Dr. Haven’s office was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and I’d chosen her partly because my father didn’t believe “real” therapists existed beyond Manhattan’s borders. She had written extensively about guided mental imagery therapy—also known as Katathym imaginative therapy—which intrigued me because my own memories were knotted up in terror. As a child, I’d had endless nightmares about tigers pulling me apart as their claws turned to knives. There were long, blank spaces from my childhood when I remembered nothing, bookended by indelible images.
As a teenager, I’d found drugs and cutting my own skin effective ways to push back the memories that haunted me. I’d started seeing Dr. Haven a couple of years earlier, though the pandemic had disrupted that. But that day, I needed a different kind of help.
“I’m sorry I only have a half hour,” she said when I walked in. “But we can—”
“My wife is dead, and my sister is attempting to steal my son,” I said.
The room was quiet for a moment except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
“I’m not saying you don’t need therapy,” Dr. Haven answered. “But you need to be in a lawyer’s office right now.”
I was too agitated to sit, so I paced across the well-worn wool rug.
“I came to you because I realized that my family has lied to me about . . . a lot of things,” I said.
“What you’ve described to me is like a hall of mirrors. Your family made you feel like you couldn’t trust anyone. Even yourself.”
“They’re going to do the same thing to Teddy if they get the chance,” I said. “That’s why I wanted custody if Caroline and I divorced. But I think my sister is intending to blackmail me.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No. I wasn’t supposed to see the documents I saw. It was putting me on notice about her legal maneuvering.”
“Why would she want custody of your son?”
“She doesn’t,” I said. “She wants control of the family business.”
“But you told me she already runs the business.”
“She does the work, but it’s still my father’s. He’s very—” It was on the tip of my tongue to say old fashioned, but I knew that was a euphemism. “He’s sexist. He wants an heir. That’s why he gave me his name and begged my wife and me to use the same name for our son. When Teddy was born, my father said that one day, my son would inherit everything. He wasn’t joking; he meant it. Juliet is well aware. This is her power play.”
“She would blackmail you? However many details you’re comfortable sharing, you know you can speak confidentially here.”
“Yes.” I’d told Dr. Haven a great deal, more than I’d ever revealed to anyone else. But I’d never mentioned Mirelle in any of our sessions. Perhaps it was time. “You know that I was a drug addict. I met a woman when I was in my second year of school in Berlin. We fell in love. She was the first person who seemed to understand me, to understand what I needed . . .” I gulped for air. “We were only together for three months, but it was the happiest, most carefree time of my life.”
“What happened?”
“We got married in a small church in the French countryside near Colmar,” I said. “Technically, it wasn’t a legal marriage—I didn’t know until later that you needed to have a civil ceremony in France to be married.” My father had pointed that out to me months after Mirelle’s death, after I’d gone through rehab. The way he’d relayed that information implied that it wasn’t supposed to matter that Mirelle was dead. She hadn’t really been my wife, after all. “A few days later, I woke up, and Mirelle was dead. She had been stabbed. There was blood everywhere.”
Dr. Haven stared at me, her expression rapt. “What happened then?”
“I called my father. He was away on a trip, but he sent . . .” I closed my eyes. Who had he sent besides Juliet? I couldn’t remember. It couldn’t have just been her, I thought. But that was stupid and sexist; Juliet was as physically strong as I was. “My sister got me onto a plane and took me to rehab. My father eventually showed up there. I was in the facility for close to a year.”
“What about your wife?”
I appreciated her referring to Mirelle that way. “My father told me he’d taken care of everything. He told me to forget it, to pretend it never happened. Juliet wouldn’t even talk to me for years after that. She started calling me ‘lady-killer.’ She still does, as a matter of fact. But now she’s trying to use it to take custody of Teddy.”
Dr. Haven steepled her fingers. “How much do you remember of that night?”
“I just told you.”
“No, you explained what your father and sister told you,” she pointed out. “What do you actually remember?”
There were only two moments that I was certain of. One was surfacing from an opioid haze in my apartment and seeing Mirelle on the floor next to me, her eyes open, her chest and neck covered in blood. The second was being on a private plane with Juliet. You ruined my week in Paris, you stupid piece of shit, she’d said. I wish you were dead.
“I was a mess,” I said softly. “I don’t know what I did.”
“It sounds like you’ve spent your adult life running away from it,” Dr. Haven said. “Did you never think about exploring what happened, finding out what led to this woman’s death?”
“No,” I admitted. “I only ever wanted to bury that night.” The image of Mirelle soaked in blood haunted me; the truth was, I deserved so much worse. It had occurred to me—many times—that I belonged in jail.
“Did your father disapprove of your relationship with this woman?” Dr. Haven asked.
“He was horrified by it.”
“We’ve been focusing our therapy on your childhood memories, but I have to be honest. I think nothing is more important than recalling these memories. Have you ever tried to stimulate your recall of that night?”
“Never.”
“What about retracing your steps from those days?”
“I haven’t set foot in Berlin since that time. Or Germany, for that matter.”
