We ordered two entrées—the sea bass and the mushroom risotto. I launched into the story, telling Maddy briefly about the McKnight arbitration, then moving on quickly to the weekend in Woodland Dunes.
When I got to the part about getting drunk with Ty on Saturday night, Maddy held up her hand. “Okay, first things first. We’re getting you off the vodka right now and switching to wine.” Maddy flagged down the waiter, and ordered a bottle of Chardonnay.
“The next issue,” Maddy said, leaning forward on the table with her elbows, “is this Ty person. Let’s talk about him.”
I groaned. Maddy was the dating queen of New York. She was forever giving me hell for not going out with enough men.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You told me twice he was cute,” Maddy said, pausing to okay the bottle of wine the waiter proffered. “And he sent a tray with wine and cheese to your room with a nice little note that I bet you read at least three times.”
I burst out laughing. Maddy knew me implicitly, and that felt so damn good.
“I knew it. And then to top it off, you act like an intoxicated fool, and yet he doesn’t leave you in the street like he should have.”
I accepted a glass of wine from the waiter. “So?”
“So? He sounds like a gem. Why didn’t you kiss him and see if the whole world disappeared?”
I shot her an exasperated look. Maddy knew about my flimsy test for true love. Sometimes, I wished I’d never told her about it. “I’d just met the guy!”
“When is the last time you had sex?”
“Oh, no. I’m not having this conversation.”
“Okay, fine. You don’t have to sleep with him anytime soon.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But,” Maddy continued, “you should at least think seriously about dating him. He sounds like a prince.”
“Maddy, he’s a hotel owner in Michigan, and I’m an attorney in Manhattan. Does that sound like it’s going to work?”
“Never know until you try.”
I shook my head and fell silent while Maddy sipped her wine. I would never win the argument.
“When are you going to see him again?” Maddy said.
“Never? I don’t know.”
“Look, I’m not trying to bug you.”
I gave her another look.
“Okay, maybe I am.” Maddy gave me a devilish grin. “But just promise me you won’t dismiss this. Not yet. See what happens when you go back to Chicago.”
“Fine,” I said to get her off my back. The entrées arrived, and I cut the sea bass down the middle, putting half of it on Maddy’s plate. I let myself think about Ty for a second. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. If he lived in Manhattan, I’d probably be all over the guy. But the long distance seemed too great an obstacle, when I already had so many others.
“All right,” Maddy said, a pleased little look on her face. “Glad we got that settled. Now keep going with your story.”
I told her about the letters from Della and the dinner with the Mannings.
“Oh, God. That must have been horrible,” she said when she heard about the abuse suspicions Chief Manning had considered.
I didn’t let myself linger on the issue, because the truth was that the thought made me sick. “It wasn’t true, though,” I said. “That’s what Ty’s dad decided, he…” Something snagged in my mind.
Maddy looked up at me as my words trailed away. “What?” she said.
“I was thinking of my conversation with them.” I went quiet, making myself review that night and the exact words Chief Manning had said.
Maddy waved a hand in front of my face.
“Now that I think about it,” I said. “I don’t remember him saying he decided the abuse allegations weren’t true.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“She fell down the stairs.”
Maddy pursed her mouth in a suspicious smirk.
“I know, I know. It’s the classic line to cover up abuse, and Manning said he suspected my dad. It’s crazy, right?”
“Ridiculous! They obviously cleared him.”
“That’s the thing,” I said, returning in my mind to the Mannings’ snug kitchen and their painted wood table. “I asked Ty’s dad if they’d ruled him out, and he said, ‘I guess you could say that.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure.” I pushed my plate away, not hungry any longer. “At the time, I took it to mean that my dad was cleared of those suspicions. I mean, that’s how the conversation seemed, but now that I’m remembering it, Chief Manning didn’t really say that.”
“Well, this isn’t a deposition, Hailey. He wasn’t precise with his words, but I’m sure he meant he ruled your dad out. Otherwise they’d have pressed charges.”
“Right,” I said, wanting to believe her. “Right.” But something about Chief Manning’s response irked me.
“So keep going with your story,” Maddy said, pouring more wine.
I dragged my mind away from the Mannings’ kitchen and told Maddy about Portland, meeting Matt, and finally my conversation with the woman in Santa Fe, as well as my phone calls to the Albuquerque home of someone named Dan Singer.
“Geez,” she said. “You’ve been busy. So when are you going to Santa Fe?”
“What?”
“No one answers at Dan’s house, right? So you don’t even know if he’s in Albuquerque anymore. And that woman who had a kid with him isn’t going to talk to you on the phone. She’s hostile, and she’s had enough. If you happened to go to Santa Fe on business, though, if you just happened to call from your hotel and say you’re stopping by, maybe she’d tell you what she knows.”
I thought for a second. “I like it, but I’m too crazy with the McKnight case.”
“You can work on planes. You can work in a hotel room. You’d probably get more done if you’re by yourself without the phones ringing and everybody around your firm talking about the partnership election.”
Maddy had a point. “Would you go with me?” I said, excited. “We could make it a girls’ trip.”
