“Before five,” he says. “We’ll go to The Strand together. I have reservations.”
“Of course,” I say.
I haven’t brought my own car to work that day, and Sylvia lives nowhere near the train. I must make use of Raoul’s car and driver to get myself to her beach house.
Sylvia’s parked outside when I arrive, her car skewed across the garage to occupy both spaces. All of the windows at her house are open. The front door is ajar.
Leaving my promises to be hasty with the driver—a nice old man named Thurston—I enter Sylvia’s house without bothering to ring the doorbell. There seems to be no point, considering she’s left everything open.
The authoress herself is in the kitchen. There’s an ice cream tub sitting next to her trash can and an empty bowl on the island. She is wringing her hands by the back door.
I can’t help but notice that her yacht is not at the dock.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“It’s Mario,” Sylvia says. “I haven’t seen him since the launch party.”
“Did you check all the interns’ bedrooms?” It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve found Mario fraternizing with office staff.
“He always calls by now,” Sylvia says. She’s oblivious to my attempt at being rude. “Even if he’s with someone else, he always calls.”
That obviously isn’t true, as he hasn’t called now, so what she really means is “almost always.” But she is obviously distressed. I keep that thought to myself.
“I have nothing to do with Mario’s disappearance,” I say. “I don’t even know how I could be involved, to be honest. It’s not like I could carry the man off.”
“You’re involved because of him,” Sylvia says. On the last word, she drops her voice to a whisper.
There’s no doubt in my mind that she means Erik.
A chill sinks into my bones. I rub my arms to try to warm myself, but the gesture is in vain. “If you’re worried about your husband’s safety, you shouldn’t have called me. You should file a report with the police.”
She grabs my elbow. “But he’s doing this because of you. It’s all about you—you thieving little whore.”
“Excuse me.” I push her hand off of my arm. “Don’t touch me. And don’t talk to me like that. I’m not your assistant anymore and I don’t need to tolerate those kinds of insults.”
Her eyes are bright with hatred. “What did you do to get Erik Duke to advocate for you? Did you get on your knees under his desk and blow him while he wrote a torture scene? Did you bend over and let him take that skinny little ass of yours?”
The lewd words are like whip cracks. They rain upon my ears with little stings of pain.
Strange to hear such filth from the mouth of the great Sylvia Stone, who has never even published an explicit sex scene before.
It would hurt less if she weren’t so close to the truth, though.
I can’t show her any emotion. It will only feed into her tantrum. “I didn’t do anything to get him to do what he’s done. To be honest, I’d much prefer it if he would just leave my career alone. When my books are published—”
“When!” A shrill laugh from Sylvia.
“—it will be on my own merits, not because of favoritism.” I nudge her empty ice cream bowl with a fingernail, careful not to touch it too much. I allow all my disgust to show on my face. It’s satisfying to be honest after all this time. “And you’re not nearly important enough for me to conspire against you, Sylvia.”
It’s like a slap to her face. Her jaw drops.
Challenging Sylvia’s sense of self-importance is the cruelest insult I could have delivered, and it’s far too satisfying to see the results.
Yet I still have a crueler insult waiting for her.
“Do you know what I was doing when I received your message on my work phone today?” I ask.
“Former work phone,” she says savagely. “I’m sure you were emptying your desk.”
“I did that too, yes. But I could have had someone else bring my belongings to me. No—I went into the office to sign a contract.” I step around the kitchen island to glare down at Sylvia. She is pallid in the unflattering coastal sunlight. “I’m going to publish a book for Moonlight Sonata under my own name.”
Another slap. This one is enough to make her stagger. Her hand flies to her mouth. Her eyes are wide.
And she looks over my shoulder at the window.
All of the hatred drains out of her in an instant.
A tremble rolls over her body. “Mario,” she whispers.
I whirl to look out the window.
At first, I don’t understand what Sylvia is talking about. I see nothing remarkable on the beach outside her kitchen.
There’s a short stretch of grassy yard that turns to sand within a few feet, and then a wooden dock that bobs gently with the waves. Her yacht isn’t there. Pristine blue water laps over the beach, delivering driftwood and seaweed in its wake.
