Her Perfect Life

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  She tapped open Google, trying to decide what one search she could manage successfully but quickly. What had Banning told her that she could use? She’d already searched for anything about Cassie Atwood, and there was nothing. Kirkhalter. She’d researched that, too. Berwick? November 10 at Berwick? That could work.

  She typed, Berwick College, November 10, and the year. Google instantly presented football, homecoming, professors, fundraisers, fall festival … ah. Too much to search. Six minutes. She closed her eyes and pursed her lips, trying to retrieve the name.

  Jim. John. Jen. Jeremy. Jeremy. Duncan? Duggan. Jeremy Duggan.

  Jeremy Duggan Berwick, she typed. Murder. Then deleted that word. Dead, she typed.

  The headline appeared instantly. Man Found Unresponsive in Off-Campus Housing.

  She clicked. Scanned. Scanned first for Cassie’s name, but of course it wasn’t there, or she would have found it long ago. No pictures in this one, not that it mattered, but in describing Duggan—no family, it said, police searching for any next of kin—it seemed there’d been some sort of fire at the college in a place called Wharton Hall. Duggan had apparently tried to rescue a Berwick professor called Zachary Shaw, who for some reason had not heeded the fire alarms in the building. Then Duggan had been found dead, it went on, with no real details given, in his apartment. There was no mention of drugs. Or murder. It only said police were investigating the cause of death.

  Good old Berwick police. Always investigating.

  “Mumma!”

  “Coming, honey!”

  Penny watched her from the tissue paper nest. When you see her, she’ll remind you of me, Cassie had told her. And if she had opened the package yesterday, when it arrived, might she have deciphered the message—if it was a message, but didn’t it have to be—sooner? But she’d been on the trail of the lily bouquets.

  Lily tapped her fingers together, thinking.

  But why would Cassie send flowers and a penguin?

  “Mum-ma!”

  “Two minutes, sweetheart!” She closed the flaps of the cardboard box and stashed it under her desk. “Sorry, Penny,” she said. “It’s only for a little while.”

  Back to the search. She typed, Zachary Shaw Professor Berwick. And stared at the results. A drug “kingpin,” the first story called him, and admired biology professor had been charged—blah blah—Lily had to skim, she needed to know this, but could not be late for her dinner with Rowen—with selling Ecstasy, Rohypnol, and methamphetamine to his students. Nice, Lily thought. She read on, quickly as she could. The charges stemmed from wreckage discovered in the fire; apparently, he’d kept his stash in a vacant basement office, and officials “speculated” that’s why he’d stayed behind. To retrieve them. Or make sure they were destroyed.

  Lovely. Talk about a college education. Shaw had been facing a hefty prison term.

  “Good riddance,” Lily said out loud. One more Google entry for the charming professor. She clicked it open.

  Zachary Shaw. No trial, case closed, pled guilty. So there must have been enough evidence that his lawyers decided there was no percentage in facing a judge and jury. Someone must have given prosecutors the inside scoop on his activities.

  “Oh, Cassie,” Lily whispered to herself. “How did you know Zachary Shaw?”

  She stared at the article. Then went back to the one about Jeremy Duggan.

  Both were written by the same reporter.

  Lily looked up Fire Wharton Berwick and the date. The articles about the “tragedy in a century-old building that ruined a revered and irreplaceable amount of artwork and history” were also written by the same local reporter.

  How many Tosca Manukians could there be? If she was alive, Lily could find her and get some answers. Or at least a few more facts.

  She sensed Rowen’s presence in the office doorway. The little girl’s fists were planted on her hips, and she wore an exasperated expression Lily remembered all too well. Sam Prescott had looked at her that way more than once. He’d seemed so perfect, Lily remembered. Seemed to know exactly what Lily needed to hear, and when. Sam Prescott always got what he wanted. He’d told her that, I always get what I want, and at first, it was luscious and romantic. And then it wasn’t. His life had changed, too, since then. But it could not include Rowen.

  “Dinner, Petra says.”

  “I know, I’m all ready,” Lily said. “Just trying to finish something so we can have time together tonight.”

  “What was in the box?” Rowen craned her neck looking for it. “Something for me?”