“Oh, sweetie. I would. You know I’d do anything for you, but I’ve been kind of busy myself.” Maddy wore a coy expression.
“What is it? I’m sorry I’ve been dominating the conversation.”
“Oh, shut up. My story’s not half as interesting.” But Maddy looked very interested. “I think I might be falling for someone.”
“What?” The word came out louder than I expected, and I noticed a few other diners turning their heads toward me. “You mean just one guy?”
Maddy had a big smile on her face now. “Yep.”
“Tell me!”
“Well, he’s older.”
“Of course.” Maddy had a thing about older men, and as long as I had known her, she had mostly been interested in guys that were anywhere from five to twenty years her senior.
“A little older than usual, actually.”
“He’s not seventy or something, is he?
Maddy laughed. “No. His name is Grant, and he’s in his fifties. Married once a long time ago, no kids.”
“Any issues with the wife? Was the divorce recent?”
“Oh, no. They were married and split before they were even thirty. He found the love of his life after the divorce, but something happened with her. I think he’s still trying to get over it in some way.”
I held up my glass to her. “And you’re the perfect girl to help him with that.”
“Exactly!” she said, toasting with me.
We made our way through the bottle of wine, and Maddy gave me all the details about Grant, a business consultant from Boston who came to Manhattan often.
I let the warmth of the wine and the conversation fill me. I let Maddy’s familiar smile shine a light into my heart. And as I threw my head back and laughed with Maddy, I realized this was the first time I’d felt safe since I’d gone back to Woodland Dunes.
The rest
of the week flew by. Magoo Barragan and I worked long into each evening, preparing a budget and trial analysis for Sean McKnight, while Natalie Decker focused on research. I had returned to dealing exclusively with Beth Halverson at McKnight Corporation, making my life much more pleasant. By Thursday night, we’d finished the budget and analysis, and the three of us met to strategize.
“All right, what next?” I said to them.
Magoo had pushed the files off my couch and stretched himself across it, his tie loosened to the point that it hung in a circle around his neck. Natalie sat on one of the chairs facing my desk.
“You pick,” Natalie said, running her hands through her black, razor-straight bob. “There are two million things to do.” Her face was bland, though, as if two million tasks weren’t necessarily insurmountable.
“I don’t know how we’ll be ready in three and a half weeks,” Magoo said, throwing an arm over his face to block it from the light overhead.
Three and a half weeks. My stomach flipped. The thought of a big trial still sent a charge of panic through me as the days drew nearer. During my first few years of practice, the firm had always made an older partner try any case with me. After a number of them, they agreed I could handle the cases by myself, and for the last two years, each trial was my own, although sometimes one of the attorneys from the group second-chaired it with me. It wasn’t as if I had been doing this for twenty years, though. I was even more nervous this time because I didn’t have my normal focus. Instead, I had spent half my brainpower wondering about my mother, the whereabouts of my siblings and the conversation I needed to have with my father.
I had tried to talk to him a few times since Tuesday, yet he was always at a meeting or running out to a deposition. But I knew that tonight he was having dinner with a client at his club in the city. He would be nearly done now, and I planned to head there as soon as I wrapped up the meeting.
“Let’s just break it down,” I said to Magoo and Natalie. “We’ll go over each task, we’ll prioritize, and divide them up.”
“Sure,” Natalie said, as if discussing whether or not to have breakfast tomorrow morning.
“Sounds good,” Magoo said.
We talked for another twenty minutes, listing the jobs that needed to be completed, debating which were more important than the others, until I had a neat, orderly inventory that made it more manageable. Magoo and Natalie volunteered for various jobs, and I printed each of them a copy of the list so we could all keep track.
By the time we were done, it was nearly nine-thirty. I knew my father would probably leave the club in fifteen minutes in order to catch the ten o’clock train to Long Island.
“I’ve got to run,” I said, grabbing a stack of file folders off the desk. “I’ll finish up at home tonight.”
“See ya,” Magoo said with a wave. Natalie shrugged.
Soon, I was in a cab, headed toward midtown and the Van Newton Guild, a stuffy, antique-filled private club that admitted only men until about a decade ago, when a lawsuit forced them to accept women, as well. As far as I could tell, few women had taken advantage of the new membership policy. My father found the place as pretentious and old-fashioned as I did, but many of his longtime clients dined there, so he kept his membership current and made appearances when needed.
A liveried doorman dressed in a crimson jacket with gold epaulets opened the door. Inside, a long stretch of gray and white marble led to a desk where members and guests were required to check in. As I walked down the hall, I felt as I always did when I was here, as if I was sneaking into a museum after hours, and any minute someone would politely ask me to leave. I tried to step lightly, but my heels kept making succinct clicks on the marble.
“I’m here to see Will Sutter. I believe he’s in the dining room,” I said to the man behind the desk. He was a bespectacled guy about my age who was probably getting a doctorate in medieval poetry during the day. The Van Newton Guild always hired academics with no personal skills.
“Name?” he asked with no hint of a smile.
“Hailey Sutter.”
The clerk barely gave me a nod before calling the dining room. He turned his back and spoke in low tones as if imparting a state secret to the maître d’ upstairs. I glanced at my watch: 9:45 p.m. Hopefully, I hadn’t missed him.
