely being superaggressive. And then he turned around and came back after me.”

“You keep saying
he
. Are you sure it was a man?”

“No—I couldn’t see. I guess it could just as easily have been a woman, but my gut says it isn’t.”

“Do you think this same person killed Ashley?”

“Yes. Or he’s in cahoots with someone who did. What I just don’t have a clue about is
why
. The good news about tonight is that maybe the police will finally start taking this whole thing seriously.”

She let out a long sigh, staring at the floor. For a moment she looked lost in thought, her eyes a deep loden green in the soft light of the room.

“Are you okay, Peyton?” I asked, resting a hand on her shoulder. Suddenly a memory flashed in my mind of the two of us in almost the exact same positions in our college dorm room—she on her twin bed, me with my hand on her shoulder. She’d just been ditched by a guy for the first time in her life, and I was trying to comfort her. She had seemed seriously distraught at the time but also ferociously determined, promising that one day he’d regret his mistake and beg to have her back. In recent years he’d probably kicked himself as he’d watched her on TV, flawlessly flambéing food in her perfect French twist.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied, rising quickly and practically shaking my hand off her shoulder in the process. “We better go downstairs. The lamb will be like luggage if we don’t hurry up and eat it.”

I wanted to give Jack a call, but I didn’t want to muck up the dinner plans any more than I already had. I followed Peyton downstairs, deciding that I would call Jack from my cell phone as soon as dinner was over and I was back in my room.

We ate in what Peyton referred to as the “informal dining room,” apparently because the table only sat eight instead of a cast of thousands. The room was done mostly in reds, and there was a large bowl of pomegranates on the table, along with a row of burning votive candles from one end to the other. Clara didn’t seem to be on duty at the moment, but there were two people serving: the young girl I’d seen washing the windows last week and a woman in a white jacket who I assumed was the cook. That had to be tough, making food to Peyton’s liking.

“Are you feeling better?” David asked as he poured a 1983 Bordeaux for all of us in crystal wine goblets that twinkled in the candlelight. “You must tell us if there’s anything we can do for you.”

“I’m feeling much better,” I said without meaning it. “And I’d love it if we could just enjoy the meal and talk about something else. I feel like I’ve already put such a damper on the evening.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “This concerns us all. But I think it will make us all feel better if we try to focus on the food—and the wine.”

The meal was pretty darn amazing. There was an endive salad with pears, walnuts, and Stilton cheese, which I’d learned to love on a trip to London. The main course was rack of lamb, just the right degree of pink on the inside and in no danger whatsoever of ending up in the Samsonite section of Macy’s. It was coated, according to Peyton, in a mixture that included pistachio nuts, a crust she said she’d perfected for her cookbook. I assumed that her chef mainly followed her directions so that meals at her house were basically like Peyton cooking by proxy. Along with the lamb we ate yellow wax beans and roasted red potatoes tossed in mint, olive oil, and garlic. It should have taken my mind off all my troubles, yet I found myself struggling to enjoy it. My appetite was like a car engine that wouldn’t turn over.

Peyton remained subdued through much of the meal, letting David play host. He was clearly practiced at dinner table chitchat. He brought up the stock market, politics, and how much he’d prefer to be on a golf course in the Caribbean right now.

“That probably sounds like a bore to you, Trip, doesn’t it?” he asked. “You’re not happy unless you’re bonefishing or dove hunting or doing something adventurous.”

“Golf just doesn’t do it for me,” he said. “I can’t move that slowly and still be happy.”

“You’re like Peyton. She doesn’t have the patience for it, either. Do you, darling?”

“What? Oh, golf? Well, I enjoy it if I’m playing with you, David.”

I didn’t say much through any of it, just moved my food around my plate and observed the other diners. Having overheard the angry words David and Peyton had flung at each other last week—and considered the wedding coordinator’s comments about them—I was intrigued by the dynamics between them. For starters, they just
looked
good together. They were both attractive and smart and poised, the perfect power couple. I could only imagine the dinner parties they held in the massive formal dining room, Peyton on her best behavior wowing the guests, David uncorking bottle after bottle of good Bordeaux and never ringing up the price in his head. As for their relationship, tonight things seemed
okay
—at least on the surface. The impression they presented was of two people in sync, in tune with each other’s concerns and needs: For instance, David had mentioned earlier that Peyton had been worried sick about me; Peyton swore she liked golf as long as she was playing with David. Yet the odd thing was they rarely interacted. I wondered if they were still smarting from their tiff. Or, even worse, was the marriage not working as well as they had hoped? Maybe the age gap had turned out to be a bigger hurdle than they’d realized initially.

