Her eyes rested on the now-closed cabinet. Her mind buzzed with fear. How many women had been hurt by drugs like the ones it held? Oh, holy crap, and what if she’d had more of that wine?
Trying to act like nothing had changed, she knelt again by Jem’s side, glass in hand. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and watched her as she came toward him. Maybe he was too out of it to remember she might have seen his illegal stuff. She had to leave. Had. To. Leave.
“I see you found the glasses,” he said. “Any trouble with that?”
She felt the blood drain from her face. Almost dropped the water. “In the first cabinet I opened,” she said, trying to look normal and smiley and not like a person who had just seen like a whole cabinet full of dangerous hideous illegal drugs that could put him—and her—in prison for the total rest of their lives.
“Great,” he said. “Got to admit, I’ve been lying here wondering what would have happened if you hadn’t been here.”
“Drink this,” she said.
NOW
CHAPTER 30
LILY
“If you’re ready, Ms. Atwood?” Banning was leaning against the front window of Lido, legs outstretched on the paved gray sidewalk. He pantomimed smoking a languid cigarette. “If your fans are satisfied?”
Lily tucked her phone back into her tote bag. “That took all of thirty seconds,” she said. “And if I remember correctly, you’re the one who decided to get coffee. So, let’s move forward. What did you find from your research guys?” She kept every trace of suspicion out of her voice. Smith had told her to do what he said.
That didn’t seem so dangerous, out here in the safety of broad daylight. She’d go for it. As long as it seemed prudent. Greer was somewhere—safe? And Cassie was somewhere, too. Alive? Which sent her heart hammering. But maybe not safe.
And she, Lily Atwood, was one hundred percent in the middle of it. And one hundred percent confused.
Banning gestured to his car. “We’ll discuss it on the way.”
“The way to where?” Getting in the car with this guy was a big step away from safe. But again, she argued with herself, Smith had said to trust him. She took out her phone, kept it in her hand. Smith had said Banning was a private investigator looking for Cassie. She needed to know who had hired him. And she was increasingly skeptical that Greer was actually gone. But where was she?
“Calling someone?” he asked.
“I need to tell my nanny where I am,” she lied. Although calling Petra and checking in about Rowen was actually a good idea. She wished there were a way not to be apart from her daughter so often. But she wanted Rowen to grow up confident, and self-reliant, not needy, not demanding her mother’s attention at every turn. To have a perfect life, and not worry about everything that might happen, the way Lily did. “She’s on a—” Lily stopped her own sentence. Banning did not need to know that level of personal detail. “Anyway. You were about to tell me about the research guys.”
Banning had stepped off the curb, glanced both ways, and began to jaywalk, striding diagonally across the four lanes of Boylston Street. Lily followed, not having much choice, and trotted after him, hoping no renegade Boston drivers decided to turn right on red and plow into them before they got to Banning’s car.
Which, Lily realized as they approached, was probably unmarked because it wasn’t actually a police car. Which also explained the lack of law enforcement equipment inside. Still, if she suddenly refused to accompany him, he’d know that she’d been clued in about something. And no matter who he was, he was on the trail of Greer. And Cassie. And so was she. She had to risk it.
The locks on the passenger side disengaged with a click as Banning pointed his key. She opened the sun-warmed passenger door herself, yanked on her seat belt, cradled her tote bag on her lap, and kept her phone in her hand.
“So? The research guys?” she persisted over the rumble of the ignition. She buzzed down her window, giving herself more space. “And where are we going?”
“Yeah. Hang on.” Banning had placed his backpack on the back seat and then turned to look over his shoulder as he eased out of the parking place. The stoplight must have turned green since their jaywalking. Car after car buzzed by, even as Banning challenged them, inching into the nearest lane. “Gimme a break,” he muttered. “Jerks.”
Lily watched out the window, too, eyeing the still-dark façade of Lido. She imagined Greer opening that silvery door last night, knowing she was about to meet Smith. And wondered, again, why Greer hadn’t told her.