“Theo,” she said. “You have to face this. You need to know what you did.”
She was as nonjudgmental as a person could be, but her urgency was unmistakable. “I know.”
“You’re aware from the therapy we’ve done that there’s nothing more important than triggering your sensory memory. You need to visit Berlin to do that. I’m not saying it will all come back, but that would be essential to unknotting this.”
“I can’t go away right now. My son needs me.”
“Your son needs a father who can nurture him,” Dr. Haven said. “If you’re determined to distance yourself from reality, you won’t be able to do that. Take a couple of days for yourself. It really is that important.”
“I can’t leave Teddy,” I said.
“Are you able to be there for him now, or are you dealing with too many of your own issues?” she asked.
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Theo, do you remember when you first came to see me?” she added. “You told me your family had lied to you throughout your life, but for the first time, you had proof.”
“Yes.” I could never forget. That proof—a letter I’d received three years ago—was with me at all times.
“You wanted to know why your family would do that to you. I told you I couldn’t answer that—only you could. But you can’t hide from the truth, no matter how ugly it is. You need to face it.”
She was right. I had no choice. I pulled out my phone and booked the first flight I could get to Berlin.
CHAPTER 20
DEIRDRE
I went home to pick up the memory card, but I was too keyed up to stay in my dungeon room, and too exhausted to hit the dojo. I ended up at my neighborhood library. It looked like a middle school, three stories of beige-brown brick with a pair of fancy glass cubes some bougie architect dreamed up later. QUEENS LIBRARY was spelled out in shiny metal letters over the entrance. It was only when
you got inside that the QUEENS PUBLIC LIBRARY AT ELMHURST sign was visible. It always sounded funny to me, like Elmhurst was a destination. My working-class neighborhood was best known for its horrifically high death rate in the pandemic.
Technically, you weren’t allowed to eat, but I’d learned you could quietly scarf down a protein bar just about anywhere. I decided to work my Ben Northcutt search harder. Reading about his work on a sleepless night had made him seem like a badass. Encountering him in the flesh made it clear he was a jackass. I had questions about Caro and her taste in men. She’d teased me about my aversion to relationships, but none of my hookups had tried to kill me or called me a criminal.
All I found was more of the same. Ben was a Big Deal in journalism, and aside from his career there was nothing interesting about him. As far as I could tell, he’d never been married and had no kids. Maybe he was a cipher, but he was a boring one.
After the clock ran out on my half-hour slot, I moved to a table and put the memory card in my laptop. All 1,702 photographs came up. But I opened the card’s settings and realized it was set to only show images. I changed it to show all files, and suddenly there were 1,798.
A shiver went down my spine.
That intense feeling lasted ten seconds, until I realized all the unseen files were spreadsheets. I skimmed each one, figuring a clue would jump out at me any second. Nothing did.
There was exactly one person I knew who loved spreadsheets. I texted Reagan, asking how late she was working.
Eight, she texted back. But no dojo tonight. Want to come over for dinner?
As a matter of fact, I did.
I had no other messages, not even from Snapp. I’d sent a text to T-Rex about Aubrey pouncing on me like a jackal, but there had only been radio silence. I didn’t mind being yelled at, but the quiet was unnerving.
At twenty to eight, I headed over to Reagan’s, stopping on the way for a bodega bouquet. Reagan and her mom lived in a cozy two-story house with gingerbread trim. It looked like it had popped out of a storybook. Mrs. Chen hugged me when I came in, and I didn’t even mind. It felt like home.
“You have not been eating,” Mrs. Chen said. “I can tell. You are too skinny, Dee.”
“She’s still living on protein bars,” Reagan said, ratting me out.
“They’re full of vitamins,” I argued, aware I sounded lame.
Mrs. Chen shook her head. “You can’t beat people up if you don’t eat!”
She knew me so well.
That evening, I cared about food a lot. Mrs. Chen made a spicy pork stir-fry with carrots and peppers and peanuts. After dinner, she hurried off to video chat with her sister in Guangzhou. I pulled the memory card out. “Remember when I told you Caro gave me a zillion photos? There are spreadsheets too.”
“And you want me to explain them? Fine. But only if I get to see some snaps of mini-Dee.”
I handed the card over, and she put it into her laptop, a shiny new model that put my bashed-in one to shame. The first picture opened, and she started to heckle me mercilessly.
“I can’t believe your mom was able to wrangle you into dresses. And pink ones, at that.”
“Be careful. There are shots of you on there. That awesome haircut you gave yourself when you were twelve has been documented for the ages.”
“Aw, hell,” Reagan muttered. “That’s blackmail material.” She started opening up the spreadsheets. “How did you finish work so early today? Mom wanted to ask you over for dinner, but you don’t get home till after ten on Thursdays.”
“T-Rex sent me to Aubrey’s apartment.”
“Shit. Did that creep try anything this time?”
“He went for full molestation today. Groping and kissing.”
“Tell me you tore his limbs from his body,” Reagan said.
“Close enough. He was on the floor when I left. He wasn’t getting up anytime soon.”
