The Drowning Girls

by Paula Treick DeBoard

  “It’s probably in your office,” Danielle said, but I knew it wasn’t. I hadn’t been back to my office since the interview, and I’d used my phone last night—I even remembered setting my alarm for seven thirty, thinking I’d get up early to make breakfast for the three of us, to butter up Liz for a talk.

  Danielle thought for a minute. “Don’t you have that app, the one that you can look up on your computer to find the phone’s GPS coordinates?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. But I booted up my laptop anyway and tried various websites, none of which worked.

  And then I thought: Liz.

  “Where did your mom go?”

  Danielle shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe to get groceries?”

  “Can I use your phone? I want to call her.”

  Danielle sighed elaborately, as if it were a huge imposition to let the person who paid for her phone actually touch it, but she handed it over without further complaint.

  I dialed Liz’s number and got her voice mail. “Hey,” I said to the recording. “It’s me. Can you give me a call—or Danielle, since this is her phone?” I waited, but she didn’t call back.

  “She never picks up when she’s driving,” Danielle pointed out.

  I waited another half hour, but she didn’t return the call. Eventually, I took a shower, retracing my steps through the bedroom one more time looking for my phone. Had Liz taken it for some reason? Was she looking for something, or maybe checking up on me? She’d seemed suspicious about my overnight trip, and I was eager to tell her the truth. At least she wouldn’t find anything from Kelsey on my phone. All those files were on a flash drive tucked away in my briefcase. I had this thought while I was in the shower, and then I hurried to rinse and throw on clothes and rush downstairs to check the inside zippered pocket of my briefcase, but the flash drive was still there, as well as the Ziploc bag with Kelsey’s thong and bikini. I laughed, stupid with relief—I’d carried this briefcase onto the plane, into my interview and never thought about it once. Kelsey had been out of my mind as soon as she was out of my sight.

  But at least Liz hadn’t found that. I could only imagine her disgust if she knew that I’d kept Kelsey’s underwear. And if she did have my phone, there was nothing incriminating there.

  Except—

  Shit. Shit.

  I’d copied the picture of Kelsey, half-naked and pulling on her clothes, onto the flash drive. But had I ever deleted it from my phone? I tried dialing Liz and got her voice mail again. Hi, you’ve reached Liz McGinnis...

  Assuming she had seen Kelsey’s picture, what had she done with my phone? Had she taken it as evidence to show someone—Kelsey’s parents? The police, even? And then I remembered last night, waking up to Liz’s movements in the bedroom, afraid as always that it was Kelsey climbing into bed next to me. She’d been cold, shivering as if she’d been outside.

  Because she had been outside.

  I practically raced back to my laptop. The video surveillance software was still loaded on there, although I hadn’t checked it once since I’d reviewed the fire footage. What was the point?

  It took me a while to find her, but she was there. The clock in the upper right corner of the screen read 2:19 a.m., and she was just a flash on the screen—a hoodie pulled up around her face, the hem hanging to her lower thighs. My hoodie. She must have left through our back gate and crossed the walking trail, heading out to the golf course. I slowed down the feed and waited. It was 2:42 a.m. before she reappeared, head down, carrying a flashlight in one hand, the light off.

  * * *

  Liz came home late that afternoon with a bag of groceries. The leafy ends of a head of romaine poked out of a brown bag like an alibi. I was sitting in the den, my laptop open in front of me.

  “Hey,” she said, and then called upstairs, “Danielle! Come on down to help me with dinner.”

  “She’s not here,” I said, loud enough so that she turned to look at me, really look at me. She was wearing black pants and a button-up blouse, several steps up from her usual weekend clothes. “I sent her to Hannah’s.”

  “Why?”

  I said, “You would know the answer to that if you listened to the messages on your phone.”

  Liz froze, looking at the kitchen peninsula, where she’d dumped her purse.

  “Don’t bother anymore. The messages are all from me, and I can tell you in person now.” I’d told Danielle that there was an important conversation I needed to have with her mother, and she’d protested, insisting that she should probably be there, too. You can’t be, I told her and finally, she’d accepted it. Now I said, “We need to talk, Liz.”

  “Let me put these groceries away first.”

  “Forget the groceries,” I said.

  Maybe she heard it in my voice this time, because she came into the den and sat in one of the club chairs perpendicular to me.

  I told her, “We’re going to talk,” and she let out a long sigh, as if she were completely deflating her lungs. On my lap, the monitor displayed the surveillance footage, the screen split into twelve different views. One camera covered the tennis courts, where the Zhang brothers were engaged in a fierce volley of shots from the baseline. It had been a beautiful, cloudless day, but The Palms felt deserted now. I took a deep breath. “You went out last night. In my sweatshirt.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Do you want to see the footage? I have it all cued up. I found my sweatshirt in the dryer. And you came to bed with your pants wet. They’re dry now, but there’s some mud along the hems.”

  She looked at me, waiting.

  “You did something with my phone. I have no idea what. I walked all around the walking trail and the golf course with Danielle’s phone, dialing my number.”