Banning steered the car into a lull in the traffic, headed them away from the city and toward the Mass Pike, a pin-straight eight-lane highway that stretched from Boston all the way to the New York border. Once you were driving the Pike, Lily knew, there was no stopping, no slowing down, no getting out. Even the toll booths were electronic, no gates or guards.
“The Pike?” Lily tried not to sound concerned as she imagine being trapped in a speeding car on an inescapable highway.
“Yeah,” Banning said again. He slowed for a yellow light, infinitesimally, then turned right, setting off a chaos of horn honking from startled drivers.
“Banning? You’re doing this on purpose, I understand that.” Lily twisted back her hair with one hand to stop it from blowing into her face as the car picked up speed. “You’re stalling,” Lily went on. “Deliberately. And apparently with some amusement. My producer is ‘missing.’ You came to my office and made a big dramatic deal about that. So if that’s true—”
There. She’d said it. And now his veracity was on the line. “If that’s true, who’s looking for her? And where are they looking?”
She imagined Greer sitting at her desk at Channel 6 right now, drinking coffee and being annoyed that Lily was late again. Since Banning hadn’t tried to hide his search of her belongings, Greer would also be wondering who’d ransacked her desk. Lily pictured that list. The list Greer had made.
And if Greer was at her desk—or at the hairdresser or the doctor or the dry cleaners or any number of quotidian places that seemed increasingly more logically true than “missing”—then it was Lily herself who was in trouble. But Banning knew about Cassie.
Banning drove onto the turnpike’s entrance ramp like the car was part of him, his left wrist draped over the steering wheel at twelve o’clock, his other hand at six. Foot steadily on the accelerator. He glanced at her, seemed to be assessing.
Cars whooshed by on both sides, taunting and dodging the mammoth eighteen-wheelers that took up more than their share of pavement. Anyone who honored the speed limit was soon far behind them. Banning reached up, unsnapped a pouch on his sun visor, and took out a pair of dark-lensed Ray-Bans. He slid them on.
“Banning?” Lily refused to just sit here.
“Remember the list on Ms. Whitfield’s desk?” Banning turned to her, his expression now annoyingly unreadable.
She signaled him with her phone. “You know? I’m going to try calling her again,” she said. “Maybe she’s back.”
Banning moved the sunglasses to the top of his head. Veered into the fast lane. “Sure,” he said. “So that means you don’t want to talk about her research?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “But I’ll just try.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “But while you’re waiting for her to answer.” He paused, apparently allowing his sarcasm to take effect. “Let me tell you about the list.”
One ring. Be there, she willed it.
“They seem like random words,” Banning began. “Don’t they? But you recognized them. I’m a professional. Like you are. I know when people are lying. And you’re lying.”
Two rings. “Huh,” she said.
He nodded. “So. One by one. The first item on Ms. Whitfield’s list was Berwick.”
Three rings. “Berwick, yes,” Lily said.
“You’re from Pennsylvania.” Banning kept talking, didn’t wait for her to answer. “So you’ve gotta know Berwick is one of those fancy liberal
arts colleges in the western part of the state, all stone buildings and independent study.”
Still no answer. It was silly, she knew, to keep up the calling charade. She didn’t really believe Greer would answer, but she was grateful for somewhere to pretend to focus her attention. Somewhere other than Berwick.
“Sure,” she said. “Everyone knows that. Maybe Greer went there? Did you check that? Does she have a grandmother or something who—”
“I see you remember the second word, grandmother.” Banning nodded, an approving professor. The traffic slowed, almost stopped, as they approached the endless construction that collapsed four lanes into one. They crept along in the shadow of a dingy overpass, the afternoon sun obliterated by the cracked concrete and exposed steel above them.
