by Nicole Bokat
“There’s just one more thing.” She reached for her socks and boots, which were tucked under the bed. Time to go.
“I’m not sure I feel like answering.” His tone had changed, the warmth gone. Natalie felt his desire for her drain away. His eyes had lost their light, and the air was still, nothing flowing from him now.
“I got a strange email a few weeks ago about the accident that night on the road.”
“So?”
“So, I thought you might … know about it.”
He didn’t respond, the air so thick and cold, as if winter had slipped inside.
“It was anonymous. The person claimed I was lied to about the accident and that I should ask you about it.”
He laughed, then, a real laugh, not forced, and glanced from side to side as if an audience was about to pop out from behind the furniture. “Is this some kind of spoof?”
“I thought you might have more than one email address, work maybe or—”
“That it was from Gillian?”
Natalie hadn’t even considered that. The ex-girlfriend was a plausible suspect. The book was inscribed to her. Gillian Monroe could have researched the conference, printed out the photos. She could have left the book at his place when they broke up; it was published over a year ago. Natalie was certain that the worldwide annual conference began advertising months in advance. The timing matched up.
“I wondered, yes,” she said.
“Is that what our dinner was about?” He drew a line between them with his finger. “Is that the reason you’re in New York, to ask me about some odd email?”
She felt the trickle of sweat under her arms, wrenched on her boots. “Yes.”
“No family portrait?”
“No, no portrait.”
“What else did it say to drag you all this way?”
His face was still an enticing golden color, but she detected a grayish tint under his eyes, the lines fanning from the corners, long and skinny as mosquito legs. She made a quick calculation not to reveal details. “The point is that it meant that there was a witness, someone who saw the accident on the island. Don’t you think?”
“I haven’t a clue. And here you went to such lengths because you thought I was involved in—what?”
“At first, I thought you might have sent it using another email account,” Natalie said. “Did you?”
“Now you’ve gone from creepy to disturbing.”
His indignation seemed credible. But this could be attributed to good acting skills. He was a stranger, after all, a deceitful man hiding his Isabel fixation from her.
“Were you following Isabel to the Cayman Islands?” she risked. Breath in …
He grabbed his dress socks, charcoal with small white dots, from under the comforter. “I already told you I was on holiday, and I met you two on the road. Now I have to say I wish I hadn’t.”
“I didn’t mean to imply anything. I’m just asking. Do you know anyone named bbGodfrey?”
“I think it best if you stick to your pictures of sweets and Shepherd’s pie. You’re not doing a very good impression of Sherlock Holmes.” He cocked his head. “Is Isabel in on this arrangement, you and me?”
It wasn’t just the question; it was the tone, the way it dropped into familiarity. He had contacted Isabel, she was certain. “I didn’t tell her I was coming, if that’s what you mean. Have you discussed that night with her? Have you asked her for money?”
“Oh, dear, that’s pathetic. Would you like to check my portfolio? I’m quite capable of earning a sizable living without blackmailing strangers and for no reason.”
“To not call the police, to … cover up that I hit and injured someone.” She realized how bizarre her theory sounded.
He grimaced and shook his head, as if embarrassed for her. “You should listen to yourself.”
Natalie stood up now. All she had to do was get her coat and run. “I found Isabel’s book on your bookshelves. I was … just looking.”
His mouth twisted with rage. “What else did you dig through without a search warrant?”
“It’s not like that.” She inched away. “There were photos of Isabel in the book, printouts from the Internet.”
“That’s Gillian’s book, not that it’s any of your business. I need you and your delusions to leave now.”
Nodding, she hurried for the front closet.
He rushed in front of her. His breath was heavier, and he grunted once, not loudly, but enough for Natalie to recognize what he was stifling. She was more than a nuisance.
“I’ll get a taxi,” she said.
“Brilliant.”
Natalie stood for a few seconds at the door, not turning around. She wanted to know more—about Gillian, about Simon’s communication with Isabel—but fear clamped shut her throat.
Simon insisted, “Goodbye then.”