I also did my best to keep my eye on Trip. Unlike David, he wasn’t dressed in a conservative suit and tie. His was sleeker, maybe Armani, the kind you never wore a tie with. I knew he was considered a catch by some women, and he could certainly be categorized as attractive by most standards: the thick dark hair slicked back on the sides, the hooded dark-blue eyes, the strong but imperfect nose that suggested risks taken on rugby fields and mountainsides. But he was just too slick and wired for my liking. Tonight he seemed especially hyped-up, occasionally shooting his hands out from the cuffs of his jacket as if the sleeves were driving him insane. I couldn’t help but feel that if I touched his arm it would be like accidentally brushing against a live telephone wire. And though he attempted to appear engaged, you could see by how tightly the skin crinkled around his eyes that his smiles were forced. What I couldn’t determine was whether his disingenuousness was simply his way of coping with an awkward evening or due to something else entirely.

“And what about you, Bailey?” Trip said, yanking me back into the conversation. “I remember Peyton saying once that you were quite the traveler.”

“I write a few travel pieces every year, mostly on Europe and South America. Nothing especially glamorous, though.”

Dessert appeared to be the world’s most perfect apple tart, but I might as well have been served a wedge of the sofa—I just couldn’t summon any culinary enthusiasm. I took two bites and put my fork down. I felt positively fried, and thoughts about the accident kept creeping back into my brain. When Peyton suggested that we all have coffee in the library, I begged off, explaining that I needed to go upstairs and make several calls. I must have looked like a basket case because no one made any attempt to talk me out of it.

As soon as I was in my room, I tried Jack’s number and felt a huge sense of relief when he answered on the second ring. I’d already decided that I was going to wait a day or two to tell him about what had happened on the road. If I shared it tonight, the conversation would be all about me—my situation, my safety—when it really needed to be about
us
.

“Hey, it’s good to hear your voice,” he said.

“Same here.”

“Are you home? I just tried you there five minutes ago.”

“No, I’m spending the night in Greenwich—at Peyton’s. We just had lamb that was probably airfreighted from New Zealand earlier in the day.”

“What’s happening—any developments?”

“Not much. I spent some time at the library doing research—and I’ve been talking to people.”

“You’re being careful, right?”

“Of course, of course. How about you—what’s going on?”

“I had a girl faint in class today. I’m not sure if I made her swoon with my dashing good looks or I bored her to tears with my lecture.”

“I’d say it would have to be the former.”

“Well, it’s nice to see I can still have that effect on some women.”

“Jack, you know you have that effect on me.”

“Do I? I seemed to be having just the opposite effect the other night. I’m sorry about what happened, by the way.”

“Me too. I was totally wrong to tell you to leave my apartment. You’d never do something like that to me. I owed it to you to talk things out.”

“We don’t always think a hundred percent rationally during a fight. I was treading on some pretty sensitive ground with you, and I clearly didn’t know when to back off. I’m surprised they haven’t rescinded my license as a practicing psychologist.”

“What do you mean,
sensitive
ground?” I asked, feeling suddenly annoyed. “My reaction the other night had nothing to do with you being on sensitive ground. I just don’t think you have any right to psychoanalyze me.”

“You’re right. Look, let’s move on, okay? I’m sorry—and I miss you. I’d love to see you this weekend.”

“Of course. I’m looking forward to seeing you, too.”

We talked for a few more minutes, just dumb stuff mostly. He signed off, reminding me one more time to be careful. I hung up, feeling relieved and yet with an unexpected sense of disquiet. Maybe because I hadn’t disclosed the night’s events and was now feeling a lump in my stomach because of it. Or maybe I was just bugged by the fact that Jack refused to stop
analyzing
me.

Once again without any jammies, I stripped off my pants and shirt but left on my underwear and my silk camisole. While washing up in the bathroom, I discovered a fresh, waffled bathrobe on the back of the door that I must not have noticed the last time I was here. The only thing that kept the guest room from being like a hotel was the fact that there was no breakfast order card to hang on the outer doorknob.

Wrapped up tight in the bathrobe, I turned the bed pillows on their sides and crawled onto the bed with my composition book. Then I just started scribbling. With some time finally to myself, questions emerged. How had the driver found me? I had told no one I was going to Wellington House, so he must have followed me from the farm and waited along the road until I was done at the house. I recalled seeing headlights far behind me as I drove toward downtown Greenwich. Unless the driver had just coincidentally spotted me on Greenwich Avenue, he had clearly been tailing me for all or part of the day.

All of which brought me back to the question I had scrawled last week in large letters in my composition book:
Why?
What possible reason would someone have for methodically knocking off bridesmaids? I considered all the possibilities again. There seemed to be three general areas for me to focus on.

Number one, someone was doing the killing in order to hurt Peyton and her business. It wasn’t the most direct form of attack, but as Maverick had pointed out, the “ether” approach could be particularly effective. And, in fact, Peyton’s catering business had already taken a few hits. I was curious about the scheduling mix-ups that had occurred several months ago. They’d been blamed on a careless secretary, yet I wanted to learn more about them. If someone’s goal was to see Peyton’s business tank, they might have started with mucking up her schedule and then, when that didn’t have the desired effect, escalated things.

Second, the deaths might have something to do with the wedding. Jamie, and perhaps Robin—maybe even all the bridesmaids—might have witnessed something that day. Or the wedding might have seriously irked someone—Mandy, for instance, or Phillipa.