“Mr. Sutter will see you in the bar,” the clerk said, turning to face me again. “I’ll call someone to escort you.”
“I know where it is,” I said. I moved toward the elevator hidden in the side wall.
“Miss!” the clerk called out. “Club rules!”
I groaned and waited a full minute before another bespectacled academic took me into the elevator and upstairs to the bar, which was more like a library. Paneled with inlaid bookshelves that housed leather-covered tomes, the room was my favorite in the club since it actually seemed somewhat inviting rather than pompous. I saw my father immediately, sitting at a game table with another man at the far side of the room. When he spotted me, a wide smile formed on his face.
“I’ll take it from here,” I said to my escort. But he insisted on walking me over to my father and formally announcing me.
“Miss Hailey Sutter,” the man said, before he gave a short bow and disappeared.
My dad laughed at my annoyance. “Hi, sweetie,” he said. He stood to kiss me on the cheek.
He introduced me to Mack Randall, the head of a trading operation, which my father had represented for about fifteen years. Mack excused himself almost immediately, saying he had to get home to his wife.
“You came to have a chat with your old dad?” My father gestured toward the chair Mack had vacated.
I sank into it. “Yes, actually, I did. Are you trying to catch the ten o’clock?”
“I can get the next one.”
“Great,” I said. But didn’t know where to start. Luckily, a waiter came over, and I ordered a coffee with skim milk.
I shifted in my chair, and as I did so, I noticed that a glass with ice and amber-colored liquid sat before my father. Whiskey, I realized.
This was truly odd, a sign of something off, because my dad never drank. He had grown up in Kansas on his parents’ farm. It was an ideal childhood until one particularly bad flood killed the farm, and his parents started drinking. The alcohol wrecked them, he had told me. It had wrecked their family, and he wouldn’t continue that legacy.
I looked at the glass again, then met his gaze and raised my eyebrows. What’s up with that? Sometimes we didn’t have to talk to communicate.
He shrugged, then again. Nothing. Nothing important.
I let it go. While I waited for my coffee, we made light conversation, my father telling me about a lawsuit Mack’s company was involved in. My coffee seemed to arrive too fast, and my father stopped, waiting for me to begin.
“I have some questions,” I said. I took a sip from the porcelain cup and tried not to make a face. The Van Newton Guild was not known for its culinary excellence.
“Okay. What’s this about?”
I fell quiet. How to summarize this? Just start at the beginning. “It’s about Mom.”
My father didn’t respond immediately. The word Mom hung in the air.
“All right.” His voice sounded wary, or maybe I imagined it.
I took another sip of the coffee, but this time, I barely noticed how horrid it was. Instead, I was simply happy to have something to do with my hands, anything that could pass a little time until I figured out how to broach this topic that had been hidden for so long.
“I guess the first thing I want to know is how she died.” There. I’d said it. I stole a glance at my dad over the rim of my cup.
He blinked once, then twice, then again. He slid his hand across the game table and touched my upper arm. Something about his touch startled me. I put my cup down immediately, looking from his hand and back to his face.
“Honey,” he said, his voice agonized, “you know this.”
“What? No, I don’t. We’ve
never talked about it. You never wanted to.”
He sat back, and the spot where he’d held my arm suddenly felt cool without his hand there. “Well, I don’t know if that’s true.”
I felt a flash of anger. “Yes, it is true. You wouldn’t ever talk to me about this, and so I stopped asking. I’m an adult now, though. I want to know.”
He shook his head. “Of course. I mean…well, I know we didn’t talk about this often. For so long, it was too painful for me, but I thought we’d had some conversations along the way.” Absently, he picked up his glass and jostled the ice around.
Suddenly I began to doubt myself. Had we had these talks, and had I somehow pushed them out of my mind, the same way I had shoved away my memories of that night?
“Maybe we did, Dad. But I just can’t remember, and I’ve been wondering. So please, tell me.”
He made a sound, like a coarse breath escaping his lungs. “Your mother fell down the stairs. She hit her head and died of internal bleeding in the brain.” He took a small sip of his drink.
There it was. The same story. The story that Chief Manning had settled on, the story that I, myself, had apparently told the police.
When I didn’t say anything, my father put his glass down and looked at me directly, his eyes full of concern, grief, and, if I wasn’t mistaken, that wariness again. “Are you remembering now?”
Remembering now? What did that mean? I could feel my father watching me, waiting for me to answer. “No. I don’t recall anything about it.”
It sounded so simple. My mother had fallen down the stairs. Tragic but simple, so why couldn’t I remember it like that? Why couldn’t I remember it at all?
My father sat back, his face clearing a little. Why did he look relieved?
“Were you there?” I asked. I knew from Della, and from Chief Manning’s version of events, that my dad was out of the house, separated from my mom by then. But I had never heard my father say that. I wanted to see if he would be honest with me. I prayed he would.
He hung his head. “I wish I was. But no.”
“Where were you?”
He sighed. “I don’t know if you knew this, if you remember this, I mean, but your mom and I had taken a break.”
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