She heard him walking away, in the direction of his bedroom. She could still feel him inside of her, could still hear his moans.
twelve
—
NATALIE AWOKE TO THE HUMMING SOUND OF THE ROOM’S climate control and the dull light wedged in-between the hotel curtains. She felt snug under the covers. Blinking into the still air of the immaculate room, she noted the desk in front of her bed, the modern lamp with the rectangular shade and the flat screen TV hanging above. She almost drifted off again. Then it flowed in like a draft under the window, what she’d done, what she’d found.
There was a rotten taste in her mouth and a great pressure on her bladder. She sprang up and rushed to the bathroom. On the toilet, Natalie tried to reconstruct the night she’d smashed the car into the dog—or person—tried to determine what Isabel’s reaction was to Simon. But she hadn’t witnessed the moment when they first caught sight of each other. And, anyway, even if Isabel had seen him before at a book signing with his ex-girlfriend, even if he’d introduced himself, she would have filed his image away under “another fan,” with the hundreds of others she’d met. Chances were that she wouldn’t have recognized him.
Natalie’s thoughts looped around again: why was Simon there in the first place? Was he in Grand Cayman to see Isabel—and why, if it was his girlfriend who was the Isabel enthusiast, not him? Did Simon have some distorted idea that Isabel contributed to their breakup?
Bit of a shambles.
Natalie washed her hands in the porcelain bowl under the hook-shaped silver faucet, the décor so pristine and stark.
Over lunch that day in the Caribbean, when her stepsister had warned about Simon, she hadn’t mentioned a prior run-in with him. Isabel claimed she didn’t want Natalie re-traumatized. But Isabel could have known more about Simon, his potential for trouble. She could have been attempting to safeguard Natalie. Her hand shook as she unraveled one of the rolled towels neatly stacked on the shelf.
Woolly-socks against the cropped carpet, she rushed to the bed, phone in hand. She pressed the sunflower yellow app, shut her eyes, tight. “You are in a place of tranquility. With each breath you are being renewed and regenerated. There’s no sense of time. You are being healed, cradled by the sky.” Her thoughts kept coming, flip-book picture fashion: Isabel noticing blood on the rented Camry, Simon hunting through the bushes, the claret patches on the road.
You were lied to.
Thumb on the screen, she stopped the sound of chimes, the promises that weren’t coming true. Of what could she be sure? Simon being there in Grand Cayman, at the time of the Happiness Conference, and even on the same road that night. These weren’t coincidences.
Natalie grabbed her carry-along bag. She could try to discover the role Simon’s ex-girlfriend played in this connection to Isabel and whether or not bbGodfrey was the woman’s pseudonym. Inside was her iPad. She had time to search the web. Her train to Boston left at one in the afternoon, an hour after checkout from the hotel. According to the phosphorescent clock numbers, it was only 8:10 a.m. Perhaps luck would bestow on Natalie some kind of proof: a Facebook page with favorite books lis
ted or a blog. She had to attempt to smooth things over with Simon in case she needed additional information from him down the line. He’d used her, why she wasn’t sure, but she’d used him too. If he still wanted something from Isabel, maybe he’d respond. She typed: “I’m sorry about the last part of our otherwise delightful evening. I should have been upfront with you. I enjoyed our dinner—and afterwards.” She clicked on the wink emoji even as she rolled her eyes. “Yours, Natalie.”
She thrust herself into the shower and out into another frigid day. Here in New York, Simon’s harried city, the swats to her cheeks felt personal. The trees quivered without the coverlets of leaves. She hurried to a café around the corner. Armed with a large cappuccino and a whole-wheat bagel, she reentered the warmth of the hotel lobby with a shoulder-loosening sigh. Her boots clacked against the marble floor. She nodded at the hotel concierge, a stout man with a prominent birthmark on his forehead.
In the elevator, Natalie pushed the silver button that lit up with her floor number. Gillian Monroe. She imagined scenes from films where the detective examined notes written in parchment, the calligraphy and water marks providing clues. Her search would be easier. She’d start with a Google search, and then scrutinize Facebook and LinkedIn. Back in her room, she darted to her computer. There was no return email from Simon.
