We both wanted the same thing from each other: information.
“She told me you cheated on her,” I said. “She manipulated me into seeing if you’d do it again.”
He muttered something under his breath and finished his Scotch, then signaled to the bartender for another. “Well, I guess we have an answer for that already,” he said. “You haven’t told her anything about us, have you?”
“Whoa, you want to slow down there?” I suggested, pointing to his drink. “We’re meeting again in a few hours and we need to be sharp.”
“I get it,” he said. But he still stood up and retrieved his second drink.
“I didn’t tell her we slept together,” I said when he returned to the table. “I’m not planning to ever tell her about that.”
He closed his eyes and sighed.
“I don’t get it. You say she’s crazy and you want to leave her,” I said, “but when you’re around her, you act like you’re in love with her. It’s like she’s got this weird hold on you.”
His eyes snapped open.
“I can’t explain it,” he finally said. “But you’re right about one thing: It is an act when I’m with her.”
“You’ve been unfaithful before.” I already knew the answer, but I had to smoke him out.
He frowned. “Why is that any of your business?”
‘It’s my business because I’ve gotten sucked into the middle of your twisted relationship!”
He glanced behind him, then leaned closer to me and lowered his voice. “Look, it’s complicated, okay? I had a little fling.”
One fling? He was only being partly honest.
“Does your wife know who she was?” I asked.
“What? Yeah, but she was a nobody,” he said.
I felt myself bristle. I wanted to throw the Scotch in Thomas’s face.
A nobody who was a subject in Dr. Shields’s study, just like me. A nobody who was now dead.
He saw the expression on my face and backtracked: “I didn’t mean—It was just some woman who owns a clothing boutique a block over from my office. A one-night thing.”
I looked down at my bottle of Sam Adams. By then I’d almost peeled off the entire label.
So he wasn’t referring to April. At least his story aligned with Dr. Shields’s about this affair.
“How did she find out about it?” I asked. “Did you confess?”
He shook his head. “I sent Lydia a text that was meant for the other woman. Their names started with the same letter; it was just a dumb mistake.”
This was interesting, but it wasn’t the affair I wanted to know about. What about Subject 5?
So I asked him, straight out. “What about your relationship with April Voss?”
He gasped, which was an answer in itself.
When he spoke again, his face was pale. “How do you know about her?”
“You’re the one who first told me about April,” I said. “Only that night in the Conservatory Gardens, you referred to her as Subject 5.”
His eyes widened. “Lydia doesn’t know, does she?”
I shook my head and checked the time on my phone. We still had several hours before Dr. Shields believed we were meeting.
He took another healthy swig of his drink. Then he looked me directly in the eyes. I could read genuine fear in his. “She can never, ever find out about April.”
That was almost exactly what he’d said about us a few seconds ago, too.
The door to the pub swung open so hard it banged against the wall.
I flinched as Thomas whipped around.
“Sorry!” A portly guy with a red beard stood in the doorway.
Thomas mumbled something and shook his head, then turned back to me. His expression was grim.
“So you’re not going to tell Lydia about April?” he asked. You have no idea what you would destroy if you did.”
I finally had something on Thomas. It was the opportunity I needed.
“I won’t tell her,” I said.
He started to thank me, but I cut him off. “As long as you tell me everything you know.”
“About what?” Thomas asked.
“About April,” I said.
He didn’t give me much. I thought about what Thomas had revealed while I walked to meet Noah for a late dinner at Peachtree Grill following my second drink of the day with Dr. Shields’s husband, the one in which we’d read our lines like actors onstage.
Thomas had said he’d been with April only once, last spring. He’d gone to meet a friend at a hotel bar. After the friend left and Thomas lingered to pay the bill, April slid into the seat across from him and introduced herself.
It’s the scene Dr. Shields had me re-create at the bar at the Sussex Hotel with Scott, I think, and suppress a shudder. But I don’t reveal that to Thomas; I might need to hold information over him again.
Did Dr. Shields set up April to test Thomas, and did April lie about it—just like I did?
Or is the truth even more depraved than that?
According to Thomas, he went to April’s apartment later that same night and left a little after midnight. Aside from the way they met, it sounds eerily like our date.
Thomas insisted he had no idea until after April died that she was connected to his wife. But given that April was a subject in Dr. Shields’s study, too, there was no way it was a random encounter.
The cover story Thomas and I created for Dr. Shields tonight might buy us a little time, I think as I approach Peachtree Grill. I heard relief in her voice when she thanked me after I told her Thomas was devoted to her.
But something tells me it won’t last.
Dr. Shields has a way of pulling the truth out of people, especially when it comes to things they want to bury. I’ve learned that firsthand.
Tell me.
It’s like I can hear her voice in my head again. I spin around and search the sidewalk. But I don’t see her anywhere.
I resume walking, even faster now, eager to get to Noah and the normality he represents.
A secret is only safe if one person holds it, I think. But when two share a confidence, and both have self-preservation as their main motive, one of them is going to give. I deleted the text chain in which I asked Thomas on a date before I knew he was married to Dr. Shields. But I doubt he did.
