'Til Death Do Us Part (33 page)

I was glad he couldn’t see me because my eyes had started to glaze over. I tried harder to concentrate, knowing that what he was saying might prove important.

“You still there?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So as you can see, there’s room for some game playing. When I hear that this guy David yelled at his manager and wanted to know why he hadn’t taken the profits on something, it makes me wonder if he was moving profits around somehow.”

“And you’re not supposed to do that?”

“Hell, no. Let’s say he has a trade that doesn’t work out and he decides to mismark it—so instead of it being down forty percent, he marks it down ten percent. Then maybe he uses some of the profits from another trade to hide the loss—and mismarks that one, too. But there are all sorts of ramifications. Investors who should have profited from the good trade lose out. Plus the IRS gets screwed, too.”

I didn’t speak for a minute, trying to digest what he’d shared. If what he’d suggested about Trip was true, it was major. It meant that the spat the bridesmaids overheard in the church that day wasn’t just some minor scuffle between business associates—it was David probing about whether Trip had engaged in something unethical. Had he ever been able to prove it? And if he had, why would David continue to work with Trip? Perhaps because, as people always said, he was brilliant at making money.

“You still there?” Cameron asked again.

“Yeah, I’m just thinking. So could he go to jail for what he did?”

“Oh sure. So is this really for a story you’re working on?” he asked suspiciously.

“Uh-huh.”

The car had pulled up in front of the terminal and the driver hopped out to open my door. I said a rushed good-bye to my brother, promising to call him and explain when I had more time to talk—which I had no intention of doing.

I waited until I’d caught my breath and the plane was in the air before I withdrew the photos from my purse once again and spread them on the tray table. David and Trip’s argument might be at the root of everything, but how could that tie in with the photos that Jamie had seemed so desperate to protect? I stared at the one of Trip and the mystery man and began to play out a scenario: What if for some reason Jamie understood the significance of the words exchanged between Trip and David in the church. Perhaps the next day she overheard a discussion between Trip and this mystery man at the reception that shed even greater light on what she’d heard in the church. She took a photo in order to capture the moment. Later she approached Trip about what she’d overheard, perhaps threatening to blackmail him. She needed money for her business—
and
hadn’t she finally gotten it? Eventually Trip decided he was left with no choice but to eliminate Jamie. Maybe Trip was even the new man in Jamie’s life, the visitor in her apartment the night she died. The next thing you know, Robin started asking questions. And sure enough, Trip started hanging around with her, ingratiating himself, trying to find out what she knew. Clearly he saw her as a threat, because she ended up dead, too. And eventually so did Ashley.

But why start coming after me? I flashed back on a moment in the kitchen with David the day after Ashley’s death. David had encouraged me to put the deaths behind me, but I’d vowed to learn what was really happening. I’d tipped him off that day that I was going to snoop—and perhaps he’d shared our conversation with Trip.

Of course—and here was a thought that made my blood turn icy—David could have as much to lose as Trip. If he’d realized what Trip had done and let him off with a warning, he was culpable. Frantically I searched my memory. Peyton said that David was in New Haven the afternoon that Ashley died, though she’d had trouble reaching him. But Trip had been missing in action.

I thought of the moment Monday night in Peyton’s library when Trip had appeared silently at my side. He’d suggested we have a drink sometime. It made my stomach turn to think of how he’d let his hand linger on mine when he’d reached for the bottle of brandy.

Yet I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I hadn’t a shred of evidence that Trip had done anything—including anything improper in his hedge fund business. It all fit together, but my theory was just a hunch and nothing more. When Peyton examined the photos, something totally different might emerge.

“I just love big weddings.”

I nearly jumped. It was the woman next to me in the middle seat, who had already fruitlessly tried to engage the man by the window in conversation. She was about sixty, her hair styled in one of those poodle perms and wearing a turquoise-and-pink rayon tracksuit. My stress had totally bitchified me, and I had to fight the temptation to tell her, “Just shut up,” or threaten to put her hair on a leash. Instead I simply ignored her and slid the photos back into the envelope.

Sipping a tomato juice, I tried to calm down by working on my dead-wife article, but it didn’t help. The only thing I could focus on was Jack—and at this point, conjuring up thoughts of my supposed boyfriend was anything but reassuring. Why hadn’t he called? What would it take to normalize things between us again? Did the fact that I’d been stirred by Chris’s kiss suggest some bigger problem?

By the time I was in a car service headed toward Manhattan, I was so wired that I could barely stand it. I knew I had to return to Greenwich as soon as possible—not only to review the photos with Peyton, but also to talk to David about Trip. I decided I would leave first thing in the morning.

There’d been no messages on my cell phone when I’d disembarked from the plane, but there were a ton of them on my answering machine at home: Landon wondering how I was; Maverick checking in; my brother Cameron mistakenly returning my earlier call at home; a friend from Brown announcing she was coming in from San Francisco next week; a writer pal asking for advice about a seemingly insane editor.

My wired, bitchy mood seemed to energize me, and as I was making myself a cup of coffee, it occurred to me that there was no reason not to drive out to Greenwich tonight. It was about four, and though it would mean I’d hit rush-hour traffic, I’d be there by early evening and could meet up with Peyton at her place. Waiting until tomorrow, in fact, would be torturous, particularly now that I sensed I was closing in on the truth.

The housekeeper answered when I called Peyton’s and made an announcement that I should have been prepared for. Mrs. Slavin had a party tonight, in Darien.