  “Nope,” Lily told her. “Work stuff.”

  She collapsed her screen. Zachary Shaw. Jeremy Duggan. And her sister, Cassie.

  Cassie, who was out there, somewhere close, waiting for Lily to decide what to do.

  CHAPTER 49

  GREER

  The first french fry is always the best, I thought, savoring the oil and salt and crunch and the splash of ketchup that had dripped onto my fingers. I instantly felt better, my brain getting back into gear with the carbs and promise of protein. I took a hit of milkshake, the cold sweetness hitting the back of my mouth. Small pleasures, I sighed, but you took them where you could. I put my phone on the white vinyl table in front of me, the waning afternoon light streaking soft and gray through the wide restaurant windows.

  So where was I? Tosca Manukian. I tapped my phone back to life, and the search was still there. Manu, I typed. And then the phone rang. I rolled my eyes at the universe and took another bite of french fry as I waited for the caller ID.

  Wireless caller unknown, the readout said.

  “Damn it,” I muttered.

  “Yes?” I answered. No need to give away anything. If I don’t know who they are, I don’t have to tell them who I am.

  “It’s Banning,” the voice in my ear said. “Did Lily tell you what she was going to do?”

  “I’m fine, and you?” I said. What was I, his lackey, messenger, spy? Caller unknown, huh? The detective probably had an endless supply of burner phones.

  “What did she say on the way home? D’you think she knows where her sister is?” Banning had completely stopped using his Smith voice. “Did Lily decide how to contact her?”

  I contemplated turning my phone off, pretending I was out of batteries, pretending I was in a cell phone dead zone. Was I Lily’s babysitter now? The restaurant door kept opening and closing, letting in the late afternoon along with batches of chattering students and cranky children and exasperated moms.

  “She wasn’t very talkative,” I said.

  “Understandable. And?”

  “And nothing.” I tried to see if I could unwrap my hamburger and surreptitiously eat it while he was talking. A pickle fell onto the tabletop. “That was it. She went inside. I left. Her nanny will bring her to the station tomorrow. That’s all I know.”

  Silence.

  I contemplated eating the pickle anyway.

  “Did you ever know—” I’d been about to ask Banning about Tosca Manukian, but maybe I’d keep that to myself. “Uh, anything about the actual case where Cassie was the informant?”

  Silence.

  “What about it?”

  “You said this Jeremy Duggan was involved, and he was found dead. You mean murdered?”

  “The police never confirmed that.”

  “Didn’t his family want to know what happened? I mean, this guy was dead, and then Cassie disappeared. Wasn’t that like, two plus two? Seems like?”

  “My dad said they weren’t connected,” Banning said. “And apparently, the victim had no family.”

  “Lucky for the Berwick cops,” I said. Then remembered. “Oh. Hang on.” I took a sip of milkshake, stalling, embarrassed at my own sarcasm. Banning’s father had recently died, and here I was dissing him. I needed to change the subject. “So. Sam Prescott. Is he headed back to…” I didn’t know where. “Wherever?”

  “That’s why I called, in fact. He said you were terrific with Rowen.”

 
“Yeah, great.” I stabbed my straw in to the milkshake, pulled it squeakily up and down though the crosshatch in the plastic lid. “I only helped him because it seemed like a sad story, and—”

  “And because my client made it clear that if you didn’t, he had no bones about telling the ‘not-so-perfect-Lily’ story to whoever would listen. Which would be everyone.” I heard a soft chuckle through the phone. “That Lily, she’s got some baggage.”

  The restaurant was filling with the dinnertime crowd, and I was taking up a whole booth. I noticed a family giving me the stink eye as they crowded around a table.

  “Be that as it may,” I said, agreeing without throwing her under the bus. Party girl with an illegitimate daughter from a married boyfriend and a drug-dealing murderer sister. Not a good look. Not a good outcome for me, either. “So that’s over at least, and we can all move on to the Cassie part of the equation. I’m sure—”

  “Yeah, well, no,” Banning interrupted.

  I’d finished the fries without realizing it, I saw with annoyance. I didn’t even get to enjoy them.

  “‘Yeah, well, no,’ what?” I crumpled the paper wrapper, irritated.