She scrolled back to the mysterious message that had brought her here. She clicked “reply” again. This time she wrote to bbGodfrey: Still haven’t heard from you. Why aren’t you answering? What do you want from me?
Was Godfrey planning a scheme to blackmail her?
Gulping down caffeine, she typed Simon’s girlfriend’s name into Google. There was a Gillian Court in Monroe, Michigan, and a solicitor by that name located in Manchester, England. Next, she tried Facebook. There were fifteen matches, including a woman posing seductively in a red lace teddy and fishnet stockings clipped onto her garter belt, a high school student with thick-framed glasses, and someone whose profile picture was a Scottish terrier.
“Help me out here,” she said to the terrier.
Finally, buzzing from the double shots, she found an appropriate person on LinkedIn: an executive director at HSBC Bank in New York City, who’d been educated at Oxford University. This woman had held a previous job as an analyst for a company in Surrey, England. Natalie examined the woman’s headshot, expecting a starling, shimmering beauty to match Simon’s. Instead, Gillian Monroe was pleasantly pretty with her scrubbed face, open guileless smile, and light brown eyes. She didn’t seem to be wearing makeup. Peering closer, Natalie pegged Gillian as being in her mid-thirties. The first button of her blouse was open, revealing the slope of her neck, white with the slightest beige undertones. Her cheeks were brighter with a seashell pink cast to them.
Simon had claimed that she and his ex-girlfriend had “similar taste in jewelry.” As far as Natalie could see, this woman wasn’t wearing any. Her neck was bare; her ears were covered by long, fine, brown hair. Her hands weren’t in the picture. Maybe this was the wrong person.
Had Simon’s girlfriend—whether it was this ordinary-looking British banker or another one—introduced him to Isabel? She sent this message to Gillian through LinkedIn: “I’ve recently been in contact with Simon Drouin. I’m wondering if you know anything about his interest in Isabel Walker, the author of Get Happy Now.”
Natalie bit into her bagel with the vegetable cream cheese, which was bitter with scallion. She wouldn’t confess to her exploits with Simon. But she needed to alert her stepsister about the second message from Godfrey. Can you meet for coffee this week?
A few minutes later her cell phone hummed. Isabel texted: Where are you this weekend? Tried you last night.
Was out, on a date….
Fantastic! I want to hear all about it! Isabel sent her a wink. Just as Natalie had done with Simon.
HADLEY WAS STAYING after school for a meeting of the Save the Environment club, which gave Natalie this opening to meet Isabel. She was early, yet Natalie raced towards Faneuil Hall, a sense of urgency pressing under her ribs.
Towering skyscrapers lining either side of the narrow old European-style streets and the white steeple rising above the dignified brick Old State House filled Natalie’s eye. The eighteenth-century granite structure held a bustling, indoor marketplace chock-full of ethnic and traditional New England food. Vendors sold their touristy souvenirs and handmade crafts along the arcades. There were multiple aromas of fudge and curry, of calzones and fish chowder, of garlic, cumin, and picante sauce. Natalie inhaled. She bought a coffee and sat at one of the extended wood tables in the center atrium in back of a couple of girls with BU backpacks, one in a neon pink down jacket, the other with shocking pink streaks in her hair.
While she gazed out of the Colonnade at a patch of overcast sky, Isabel glided in across from her with a paper cup in one hand, the string from the tea bag hanging over the side. “So, tell me about your date! I can’t wait to hear.”
“Oh, he turned out to be a mistake.”
“Details!”
She felt the pull of intimacy: the longing to reveal her date with Simon, the discovery of the pictures in Gillian’s copy of her book, and the pamphlet about the Happiness Conference. But she was edgy from shame and didn’t want to be chastised, or worse, coddled: I wanted to protect you. I knew he was stalking me, Simon and his crazy girlfriend.
“Rather not rehash.”
“That bad? At least you’re getting back out there.”
“The thing is, I got another one of the anonymous emails about the Cayman Islands.”
Isabel shook her head, the diamond studs in her ears glinting. “How annoying. What did this one say?”
