While unburdening himself of these dark secrets made him seem lighter, more purposeful, I felt heavy. But it was a welcome weight, one that grounded me in my love for him, and for Dani and this place.
When I turned to leave, he grabbed my arm.
“Thank you,” he said, and kissed me. “I will spend the rest of my life and the entirety of my fortune making sure you never regret loving me.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The rich have so much, but one of their most precious commodities is privacy. The gates to Asherley were closed. We were expecting no one. Max could move a body in broad daylight and not even God would be watching. We had the island to ourselves, and now, for the first time since I had arrived, I felt that I had Max to myself as well. I loved him, maybe even more so than before, because his life now depended on me and on my ability to keep all of his secrets.
With the sound of Max’s shovel stabbing the dirt in the background—tch, tch, tch—I made the first call, postponing the table and chair pickup, citing a scheduling conflict. Then I went upstairs. I dug into Max’s closet for his favorite nubby Irish sweater, smelling it. Max didn’t wear cologne, but he used a velvety sandalwood soap from France that became something new on his clothes, something musky and male. I grabbed plain belts, a wool scarf. It would be cool on the water, colder still the farther out he went. The sound was about forty-five minutes from here at forty knots. I would suggest to him that he round the point at Montauk and head due southeast for another hour at least. The Aquarama could go fifty, maybe sixty knots in open water. The motor was newer. I’d tell him to drop the body in the Atlantic, not in the bay or the sound. And to watch the gas tank. I wasn’t familiar with the boat so I didn’t know how quickly it drained. I planned to rough out latitude and longitude points, just so I could keep track of where he was and how soon he’d return. I knew the waters around the Caymans, where to dump large fish carcasses so they didn’t wash up near tourists, but I hadn’t yet learned the local currents.
In lieu of a blanket for the body, I opted for the garment bag Rebekah’s wedding dress had arrived in, now abandoned on a hook in my closet like a shed skin. I didn’t intend irony or even poetry with this choice. The bag was sturdy and long. It had strong handles on each end and a good metal zipper. This was a practical decision. I was thinking of Max, not Rebekah.
As I lifted it off the hook, a small piece of paper wafted to the floor—a business card that must have been lodged in the clear plastic pocket. At first I thought it was the one the police officer had handed to me. But this was from a place called Hannah’s Sew Fine, a seamstress with an address in Sagaponack. Ah. It must be where Dani had sent Rebekah’s dress for the alterations. I have someone good on Long Island. I debated letting it go; there were more pressing concerns that morning. But I was also curious how she had pulled it off. Did they take my measurements from the first pinned dress? How does a fifteen-year-old girl send in a wedding dress for alterations, no questions asked of the bride herself? Surely they’d be open by now. I dialed the number.
A woman, presumably Hannah, picked up on the second ring. “Mr. Winter! So nice to see your name pop up on my screen. How did it go? Did the dress fit okay?” I went to speak but the air had completely left my lungs. “Hello? Mr. Winter? Are you there?”
“Yes. No, this is . . . this is Mrs. Winter,” I said, my mouth dry. “I’m calling to . . . to thank you. For doing such good work on the dress.”
“Oh, you’re so very welcome, Mrs. Winter. You know, your husband didn’t leave us a ton of time, so I couldn’t do a really nice bound seam inside the bodice. I hope it wasn’t too scratchy.”
“No, no, it was fine,” I said.
“And it fit okay?”
“Yes. It fit . . . perfectly. Thank you.”
“You know, I never heard of a man surprising his wife with a wedding dress before. It was tricky to keep it from Dani, too, but it was the prettier dress, I must say. Man, people can be so creative nowadays. Were you surprised?”
“Yes, quite. Well, thank you again.”
“Must have been so beautiful—”
I hung up. My hands were shaking.
My fear felt eviscerating, like it was turning my body inside out. Who did I marry? What else had he done? I scanned his phone in confusion, looking for something, anything strange, when I came across the Instagram app, hidden within a miscellaneous folder on his home screen. I touched the icon, and there it was, the open end of the locked @rwinterforever account, solely following Dani. Through new tears I scanned the dozens upon dozens of Rebekah pictures, and read the replies from Dani begging to know who ran this account, who was doing this to her, and why.
I dropped the phone on the floor and thought of Maggie, another crime Dani passionately denied. The bumping and crashing, the overturned tables—Max struggling to contain the kitten before he killed it. How fast he had to move knowing we were mere yards away. How easily he lied to me when he shoved me away from the door, telling the doctor that the source of Dani’s distress was that gruesome discovery, telling the police the same thing this morning with such fatherly conviction he might have chased them away from Asherley for good. And how she begged me to believe her.
It was a lucky thing to find such a necessary prop at a critical moment, luckier still to have the stomach to pull it off. But a man that would kill a kitten and hang the deed on an unstable girl was nothing if not bloody-minded. He knew her mind was damaged and porous, had so little ability to discern between fantasy and reality, that she’d eventually own these crimes, too, filing them away like fresh pages of foolscap in a binder. He was tormenting his own daughter, a child. But why?