  Her face crumpled. “I found the picture! You bastard, you sick, opportunistic bastard. While we were gone for Thanksgiving! And all along, the two of you...”

  I leaned forward. “There was no two of us. She’s sick. Did you look at that picture? I took it from our bedroom window because she came over to the house, jumped in our pool and took off her suit. She knew you were gone, she knew I was home by myself.”

  “No.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “You’re not going to convince me this time that you’re this innocent husband and I’m the crazy jealous wife. You had that picture on your phone. A naked teenager, on your phone, since November.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Liz. I’ve wanted to tell you for months, only you wouldn’t listen. You had these crazy accusations...” I pulled the flash drive out of my pocket and loaded it into my laptop. “There’s more, too. I’ve been gathering evidence because I thought I might need it, in case she accused me of anything. Here.” I clicked on my own photo, the one I’d allegedly emailed to Kelsey.

  Liz recoiled when she saw the picture. “What the hell? You go walking around our backyard naked?”

  “That was the night of the Mesbahs’ party. Remember? We were drinking, and we got into the pool...”

  She snatched the laptop from me and held the screen six inches from her face. “How do I know it was that night?”

  “I can prove it. Zoom in a little more, to the right. See it, on the grass?”

  “It’s your shoe,” she said.

  “Yeah, remember? I kicked off my shoes and one of them went flying—”

  “And I found it on the grass the next morning.”

  I leaned back. “We heard someone out there, remember? Someone was at the gate, and you got out of the pool.”

  Liz sat back in the chair, pulling her legs to her chest. “What are you saying? Kelsey Jorgensen took this picture? She was trying to humiliate us or something?”

  Not us, I thought. Me. “I didn’t know she was out there, obviously. I had no idea. But she�
�d been hanging around my office, being kind of flirty. Well, you know how she is. I didn’t think anything of it at first.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “At first?”

  “Liz, she became obsessed with me. There’s the underwear—well, you know about that. She told me she’d left me something in our bedroom, but you found it before I did. And she sent me this picture of herself. She wasn’t naked, but it was revealing, and—”

  Liz put a hand to her temple, as if she were fingering out a knot. I was the knot.

  “Anyway, I deleted the picture, and right after that, the clubhouse was vandalized.” I set the laptop on the coffee table and clicked on the folder labeled “Bathroom.” Liz tilted her head to the side, trying to understand the spray-painted messages, the taunts on the walls. She looked at the laptop and then back up at me. “See? This was why I was talking to her that day, because I knew that she was responsible for what happened.”

  Liz’s head jerked back. “But I asked you. I confronted you about all of this in October. You had a chance to tell me everything, and you denied it. You lied to me.”

  “I know. I know. Because—you had it all wrong. You were thinking I was the one—”

  “No, you were innocent all along. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Not completely. I hadn’t moved out of the way when she kissed me, and I hadn’t looked away when she stood in front of me, naked. I’d threatened her—twice. But yes, I was innocent in that I hadn’t sought it out, any of it. That had to count for something, didn’t it? “Liz, believe me—”

  She cut me off with a laugh. “You had to think about the question?”

  I leaned forward, putting a hand on her knee. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to involve you or Danielle. But it’s gotten to be a huge mess. She might have taken the pills because of me. I saw her that morning, before I left. I told her I was going to Seattle, but—that was a lie, because I didn’t want her to know—”

  Liz put her hands to her temples. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. It’s like you’re speaking another language. Why would you tell her anything? Why would you talk to her at all, when you wouldn’t even talk to me? I’m your wife, Phil. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Listen. Listen. Of course it does. I was going to tell you, I just didn’t know how—I knew you would assume I was some kind of pervy weirdo for suggesting it. So I went to a lawyer.” Her eyes grew wide. “Yeah, I talked to someone who could give me legal advice. That was a mistake, I realize now. I had to take money out of our savings, but it’s okay. It’s okay now, because—”

  “What was his name?”

  “What, the lawyer? Jacob Fitch. But I’m not going back there. I’m trying to tell you, there’s a way out. I’ve found us a way out.”

  “You’ve found us a way out,” she repeated. “You had this problem you didn’t tell me anything about that you suddenly expect me to believe, but you and your lawyer figured it out.”

  “No—forget him. This whole thing was my mistake. I handled it wrong. I see that now. Back in the beginning, I should have put my foot down with her. When you invited her to the house, I should have told you that she was bad news. I should have called the police on the vandalism. And then the house—my God. I should have called the police then. I still could.”

  “The house that burned?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think that matters anymore. I mean, it does, but it’s Parker-Lane’s problem now, not ours. That’s what I want to tell you, Liz—” I had slid off the couch and was on the floor in front of her, balanced on my knees. It was almost like I imagined it, except the words weren’t coming out right, and I couldn’t read Liz’s expression. “This whole thing—it was this beautiful, stupid dream. I wanted to give you everything. Look how hard you work, how long you did it all on your own.” She let me take her hands, although they were unresponsive in mine.