Natalie wrapped an arm around her waist. “That I was lied to. That the guy, Simon, was a witness.”
“Witness to what?”
“He wasn’t specific, just that there was blood on the car. I have a theory. Maybe Simon is sending them, using an alias.”
“It’s possible, I guess. Remember, last year, that woman in Oregon who emailed her mother was sick and asked me how to think positively about euthanasia? I told her to get professional help, but she kept contacting me for months until she let slip she was hearing God’s voice speaking from the toilet bowl. Just the upstairs one, the downstairs one was mute.”
“Oh, right.” Natalie laughed. “It’s not funny. But it kind of is.”
“I know. Thank God for Debbie. She’s helped people find therapists in their areas. Not exactly in her job description.” Debbie: her assistant and ghostwriter.
“But Simon isn’t mentally ill.”
Parallel lines formed between Isabel’s brows. “How would you know?”
Natalie stared into her cup, at the cinnamon sprinkled foam. Stupid slip-up. “I don’t. But the point is that he, or whoever Godfrey is, thinks what I did is much worse than you’re letting on.”
“What did I do? Be logical. If someone was seriously hurt, he couldn’t have just crawled off and vanished.”
“I was out of it for a few minutes, in the car, when you were on the road.”
Isabel reached out and grabbed Natalie’s hand. “So, you think, what, that I quickly dragged a body into the bushes, that Simon helped me?” she asked, an edge to her voice.
“No, no, of course not. It’s just that you’d do anything to save me from myself.”
“Not let someone who was injured lie in the bushes.”
Natalie pressed down hard on her breastbone. “Simon did the searching. Maybe he lied to both of us.”
“What would be his motivation?”
“To extort money from you. Has he done that?”
“No, of course not,” Isabel said. “That’s absurd. No one has asked me for anything. No one has even contacted me. I’ll double-check with Debbie, but she hasn’t mentioned anything like that to me. Plus, I have no surplus money now, so it’d be a lost cause for him.”
“Why message me, not you?”
“That’s a se
parate issue. Let’s reason this out.” Isabel paused, rubbed her knuckle over her lower lip. “Okay, so if this Godfrey person actually is Simon, he saw you were more anxious that night than I was. Maybe he’s trying to get a rise out of you to get me to react, to reach out to him.”
Natalie thought of the images crammed into Gillian’s copy of her stepsister’s book. “That makes sense.”
“I think the best course of action is to ignore him. Responding is just what he wants.”
“You’re probably right.”
“We both have enough shit to deal with.” Isabel raised her cup, took a sip. “Speaking of which, have you heard from Ellen?”
“No, nothing.”
“I was at my dad’s the other day. I looked around his home office, for the envelope, in case Ellen was mixed up. I didn’t see anything.”
The BU girls got up to leave. The one with the pink hair turned around to grab her bag, and Natalie noticed a silver hoop sticking out of her right eyebrow. “Can’t wait to get out of this hellhole. Amsterdam will be so cool,” she said loud enough for Natalie to hear. “Padua sounds great, too.”
Natalie asked, “How’s it going with Garrick’s place, cleaning it out?”
“Slowly. The will takes up to a year to probate anyway. So, no rush to sell.” She shook her head, as if to contradict herself and Natalie noticed there was a new severity to Isabel’s face, the jutting cheekbones, the blanched complexion.
“I just could use the money from it right now to replace what I’ve spent on the business.”
“Is the writing going okay?”
“Sparring with the editor on the direction. I need more time to sort it out, but the deadline can’t be moved. It’s not like I can just focus on the revisions. I have gigs to do, the workshops, travel.” Isabel sighed. “My dad dying didn’t help. Horrible to say but true. Listen, I’m sorry to bail. I have a four o’clock meeting with my publicist. She’s trying to coordinate an interview on the Faith Redmond Show with my April pub date.”
“That’s amazing, Belle!”
Daytime host, psychologist Faith Redmond, had won an Emmy for her television show three years running. National exposure like that could catapult Isabel to the kind of success her publisher was pushing for. Natalie felt a ping of envy.