I looked around the bedroom we shared with growing revulsion, not just for Max but for myself. Everything he had told me so far had been beyond my comprehension, until it wasn’t. He had justified his crimes with a story about the murderous lengths to which a father would go to protect his child, and I had joined him there, wanting to prove I was worthy of his trust, and of Dani’s love. But his story was only true if Max actually loved Dani, something she denied. She knew. And yet how blind I was, how willfully, tragically naive. There are things you do when you’re desperate, things that would shock you.
My awful complicity brought me to my knees. I grabbed the phone.
I had to call the police. And then what? Make a run for it? Call Dani? The police would tell me what to do. That female officer would tell me what to do. What was her name? My hands still shaking, I frantically patted my pockets for her card. It had to be somewhere. I couldn’t have lost it.
I jumped when Max’s phone rang in my hand, as loud and insistent as it had ever sounded. It was Elias. I could tell him. He could call for help.
Wait. He’s Max’s “left- and right-hand man.” He’d be his ally.
I picked up on the third ring. “Elias. Hello.”
“Hello there, Mrs. Winter. Max there?”
Could I trust him?
“He’s out . . . he’s out at the barns. What is it?”
“Well, listen, I have very good news. The police are not going to pursue a warrant. They’re going to treat it as a private family matter this time. But I’m afraid Dani’s on their radar now.”
How happy this news would have made me five minutes ago.
“That’s great, Elias.”
“Any news on the poor kid?”
“Not yet, I’m just about to call Dr. Sherman. We’re very worried about her,” I said, my voice cracking. Oh Dani.
“She’s in good hands. But I would like to talk to Max about the conservatorship when he gets back. I think, after yesterday, it might be a good idea to have a new plan in place.”
“Yes, a plan. I think that’s . . . a very good idea.”
“I’m just being cautious. She fought it last time. But she’s about to receive the first big payout from Rebekah’s estate, and given
yesterday, well, I can imagine how worried Max is about her having unfettered access to that fortune.”
“Yes, he’s very worried,” I said. My mind spun at the word “conservatorship.” I knew it. The pieces clicked into place and my purpose here was revealed. I was the catalyst brought in to tip his unstable daughter into madness, the most lucrative kind. I dropped the phone away from my ear, Elias’s voice becoming tinny and small.
“She knew,” I whispered.
“Who are you talking to, sweetheart?”
I whipped around. Max was standing over me in his T-shirt, now dirty, pushing the hair off his sweaty forehead.
“I came to see what was taking you so long.” He looked at the detritus around me, the bag, the belts, the sweater, his phone in my hand. I could hear Elias calling my name, over and over. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Max snatched his phone back.
“Hi, Eli . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s in a bit of a daze. It’s been a crazy twenty-four hours.”
He made a funny face at me, a “what the hell?” face. As he listened to Elias, I nervously began to gather up the things he’d told me to fetch. The seamstress’s card peeked out from under his sweater. I covered it with my hand, clawing up both as I stood. He kept his eyes on me as he spoke with Elias, studying my features, the way my hands shook, and the single hot tear that betrayed me as it snaked down my cheek.
“Well, thank God for that,” he said. “Good, good. Listen, I’ll stop by there next week and chat with the officers myself. Give them an update on Dani . . . Fair enough . . . Yes, yes, agreed, we should talk about that again, but not today. Thanks, buddy. Good work.”
He hung up, then quickly scanned through his phone before putting it in the back pocket of his jeans. Oh God, had I closed the Instagram app? Could he see I had made a call to the seamstress?
His face belied nothing.
“Good news about the warrant,” he said.
“Yes. Thank God.”
“Still, we’re not taking any chances. Right?”
“Right.”
He looked around the room again as if someone might be hiding behind the curtains, under the bed. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You seem a little off.”
“I don’t know, Max. I do feel a little off,” I said, my voice trembling, my eyes resisting contact with his. “Maybe everything’s catching up to me.”
I watched his eyes land on my own phone, charging by the nightstand. He looked back at me.
“Yes. You’ve taken a lot in,” he said. “What did Elias tell you just now? When I walked in your face was white.”
“Just about the warrant.”
“And?”
Tell him what you found: the business card, the fake Rebekah account. Maybe there’s a good explanation.
“He’s just . . . worried about Dani, too.”
He tilted his head, studying me. “You’re lying to me. You’re terrible at it, but you’re doing it.”
I glanced at my phone again. “What are you talking about?”
“My love, I don’t have time to cross-examine you. Shall we head down?” He turned to leave.
My feet were stuck to the carpet.
“Max, you . . . you said you wanted to do this alone. That might be a good idea. I mean—”
“I did, didn’t I? Well, it turns out it’s a bigger job than I thought.”
The woman I was when I’d offered to help him was gone, replaced with someone deeply aware of Max’s ruthlessness.
“Well, then, I—I should grab a sweater,” I said. “I’ll meet you down there.”
“I’ll wait.”