  “My client wants to see Rowen again,” Banning said.

  I felt my mouth drop open. “Not a chance.” I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “Not with me involved, at least. I’m done with that. We had a deal. No. In case that’s not clear, I said, ‘Not a chance.’”

  “I hear you,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “So. Should I get Headmistress Glover involved again?” That little chuckle again. “She’s very cooperative, if the price is right. You know how she is about … fundraising. And my client doesn’t really care about the cost. Problem is, I’m not so sure about Glover’s, shall we say, discretion. That’s the thing here. Your call, of course. But I do know Lily can rely on you. That’s why I’m giving you first choice.”

  “This is—”

  “This is an offer, is all,” Banning said. “But. I also wonder if the garrulous headmistress might be tempted to tell our Lily that she saw you and my client waiting on that bench as the Graydon bus drove up, saw you pointing at said bus, and making a beeline for my client’s daughter. I’m not saying she definitely would do that. But she might. Since she already told me that. Since I had asked her to watch for you.”

  I almost choked on the milkshake. “What?”

  “Didn’t you think it was odd? That she didn’t find it unusual that you were there? That she allowed you to take Lily Atwood’s daughter away? Or did you think that was a result of your persuasive charm?”

  The hubbub of the restaurant faded into a blur, the clinking of ice cubes and some guy pushing a wet mop across the floor, a roar of laughter from a row of kids as a dad made two orange straws into fangs.

  I had gotten myself into this, with good intentions. To protect Lily. To help Rowen’s poor father. And even the Cassie thing. It broke my heart for Lily, and for once, I felt like she trusted me. Relied on me. Noticed me.

  But if Lily knew, or even suspected, that I had escorted her reviled ex-whatever-he-was to see the daughter she’d tried to keep from him, that’d be the end of—of everything for me.

  Lily would hate me. She would get me fired. She would prevent me from ever working anywhere again.

  I had no choice.

  CHAPTER 50

  LILY

  Lily tried to listen to Petra and Rowen’s dinner table debate about ketchup on hamburgers, but her mind was on that penguin. And she needed to find Tosca Manukian—try to find her, at least—and see what she knew about Jeremy Duggan. Banning had implied that Cassie had something to do with his death. More than implied. But there’d been nothing in the newspaper articles on the web that said anything about murder.

  She stabbed her fork into her burger, wishing hamburger buns were free of carbs. Someday, she thought, she wouldn’t have to care about being thin. She and Rowen could just do whatever they wanted. She chewed, pretending to listen to Rowen and Petra. Her mind was actually on a college campus, long ago and far away.

  Maybe Cassie hadn’t actually killed Jeremy Duggan. Maybe she’d just known what happened to him. Which got her in trouble with whoever had killed him. It hit her with a jolt, fork midway to her mouth, that maybe soon she’d be able to ask her sister in person.

  “Mummacita,” Rowen said.

  “Hmm?” Lily yanked herself back to the reality of the dinner table.

  “Could that be Mumma in Spanish? We’re learning Spanish.”

  “Sure,” Lily said. “I love it. And you’re Rowencita?”

  “That’s funny!” Rowen laughed. “Funny like ‘Jabberwocky,’ Mumma.”

  “Whoa, you’re going too fast for me.” Lily had to smile. Rowen’s attention span was sometimes about zero. “Did you and Petra read ‘Jabberwocky’?”

  Petra shook her head, rearranging the tomatoes on her mayonnaise-coated, sesame-seeded bun. Petra could eat anything. “I leave that to you, Lily. English is difficult enough for me, let alone funny English.”

  “No, the man knew it,” Rowen said. “Aunt Greer’s boyfriend.”

  Lily took a sip of wine. “You told him about ‘Jabberwocky’?”

  “No, Mumma.” Rowen wore her Sam expression again, eyes rolling. “When Auntie Greer told him about my poems, he said it. To me.”

  “Auntie Greer’s boyfriend,” Lily repeated. Hadn’t Greer said she was meeting a source? Might this guy have been Banning? Her eyes widened, picturing it. Imagining it. With Rowen? “Did this boyfriend say his name?”