“You need a different job. One that doesn’t put you in mortal danger.” Reagan’s attention shifted to the screen. “Hello, financials. My happy place.”
I gazed at the screen. It was some kind of operational budget, but unlike my best friend, I zoned out when looking at numbers.
“Okay, this spreadsheet is telling us a sad story,” Reagan said. “I know you hate math, but this is pretty simple. See this number? That’s the operating budget for the Thraxton hotels in Europe last year. That’s a big number. And see this number?” She pointed at the screen. “That’s gross income, and it needs a couple more zeroes to break even.”
“You’re saying the chain is losing money?”
“They’re hemorrhaging money,” Reagan clarified. “Maybe this is a bad year from the pandemic. If it’s not, the company won’t be in business much longer.”
Reagan opened up more files, but they were more of the same.
“Why would your sister give you this?”
I thought about what Ben had hissed at me. What Caroline was doing was illegal. You want to make that fact public and burn down your sister’s reputation? “I don’t know.”
“Your sister was the public relations director,” Reagan said. “There’s no reason for her to even . . . oh, wait. Hello there.”
“What is it?”
“Take a look.” Reagan angled the screen so I could see it better. “The operating costs are lower, which is good news, but look at the cash they’re raking in.”
I peered at it. “More zeroes.”
“Lots more! Which would be great if this spreadsheet was for a different continent or time period. But it’s not.”
“What are you saying?”
“If this is real, Thraxton International is keeping two sets of books.”
I gulped. “For what? Tax fraud?”
“Maybe.” Reagan scanned it over. “Or it could be to raise capital. No one’s lending them money with that first balance sheet, but the second one looks like a good bet.”
“I don’t understand why Caro would give this to me. Or why she’d even have it in the first place.”
“Maybe it’s leverage over Theo.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. But I knew Theo had left his family’s business. Maybe the tax fraud stretched back years and implicated him—he was the family member with the fancy degrees. But it seemed like this information would mostly hurt the in-laws Caro loved rather than the husband she loathed.
PART TWO
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
—George Eliot
CHAPTER 21
DEIRDRE
On Friday, I woke up at five a.m. to a text from Ben Northcutt. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot, he wrote. Want to get coffee today?
I wanted to ask how he’d gotten my number—because I sure hadn’t given it to him—but I was exhausted and fell back into a fitful sleep.
When I woke up at seven, a text from T-Rex had just come in: You’re fired.
I was furious, but I wasn’t surprised. There was a numbness that had settled into my bones whenever I contemplated my job and the many things I hated about it. But seeing this two-word text highlighted its awfulness. I switched to another app and checked my bank account. It was anemic. I got paid every two weeks, but normally Aubrey danger pay went into my account within twelve hours. It wasn’t there.
I shot back, Is this a joke? even though I knew it wasn’t.
T-Rex’s response came through in a minute. You know what you did.
He could only have meant Aubrey. Nothing else had gone wrong with any of my clients.
You owe me money, I wrote back.
There was no response.
I had exactly two protein bars, and as I studied them, I considered my employment prospects. They were not good. There was always a market for able-bodied worker bees, and I figured I could snag another job like that quickly. I also knew I’d hate it just as much as I’d hated working at Snapp.
I took the subway in to Manhattan,
switching at Grand Central and heading north on a 6 train to the East Fifty-First Street Station. There was a Thraxton property on Park, a landmark of blue glass and studded steel that was supposed to look stylishly intimidating but mostly resembled a goth fishbowl. Two floors were corporate HQ, and the rest was a hotel. Caro had given me an employee pass years ago, and I stopped by on a semiregular basis—sometimes to say hi to my sister but always to stock up on food in the employee pantry. I wondered if the pass would be deactivated now that Caro was gone, but it still worked. I took the stairs up to the third floor. I was steps away from the pantry when I changed my mind and took another path, following the plush red carpet to Caro’s office.
The door was closed, but it wasn’t locked. I stepped inside but couldn’t seem to take a step beyond that. Caro’s office was painted in an azure blue that made it feel suspended in the sky, even though we were barely off the ground by New York City standards. The furniture was glamorous, of course. On one wall was a silver plaque from the Diotima Civic Society, surrounded by framed photographs of Caro with international dignitaries, interspersed with images of Teddy. My sister always looked perfect, never a hair out of place, at ease with presidents and royalty. I don’t know how she did it.
“It’s not the same without her, is it, Deirdre?” said a deep voice behind me.
I turned. Caro’s father-in-law, Theodore, was there, dressed in a black suit. His gray hair was neatly combed, and there was a baby-blue square in his chest pocket. Still, he had an unmistakable air of misery around him.
“I find myself walking by, or picking up the phone, and I’m surprised that she’s not here,” he added. “I have a funny voice message she left me, and I’ve played it a dozen times, just to hear her voice.”
I nodded. I wasn’t used to the idea that she was gone. I wondered if I ever would be.
“She sent me a bunch of family photographs recently,” I said. “Hundreds of them on a memory card.” I gulped and closed my mouth, remembering what else was on that memory card.
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