I headed to my dressing room, my heart racing so fast I thought I’d pass out. I pulled a fleece off a laundry pile and went back out to the bedroom, making a casual beeline for my phone. Max beat me to it, gently lifting it off its dock.
“I’ve got this. You have your hands full.”
“Max, my phone.” I put my hand out.
He looked at it, his eyes sad. He seemed unsure how to proceed, what to do next, how this would go. “I’ll keep it safe,” he said, and slid it into his other pocket. “I promise.” He stood so close to me I could feel his breath on my forehead.
“Max.”
“Yes, my love.”
“Why?”
I already knew the answer.
He shrugged. “When you have something like this”—his arm took in the room, the house, the island itself—“you have to protect it from anyone who might destroy it. Even if it’s family.”
“Did you ever love me?”
He sighed deeply, then bopped me gently on the nose with the tip of his finger. “From the moment I laid eyes on you,” he said. Then he glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, look at the time. Shall we?”
Without waiting for my reply he turned. I followed behind him, my vision blurring. He didn’t take my hand. He stared straight ahead and walked, my jailer leading me to the gallows. We passed beneath the oily painted faces of his ancestors and I finally saw these men for who they really were: pirates and criminals, men who kissed up to kings and did business in the shade. That one kept bound boys. This one fought arrows with cannons. And him, the original Lord Winter, he stole this island in exchange for blankets full of diseases he had survived. How many crimes did these men commit to keep this land? How high a price do you have to pay to earn a place on this wall? How close had I come to paying it?
Tears fell freely down my cheeks now. There was no hiding my terror. As we passed through the foyer, I eyed the gun cabinet. Were any of them loaded?
Max turned, catching the tail end of my longing gaze. The front door wasn’t locked. I could make a run for it. How far could I get on foot? If I made it to the causeway, would he mow me down on that narrow road?
In the kitchen, hunger hit me hard. When had I last eaten? Was it the cold buffet? Our wedding cake? How apt.
When he opened the door of the greenhouse, the air smelled extra sweet, helped along by the flowers that still stuffed the space, clinging to life in their vases. It wasn’t unpleasant, the smell, but still, I covered my nose and mouth.
Then I saw her, or what must have been her body, lying under a blue tarp. Max peeled it back.
“It’s actually not that bad to look at,” he said. “Turns out four feet was deep enough. And two years is plenty of time for a body to decompose. Mind you, the conditions in here were perfect. Helped to keep the door locked.”
I hated how he sounded, cheerful, pleased with himself. I couldn’t bear it. My legs gave way. I collapsed to my knees.
“I can’t, Max. I can’t look.”
“Come on. An hour ago you were Lady Macbeth in there, all ‘I’m not squeamish. Let’s do this, we’re a team.’ And now you’re choking? When I need you the most? You’re my wife. What changed?”
“Dani!” I screamed. “Dani is what’s changed! I know what you did to her, Max! The dress, that . . . that account. The kitten, Max. I know what you did. And I know why.”
He bowed his head and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he looked at me. “Are you saying you’re taking her side?”
“Side? She’s your daughter! She’s a kid!”
“A kid who has done nothing but make our life a living hell, don’t forget! I may have set her off, but she is a danger to herself and others, and if I don’t get a handle on that goddamn money, she’ll bring it all down around her, just like her mother almost did. Christ, the both of them.”
“She’s a kid, Max,” I said, still crying, pleading for him to wake up from this nightmare and become the man I knew.
He fussed with the zipper of the garment bag. “But here’s the thing. She’s not my kid. She was Rebekah’s. And that was your only job, your one gift to me. That’s all I wanted from you, a baby, an heir, a real one, so we could challenge
Dani’s inheritance. And in exchange, you’d get this wonderful fucking life, which you’re now throwing away.”
His words doubled me over.
“Now what do you want from me?” I asked, terrified of the answer. I knew everything now. And he was right, I was on Dani’s side. Which meant there was no one on mine.
He shook open the garment bag. “A little help would be nice. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t want to hurt Dani. I just wanted to prove she is in no way fit to inherit everything. I mean, my God, Rebekah left her everything. Or, rather, she left the heir to Asherley everything. And that should be our kid. I was hoping you’d understand that. Now let’s get this done. It’s not so bad, I promise you.”
I sat up, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “Are you going to kill me?”
He laughed. “I’m not a cold-blooded murderer,” he said. “Everything I did, I did because I had to. And everything we’re doing now is because we have to. You’re in this now, too, babe. After all, the boat was your brilliant idea. Now give me a hand.”
He threw back the tarp. There she lay, the woman I’d feared and loathed, her body still wrapped in its original shroud, filthy and eaten away in patches, beneath which was brown skin flaking off gray bone and tufts of her hair, dirty blond, a term I could never hear again without shuddering. Was that what Dani had seen last night? Her face was thankfully obscured by what remained of the tablecloth, the leather belts still intact. They were loose enough for us to slide our hands under and lift her into the garment bag, her bones collapsing only slightly. Max was right, she weighed very little. At the sound of the garment bag’s zipper, I wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in my stomach. I closed my eyes to pray instead.
The Winters Page 26