Thomas is a cheater and a liar; strange traits for someone married to a woman who is obsessed with morality.
He says he wants out of the marriage. Who’s to say he won’t sacrifice me to do it?
I know three things happened last spring: April served as Subject 5 in Dr. Shields’s study. April slept with Thomas. April died.
What I need to do now is find out which one of them, Dr. Shields or Thomas, first drew April into their warped triangle.
Because I’m not entirely convinced her death was a suicide.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE
Friday, December 21
Thomas is waiting on the steps of the town house.
His first words defuse the suspicion that formed when no traffic was encountered between Deco Bar and my home.
“My plan was foiled,” he says wryly as he wraps me in an embrace. It’s not dissimilar to the physical greeting you just received from your friend in the navy coat, Jessica.
“Oh?”
“I was hoping to get here first so I could run you a bath and open some champagne,” he says. “But my key didn’t work. Did you have the locks changed?”
It’s a stroke of luck that the new security measure coincides with the story created for Thomas during the cab ride back to the town house.
“I completely forgot to tell you! Here, come inside.”
He hangs his coat in the closet, alongside the lighter ones you so cunningly noticed, before he is led into the study.
Instead of champagne, two snifters of brandy are poured from the bottle on the sidebar. A story like this calls for a bracing drink.
“You look distressed,” he says
, taking a seat on the couch and patting the cushion beside him. “What is it, sweetheart?”
A soft sigh hints that it isn’t easy to begin. “There’s this young woman who entered my study,” he is told. “It’s probably nothing . . .”
It’s better if he coaxes out the story; Thomas will believe he has a stake in it.
“What did she do?” he asks.
“Nothing yet. But last week, when I stepped out of the office for lunch, I saw her. She was standing across the street from my office. She just . . . watched me.”
A sip of brandy. Thomas’s hand closing protectively over mine. The next few sentences are delivered with a slightly halting quality.
“There have been a few hang-ups on my phone as well. And then last Sunday, I saw her outside the town house. I have no idea how she obtained our home address.”
Thomas’s expression is attentive. Perhaps gears are beginning to spin in his head as he is led toward a conclusion to a vexing puzzle. But he needs to hear more.
“For confidentiality, I can’t reveal much about her. But even during those initial survey questions, it was clear she had . . . issues.”
Thomas grimaces. “Issues? Like the other girl in your study?”
A nod provides the answer to his questions.
“That explains it,” he says. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I may have seen her, too. Does she have dark curly hair?”
Now your appearances at the museum and diner have an explanation.
Downcast eyes camouflage the expression they contain: triumph.
Thomas likely imagines a swirl of other, troubling emotions that cannot be voiced due to professional rules of discretion. Actions always speak louder than words: Thomas’s sensible wife would not install a new lock without good reason.
Thomas’s embrace feels like his voice did in the darkness on the first night we met. Finally, it feels like safety again.
“I’m going to keep her away from you,” Thomas says firmly.
“From us, don’t you mean? If she has followed you as well . . .”
“I think I should sleep here tonight. In fact, I insist. I can stay in the guest room if you’d prefer.”
His eyes contain hope. My hand touches his cheek. Thomas’s skin is always so warm.
This moment feels suspended, infused with a crystalline quality.
My response is whispered. “No, I want you with me.”
You were the one who shaped tonight. He’s a hundred percent devoted to you.
Jessica, everything is riding on your words.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
Saturday, December 22
Is it ethical to pretend to have been friends with a dead girl in order to get information that could save you?
I sit across from Mrs. Voss in April’s childhood bedroom, which still has posters featuring inspirational sayings and collages of photos on the wall. A bookshelf is lined with novels, and there’s a dried corsage from a long-ago dance hanging from a closet door handle. It’s almost as though the space has been preserved for April to walk in at any moment.
Mrs. Voss wears brown leather leggings and a winter-white sweater. The Voss family—Jodi is April’s mother and Mr. Voss’s much younger, second wife—lives in the penthouse of an apartment overlooking Central Park. April’s bedroom is bigger than my entire studio.
Mrs. Voss perches on the edge of April’s queen-size bed while I sit in the tufted light green chair by the desk across from her. As we talk, Mrs. Voss’s fingers never stop moving. She smooths imaginary creases in the comforter, straightens an old teddy bear, and rearranges throw pillows.
When I’d phoned this morning, I’d told her that I’d known April from when we’d both studied abroad in London during our junior year of college. Mrs. Voss was eager to see me. To camouflage the fact that I was five years older than April, I’d turned to my makeup kit: a smooth, clear complexion, pink lips, and brown mascara on curled lashes helped peel a few years off my age. A high ponytail and jeans and my Converse sneakers completed the costume.
“It was so nice of you to come by,” Mrs. Voss says for the second time while I sneak another look around the bedroom. I’m desperate to gather more clues about the girl I have so much in common with in some ways but couldn’t be more different from in others.