  Rowen shook her head. “I don’t think so. And then pretty fast, I had to go inside. Auntie Greer took me. And Penny loved—” Rowen stopped. Looked down at her ketchup-streaked plate. “I’m sorry again, Mumma,” she said to the plate.

  “I didn’t know she was taking her, Lily.” Petra grimaced at Lily, then pointed a finger at Rowen. “What if you had lost her, Rowey?”

  “But I didn’t,” Rowen said. She frowned. “I wouldn’t lose something I loved. That would be terrible.”

  Lily put down her fork, smoothed her white cloth napkin. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Her darling Rowen had no idea how often, as she grew up, she would have to grapple with losing something she loved. But what was lost, sometimes, could be recovered. Cassie must be hoping for that.

  And Lily was on the other end of those hopes. There was no way to do anything but face it. And deal with it. If Cassie had some secret nefarious motivation, blackmail or extortion or whatever it might be, Lily would have to find out. But she couldn’t start investigating until she got back upstairs. And she’d flat-out ask Greer if she’d introduced Rowen to Banning. That would be completely unacceptable.

  “Delicious, Petra, thank you.” She scooted her chair away from the table and smiled at Rowen. “May I be excused? I have lots of work things to do. And then—you come get me when it’s time for bath?”

  Once upstairs, she pulled the penguin box from under her desk, flapped open the sides again. She stood the penguin on its black webbed feet and leaned it against the side of the box to keep it upright. The white tissue paper opened on either side like an extra pair of wings. Lily pulled out her phone, clicked to camera, snapped a photo. Took another one, a close-up of the Penny tag.

  If she posted it on her Instagram page, Cassie might see it. Or she might not. But in the absence of any other instruction, at least it was a step. She stood, staring at the penguin, trying to compose an Instagram message. Maybe—Call me?

  She laughed, a rueful, weary laugh. Like the Bat-Signal in the comics she used to read. Still, the person who needed to know what it meant would know what it meant.

  But maybe she should make it more specific. She lowered herself into her desk chair, swiveling it left to right and back. Look at this wonderful penguin, she could say. I’d love to thank the person who sent it.

  Which would bring out every weirdo in the world. Maybe: My sister and I used to … No, nothing ab
out sister. Because if Cassie could see the post, so could everyone else. How about, How wonderful to receive this, dear one. I cannot wait to see you. Message me!

  That could work. She shrugged, having a discussion with herself. Couldn’t hurt. No one else knew about the penguin.

  She opened her photos to make sure her pictures were in focus and usable. And as she scrolled the photo grid, she saw the selfies those college students, Iris-Colleen and Soraya, had taken of them outside Lido this very morning. Which seemed like a lifetime ago. Lily smiling, with the two young women grinning on either side of her. And behind them on the sidewalk, the image of Walt Banning, focused on his phone, unaware he was in the shot.

  Leaning back in her desk chair now, she used her thumb and forefinger to expand his face. If someone knew who he was, he’d be completely recognizable. He’d told her he was Detective Walter Kirkhalter’s son, and was trying to help Cassie by letting her know her letter hadn’t been received by the person who she’d hoped could guide her back to the life she’d had to leave behind. Banning had shown Lily an obituary, a perfectly authentic-looking obituary, and seemed to know a lot about the investigation.

  But, she thought, what if he was lying?

  What if coming back was the worst thing Cassie could do?

  Lily clicked off the photo, clicked off her phone. Put her elbows on her desk and her head in her hands.

  CHAPTER 51

  CASSIE

  Sasha Forrestal checked her Instagram yet again. Unlike her friends—well, not friends so much as colleagues—who worked with her at the Pemberton Grille, she followed only one person’s page on this social media.

  Her sister. Lily Atwood.

  But Lily had posted nothing today. Still, it was early, before 6:00 a.m., so early that no one else was in the restaurant yet. Alone in the industrial-size kitchen, she could cook and check Instagram and wonder if her life was about to change.

  But nothing yet.

  Sasha tucked her phone in her back pocket, picked up a wooden spoon, and touched the edge of it to the bouillabaisse she was making for tonight’s special. Tasted it. The fennel and saffron were emerging nicely. She’d put Mozart on the old boom box they still used. First one in chose the music, that was the rule, but she’d let her staff change it as the day wore on.