“She said she won’t be staying for the whole thing, though,” she said after I’d sighed in frustration. “I’m expecting her back at around eight.”

“Oh, great,” I said, relieved. “I don’t want to disturb her when she’s on-site somewhere, but if she calls, will you tell her I’m coming up tonight? I’d appreciate being able to stay the night one more time.”

I spent the next few minutes pacing my apartment, coffee mug in hand, making a game plan. My priority was to have separate conversations with Peyton and David. I was hoping that information I gathered would help me determine if I should clearly be focusing on Trip.

As I was packing a new bag for the night, Jack finally called.

“You get back okay?” he asked. It was clear from the background noises that he was outdoors someplace.

“Yeah, about an hour ago. Are you just leaving work?”

“Actually, I’m two blocks away, walking down University Place.”

“You’re kidding me,” I exclaimed. The news, for some reason, weirded me out, as if he’d just announced he was leaving for a year’s sabbatical in Tokyo.

“Since I didn’t have any appointments tomorrow, I ended up hopping on a shuttle after my last class today. Have you got a minute? I thought I might stop by.”

“Um, of course,” I said.

“If this isn’t a good time . . .”

“No, no, it’s fine—I’m so glad you’re here. You just caught me off guard for a second. Come on by.”

As I set the phone down, my mind was a blur of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Jack’s early arrival in New York would put the kibosh on a trip to Greenwich, and frankly that irritated me. I was desperate to be there, to show the photos to Peyton, but there was just no way I could bail on Jack tonight. It would seriously piss him off, considering everything that had happened. Beyond that, I really did need to talk to him in person and help nudge us back into our old groove. There was something else I was feeling, too—an inexplicable unease. It spilled through me like a wave rushing into the nooks and crannies of a sand castle.

I used the few minutes before Jack arrived to change from the jeans I’d worn on the plane to a short brown-and-camel tweed skirt, a cashmere camel sweater, and high brown boots. A little spiffy, but I wanted to look nice. I also made more coffee and cracked open a couple of windows; the cold snap had broken while I was away, and the temperature had to be near forty. From my window I could see that the snow had shrunk to mere slivers on the rooftops to the west. With nothing else to do, I sat on the couch and just waited. I felt jittery, as if I’d just been signaled over for speeding and was waiting for a trooper to emerge from his car in the night.

It took Jack longer than it should have to walk the few blocks to my building, and I started to wonder what in the world was going on. When he finally arrived with a Starbucks bag, I realized he’d stopped to get us coffee. He was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and his brown leather jacket, one of Jack’s few nods to bad boyism. He kissed me, but it was a quick, distracted kiss—the kind he might offer if we’d been apart for a few hours running errands. While I hung his jacket, he pulled two cappuccinos from the bag and set them on the coffee table.

“It’s so nice you came up a day early,” I said. My voice sounded stilted, like someone making small talk in a high school play.

“I’ll be honest—I was anxious to talk to you after what happened on Sunday. It’s really been eating away at me.”

“Me too,” I said, taking a seat beside him on the couch. I popped the lid from my cappuccino and took a sip, but it was hot and burned the inside of my lip. “Like I said on the phone, I should never have made you leave like that. It wasn’t fighting fair.”

“Well, you’re generally a pretty fair fighter, so I clearly made you very angry.” He smiled wanly then, though there was something very sad in his blue eyes. My heart picked up speed.

“Let’s just put it behind us, Jack,” I said softly.

He took a deep breath, and I saw his chest rise beneath his crisp white shirt.

“That’s what I wanted to come by and talk to you about, Bailey. I don’t think it’s possible. I think that argument Sunday revealed something about our situation. And what I’ve come to realize over the past few days is that I don’t feel it’s going to work between us.”

His last few words had been barely audible to me, as if he were speaking underwater. The whole moment seemed totally surreal.

“Are—are you saying you want to break things off with me?” I asked, incredulous.

“No, the last thing I want is for us to break things off. But I’m afraid there may be no choice.”

“I’m not following,” I said. I felt confused, disconcerted. Tears fought to break out from behind my eyes.

“The other night you said that by getting married, you’d made a bigger commitment than I ever had. I—”

“I was angry—I didn’t mean anything disparaging by that.”

He lifted the lid off his own cappuccino and took a long sip. I could see him forming words in his mind.

“I know you didn’t. But you’re right. Up until this point in my life, I haven’t had any desire to make a major commitment to someone. But I’ve realized in the past weeks that I’ve been feeling closer and closer to you, and when that apartment situation came up, I suddenly saw that I finally
do
feel ready—and I want to make that commitment to
you
. But that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. I apologize for sounding like I was analyzing you the other night, but the bottom line is that making a commitment to me isn’t something you feel comfortable doing. And it would be too tough for me to hang around, hoping you’d change your mind.”

“Tell me exactly what you mean by commitment, Jack,” I urged. “You mean our
living
together?”

“Yes, but not just because my sublet fell through or as some open-ended arrangement. I’d see it leading to something. I’m in love with you, Bailey, and I can picture myself married to you.”

I had a hard time swallowing. I felt a surge of tenderness, thinking of how Jack felt about me, but at the same time, I could sense panic circling me, ready to pounce. I stood up from the couch and walked back and forth the length of the room, combing my hands through my hair. It was growing dark outside, and the cityscape outside my window had begun to take on the look it always had at night of a backdrop for a play—inky black sky, buildings dabbed randomly with lights. I could feel myself pulling words from someplace. I realized that they’d been forming all week, but I’d never spoken them to myself.