Then Mrs. Voss asks me a question: “Would you share a memory with me?”
“Let’s see, a memory . . .” I say. I feel perspiration prickle my forehead.
“Something I wouldn’t have known about April?” she prompts.
Although I’ve never been to London, I remember April’s photos from that semester in her Instagram photos.
The lie slips off my tongue as smoothly as if it had been waiting there all along. Dr. Shields’s tests have taught me how to play a role, but that doesn’t erase the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “She kept trying to make the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh.”
“She did? What did she do?” Mrs. Voss is nakedly eager for hidden details about her daughter. I guess because there will be no memories of April formed in the future, she wants to collect as many as she can from the past.
I glance at a framed poster in the corner of April’s room that has the following quote in a flowing cursive: Sing like no one is listening . . . Love like you’ve never been hurt . . . Dance like nobody’s watching.
I want to pick a detail that will make Mrs. Voss feel good. I rationalize that maybe if she can imagine her daughter in a happy moment, it’ll offset some of the immorality of what I’m doing.
“Oh, she did the funniest dance,” I say. “The guards didn’t even smile, but April swore she saw the corner of one of their mouth’s twitch. That’s why it’s such a great memory . . . I couldn’t stop cracking up.”
“Really?” Mrs. Voss leans forward. “But she hated to dance! I wonder what got into her?”
“It was a dare.” I need to derail this avenue of conversation. I didn’t come here to share phony stories with a grieving mother.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral,” I say. “I’ve been living in California and I just got back to town.”
“Here,” Mrs. Voss says. She gets off the bed and walks over to the desk behind me. “Would you like a program from the service? There are photos in it of April through the years. There are even some from her semester in London.”
I stare at the pale pink cover. There’s an embossed drawing of a dove over the name Katherine April Voss and then a quote written in italics: And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. At the bottom are the dates of April’s birth and death.
“What a beautiful quote,” I murmur, not knowing if that’s the right thing to say.
But Mrs. Voss nods eagerly. “April came over a few months before she died and asked me if I’d ever heard it before.” Mrs. Voss eyes grow faraway and she smiles. “I told her, of course, that it was from a Beatles song called ‘The End’—not that she’d know because they were well before her time. So we downloaded the song on her iPhone and played it together. We each put in an earbud to listen.”
Mrs. Voss wipes away a tear. “After she— Well, I remembered that day, and the quote seemed perfect.”
The Beatles, I think, remembering how Thomas had sung along to “Come Together” in the bar on the night we were together. He’s obviously a big fan, so he must have sung “The End” to April on the night they met and slept together. I can’t suppress a shudder; it’s another eerie similarity between me and Subject 5.
I tuck the program in my purse. How awful it would be for Mrs. Voss to know that the quote is intricately connected to the whole sinister web that ended in her daughter’s death.
“Were you in touch with April much over the spring?” Mrs. Voss asks me. She’s back on the bed now; her thin fingers keep worrying the silky tassel on a throw pillow.
I shake my head. “Not really. I was in a bad relationship with this guy and I sort of lost touch with my friends
.”
Take the bait, I think.
“Oh, you girls.” Mrs. Voss shakes her head. “April didn’t have a lot of luck with men, either. She was so sensitive. She was always getting hurt.”
I nod.
“I actually didn’t even know she was interested in anyone,” Mrs. Voss says. “But after . . . well, one of her friends told me she was . . .”
I hold my breath, hoping she’ll continue. But she just stares into space.
I furrow my brow, like something has just occurred to me.
“Actually, April aid mention a guy she liked,” I say. “Wasn’t he a little older?”
Mrs. Voss nods. “I think so . . .” Her voice trails off. “The worst part is not knowing. I wake up every morning thinking: Why?”
I have to look away from her shattered eyes.
“She was always so emotional,” Mrs. Voss said. She picks up the teddy bear and hugs it to her chest. “It’s no secret she’d been in and out of therapy.”
She glances at me questioningly and I nod again, like April had shared this information with me.
“But she hadn’t tried to hurt herself in years. Not since high school. It seemed like she was getting better. She was looking for a new job . . . She must have been planning this, though, because the police said she had taken all that Vicodin. I don’t even know how she got the pills.” Mrs. Voss drops her head into her hands and releases a small sob.
So the police did investigate, I think. Given that April had tried to hurt herself in the past, it probably was a suicide. It should make me feel safe, but something still isn’t adding up.
Mrs. Voss lifts her head. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “I know you hadn’t seen her in a while, but didn’t she sound happy to you?” she asks, sounding desperate. I wonder if she has anyone else to talk to about April. Thomas had said April wasn’t close to her father, and probably April’s real friends have moved on with their lives.
“Yes, she did seem happy,” I whisper. The only way I can keep from bursting into tears and running out of the room is by telling myself that maybe the information I’ll get could help Mrs. Voss in her search for answers, too.
“That’s why it surprised me that April was seeing a psychiatrist,” Mrs. Voss says. “She showed up at the funeral and introduced herself to us. She was stunningly beautiful, and so kind.”
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