Lily buzzed up her window against the accumulating dust and exhaust. Four rings. On six it would go to voice mail. If Greer had left her phone on her desk, gone to the bathroom or to someone else’s office, or the vending machine room downstairs, she might not hear it. Magical thinking, Lily thought. Hang up. But she couldn’t do it.
It felt like admitting defeat. Like accepting that Greer was gone. She’d never not told Lily where she was during the workday. In the past, Lily had sometimes been annoyed with Greer’s neediness, as if she were trying too hard to prove herself to Lily. But Greer always texted. After Banning’s arrival, Lily had checked her messages. But there’d been nothing from her. Five rings.
“But skip the grandmother,” Banning said. “And go on to Marianne.” In the gloom of the underpass, a series of red brake lights flashed on in front of them. Banning brought the car to a complete stop, then draped his forearm over the steering wheel. “Know any Mariannes?”
Banning was playing with her like a cat teasing a vulnerable mouse. But for now, she had to pretend she didn’t know that. Maybe he was honestly asking her, maybe he had no idea how those words fit together, and her own personal baggage was making this into an inquisition.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Sure.” Banning checked his rearview. “And then finally, Kirkhalter. A fine Pennsylvania name. Know any Kirkhalters?”
Lily shook her head silently, stared through the windshield into the line of cars in front of them, motionless on a road that was meant for travel. Stalled, like she was. Held captive in a story of her own creation. The perfect-Lily story.
The story that was never true.
She tilted her head back against the seat. Might as well find out what he knew. And with that, it felt as if a chapter of her life was ending. The part where she’d successfully hidden her too-tabloid past from a voracious and fascinated public.
Greer had been researching Cassie. And this Banning—or whoever—was on the same trail. Were they working together? Bigger question: did she want to protect herself more than she wanted to find Cassie? Now she had to face that choice.
“Are you leading up to something?” Lily turned to Banning, surprised, then, to see he was looking at her, too. “Can we just cut to that?”
Someone behind them honked, then someone else, and the traffic lurched ahead again, merging like a massive deck of cards. They moved forward into daylight, the revealed sky bluer than it had been before.
BEFORE
CHAPTER 31
CASSIE
Jem now sat with his back against the coffee table, knees bent, feet on the carpeted floor. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry about that. I had a concussion a while ago, from football. Guess I wasn’t as fine as I thought. Then, you know. Wharton.”
“You sure you don’t want me to call a doctor?” Cassie, sitting beside him with her arms wrapped around her knees, watched him take careful sips from the water she’d brought him. Watched the color come back to his face. She’d played out various terrible outcomes in the moments before he’d come back to life, how she’d have to call 911, how an ambulance would arrive, how she’d have to explain—but that hadn’t happened. He was fine. Now her problem was those green pills. If she called for help and people swarmed in, like police, even, and they found the pills, and she was here … No. She had to leave. “Maybe call the hospital, see if there’s anything you should do? Does your head hurt?”
Jem drained the last of the water, then took a deep breath. “Not really.” He touched two fingers to the side of his face. “The bandage is still all right?”
“Looks fine to me,” she said. What she’d seen in the kitchen cabinet meant nothing but disaster. She had to leave.
“You got more than you bargained for tonight, I guess.” Jem set the glass down between them. “But I’m fine. You should go.” He cocked his head toward the sliding glass doors leading to the tiny balcony. “Kind of gloomy out there now, though. The sun goes down fast this time of year.”
The woods beyond the glass were draped in total darkness, only the silhouette of the trees visible against the purple-blue sky. The edges of their top leaves looked like a painting, or like fabric, Cassie thought, lace against a starlit canvas. When she and Jem left the hospital, it was sunny. Now, even the living room had gone gray, the sunset over, their only light filtering in from the kitchen. It made her almost sleepy, and it felt much later than it really was.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, deciding that was true. “I’ll go out to Mountville, get the campus jitney. It’ll be good.”
Jem nodded. “Right. Great. That works. But—” He picked up his glass with the paper towel. Held it toward her. “Before you go, could you get me more water?”