  I pressed forward, going all in. I told her about the job, about the condo I’d found online, with the lease starting the second week of February. For a few months, it would be rough financially, but it was a higher salary than Parker-Lane paid, and our money wouldn’t be trapped in a four-thousand-square-foot home. Eventually, we’d find a small house. A manageable one, something that made sense for our lives.

  She stared at me.

  “This condo I found, it’s close to the water—”

  “You had an interview down there?”

  “That’s where I went Friday. Until it was set in stone, I didn’t want—”

  She yanked her hands away from mine, and I leaned back, wincing as my spine caught the corner of the coffee table. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

  I wondered what part—the photos, my explanations, the job, the move. Probably all of it.

  “I didn’t have any illusions when we got married. I wasn’t this starry-eyed twenty-year-old who thought marriage was forever. I knew it would be hard. I knew there would be times...” She stood, moving to the other side of the couch, as if she were putting a barrier between us. “Do you remember what we promised each other? To be honest. To just always be fucking honest.”

  “I know.” I remembered everything about that day: Liz’s lavender dress, my tan suit. We didn’t want any of the pomp and pageantry that came with a wedding, all the showiness of it. We wanted the part that was real. “And maybe it’s too late, but that’s what I’m trying to do now. I’m telling you the truth, and I’m asking you to trust me.”

  She made a sound as if she were laughing, but it turned quickly into an ugly sob, her words battling through tears. “You made a decision about our lives without even telling me. What am I supposed to do, just walk away from the job I love and start all over? And what are we supposed to do until the end of the year? I’m assuming Danielle and I can’t stay here.”

  “I don’t know, but I can talk about all of this with Jeff Parker on Monday. We’ll figure something out. It’s only for a few—”

  She swore.

  “Liz, come on.” I was standing across from her now, and I reached out toward her. My hand hung heavy between us. “We can work this out, can’t we?”

  She shook her head slowly. When she spoke, it was almost as if she were speaking to herself, asking the rhetorical questions her mind could answer. “Would this have happened if we hadn’t moved out here? I mean, maybe it would have happened anywhere, in our crappy little rental, too. Maybe it was inevitable that things would fall apart. Doesn’t it happen to about every other couple, anyway?”

  “We’re not so fallen apart that we can’t come back together, Liz.”

  “How could we ever trust each other? Look what we’ve come to. You have this entire other life I don’t know anything about. And me—I snooped on your phone. I read all your emails and I looked at all your pictures, and then I took your phone out onto the golf course and I smashed it with a hammer.”

  It was—almost—funny. “With a hammer?”

  “I wanted to get rid of the picture.”

  “I have a copy of it, though. It’s on the flash drive.”

  She shook her head. “I wanted to hurt you, at least a little bit.”

  That was fair enough. “I understand that we’ll have to rebuild trust—”

  “If there’s anything else, I need to know right now. Not six months down the road, when you think it’s the right time—now.”

  I hesitated, and that was my fatal flaw.

  Because one of the truths about a marriage—I knew that then, and I know it now—was that there should be some secrets. Small things, inconsequential things. I didn’t believe a person could ever know another person wholly, inside out, and I was okay with that. Because inside, there were some ugly things, the blood and guts, the things that were better buried, better unsaid.

  “Tell me you d
idn’t ever sleep with her,” Liz said, her face white. “Tell me you didn’t let it get that far.”

  I flinched. “How could you think that, after everything I just told you? No, there was nothing like that. I was just under so much stress. But there is something else.” I put my head in my hands, palms meeting on my forehead, and I told her about Thanksgiving night, about the image on the surveillance video.

  She gasped. “You killed the Zhangs’ dog?”

  “No, of course not. I buried it. A mountain lion got it. It was the most terrifying thing ever, and it was just taking these big, easy strides with that dog, with Virgil, just clasped in its jaws. I went out there later, and I found it on the golf course mauled to bits. There was fur everywhere. It was—so horrible. I just didn’t want it to be this huge mess,” I explained.

  Liz had both hands over her mouth as if she were holding in a scream.

  “It was already dead, Liz. And I was under so much pressure about the mountain lion and the vandalism—”

  “Those poor people,” she breathed. “They organized search parties! They’ve been offering a reward. Charlie told me that Helen practically cries herself to sleep every night. And all along, you knew.”

  “It was better that they didn’t see it,” I protested. “It didn’t even look like their dog anymore.”

  “And you never told anyone about the mountain lion,” she marveled. “There’s been a vicious animal on the loose, and you’ve never said anything. Think about all the joggers! Think about Fran, pushing Elijah. All those Bergland kids...”

  “I know. I do know. But once it was done, it wasn’t something I could exactly undo, was it?”

  She stared at me. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s like a horror movie.”

  “We can get through it.”

  “And Kelsey—she could have killed herself. Twisted and messed up and whatever else she is—you needed to do something instead of just hiding it.”

  “We’ve both been hiding things,” I pointed out. “We’re the same kind of awful.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, backing toward the stairs. “I think we’re different kinds of awful.”