There is a large, dark shape underneath the nearer end of the dock.
That’s not driftwood.
Sylvia reaches the back door before I do, but I arrive at the dock first. The sand slips under my feet. It feels like running in a dream, a slow-motion struggle against the weight of sleep.
I trip on a shell and stagger to my knees beside the body.
Because that’s what it is—a body. A large, sodden mass shrouded in the detritus of the ocean.
It takes all my strength to roll him over. He flops onto his back, gray-fleshed and immobile, eyes staring.
Mario Stone.
-
I hold Sylvia’s hand until the paramedics arrive, and I promise to lock up her house while she rides to the hospital in the ambulance. Mario isn’t dead—though he is stunned, sickly, and so near to the brink of that final oblivion that he may as well be.
There’s no time for rivalry. All I can think to do is lend Sylvia my support.
But once all that is done, I walk through the hospital doors no more a friend to Sylvia than I was before her husband washed up on the beach.
She is crying in the hospital waiting room. I don’t move to embrace her. My heart aches for what has happened to them, but we are still not the kind of people who will offer comfort to each other. Not like that.
Grosvenor Lateen is already there, offering his condolences in an eggplant-colored suit that I know is meant to be a subtle display of adulation to Sylvia. It’s a noble effort, but a wasted one. Sylvia’s eyes are puffy. Her nose is running. She’s crying so hard that she probably can’t see what he’s wearing, much less the color of it.
It’s hard to say why I’ve had Thurston bring me to the hospital. Mario and I are no more friends than Sylvia and I.
Yet it feels as though I belong there. As though it’s my duty to see what’s become of him.
I gaze at Mario through the window of his hospital room. His body is sliced into lines by the blinds, giving me only glimpses of the bed, the oxygen mask breathing for him, his colorless skin.
Grosvenor moves to stand beside me. “You’re kind to come,” he says, patting my shoulder.
It’s not kindness that’s driven me here.
“Is he…?” I can’t finish the sentence.
“He’s alive,” Grosvenor says, keeping his voice low enough that Sylvia can’t hear him. “Though nobody knows how long that will last. Nobody knows how long he was under that dock, either. He’s still wearing the tuxedo from the launch event.”
The cruel serpents of nausea writhe in my gut.
You’ll regret defying me.
That’s what Erik had said at the meeting.
When Mario Stone wakes up, what will he tell us? Where did he spend the nights after the party?
Man accused of murdering bride on wedding night.
I turn to Grosvenor with tears in my eyes. “Do they have any ideas about how it happened?”
“Not yet.” But he looks grim. He suspects the same thing that I do. “Walk w
ith me, Christine.”
We leave the Stones and move outside. Evening is approaching now. Time has taken on a strange, elastic quality; I’m not sure how the brightness of that afternoon on the beach has already turned into such long shadows.
“I appreciate your cooperation with everything,” Grosvenor says. “Your swiftness with the contract makes my life easier in many ways.”
“But?” I ask. There must be a “but” or else he wouldn’t be discussing it with me at the hospital.
“You’ll remember that there’s a clause about the editing. How your book must be edited in such a manner and to a quality that satisfies Durand-Price.”
Dread is growing within me. “Yes, I just signed it today. I remember.”
“I got a phone call shortly before Mario was found.” Grosvenor is dancing around what he really wants to say. The longer it takes for him to get the words out, the more afraid I become. “Things were said…demands made…”
“Who was the call from?” I ask.
I don’t really need to ask.
And he doesn’t bother answering.
“Raoul isn’t in charge of approving your editing method. I am, according to this contract. You have to edit to my standards in the manner that I desire,” he says. “Well, I’ve decided how that edit’s going to fall out.”
The tremor in his voice is so similar to the one that had been in Sylvia’s when she called me to her house.
“There’s no easy way to deliver this news, so I’m just going to tell you,” Grosvenor says. “You’re going to rewrite your book under Erik Duke’s guidance.”
And there it is—the blow that I had been waiting for.
The first roll of thunder heralding the storm’s arrival.
It has come.
-
All He Asks: Part 4
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