She got to her feet, took the glass. “Um, sure, but does that mean you can’t get up?”
He grimaced, touched his bandage again. “I can, yeah, definitely. But I’m gonna be happier sitting here. But it’s cool, you go. Catch the jitney. I got this.”
“But what if—” She couldn’t help but worry. And was annoyed with herself for getting involved. She’d thought that walking Jem home was the least she could do to repay him for hustling her out of Wharton Hall. She couldn’t just leave the guy. But he was completely toxic. “Listen, after I get the water. Is there someone I can call? Or you can? To come be with you?”
Jem closed his eyes.
“Jem?” She bent over him, her face close to his, worrying.
“Oh,” he said as his eyes opened again. “I was thinking. About who to call.”
His eyes were intensely dark brown, and she’d put herself closer to him than she’d planned. “Let me bring you the water.”
She flipped a light switch on the wall, and two round spotlights on the balcony came on, making the forest outside even darker. The second switch turned on a tall gooseneck lamp in the corner. At least they could see better now. She heard a sound from the living room. Was Jem talking to someone? She stood, motionless, listening. But she only heard murmurs.
“All good,” Jem called out after a moment. “A buddy’s coming to hang out with me, he says he’ll be here pretty soon.”
“Great!” she called back.
“He could take you back to the dorm.”
“Great.” No way, she thought.
She turned on the faucet. She yawned, then shook her head to clear it. She wasn’t tired. She was simply—whatever she was. In a strange guy’s apartment, like a drug dealer, even, and alone. But he might be really hurt. She puffed out a breath. How many people had he hurt? The water rushed out of the faucet, hit the metal sink below, swirled down the drain.
She stared at that cabinet again. She’d touched one of the bags. Hadn’t she? If her fingerprints were on the bag …
She grabbed a striped dish towel, wrapped her hand in it. No, she’d need two. One to open the cabinet, one to wipe off her prints. She lifted one padded hand. Touched the white knob. Began to pull open the door. Should she do this? Hurry, she thought.
“Cassie?”
Cassie gasped at Jem’s voice, flinched, and the cabinet door swung open.
“Ow! Damn it.” Jem stumbled backward as the wood hit his eye. He clamped one hand over it, and bent down in
pain. “What the—shit, Cassie.”
“Jem! I’m so—”
He lurched backward as she stepped toward him, one line of blood now visible below his left eye. The water gushed from the faucet. She yanked it off, dropped the towels in the sink.
“I didn’t mean to—” She took a step to help him, but he’d turned away, hit one shin on the coffee table, stumbled again. And fell.
Had his head hit the coffee table?
His eyes were closed. A bandage on one cheek, blood on the other. One arm flopped out beside him.
“Jem?” She took a tentative step closer to him. Another step. She saw his chest rise and fall. She felt tears come to her eyes, tears of uncertainty and apprehension and fear, of having no idea what to do.
“Jem?” She’d made her voice louder, but he did not respond. She stepped between the couch and the coffee table and, holding her breath, leaned down and gently, carefully, touched his shoulder with her fingertips. She felt the hard bone beneath his flannel shirt.
He was breathing. He was.
She fell to her knees, terrified, and as she did, her back bumped the coffee table, and the blue glass tipped over and hit her wineglass, and pink wine and clear water spilled onto her jeans and onto her shoes and onto the carpet.
“Jem!” She grabbed Jem’s shoulder, moved it, shook it, and Jem’s head turned toward her, startling her, and she jerked back, and hit the stupid coffee table again. The two empty glasses rolled off and hit the floor on opposite sides of the table, then stopped in the carpet’s thick pile. “Jem?”
But Jem did not move. His eyelashes, long and dark, rested on his cheeks, and one curl of dark hair had fallen across his forehead. The bleeding had stopped, it really looked like it had stopped. The room smelled like pink wine. But Jem was breathing. Was this her chance to escape?
Her Perfect Life Page 15