Depth of Lies

by E. C. Diskin

  Shea didn’t speak, but Ryan talked nonstop, apologized, and took her hand in his. “I really never meant to hurt you. I convinced myself that it was not really a problem because I never touched anyone. I told you I’d never do that to you again, and I swear, Shea, on our kids’ lives, I haven’t.”

  Shea put down the wine and finally met his eyes. She’d always thought Ryan had a tell, an inability to make eye contact if he was spinning a story. And he’d looked into her eyes, practically without blinking, as he explained, with obvious embarrassment, what he’d done.

  “So, this is why you never touch me anymore?” she asked.

  “Actually, I thought you weren’t interested.”

  “It’s not that.” It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in him. It was just the last thing on her mind. And he rarely instigated, so she’d convinced herself it didn’t matter. They cuddled and held hands and kissed good-night. She’d thought that meant everything was great, until she’d found that e-mail on his computer.

  “There’s no one but you,” he said. “I swear.”

  Shea took a breath. She could feel the tension releasing from her shoulders. The knot that had settled in her stomach ten days earlier began to loosen. She leaned in, head on his chest, disturbed but not destroyed. There was no love affair to fear. There wasn’t another woman with whom he dreamed of spending his life. No one had stolen his heart. It was just a woman on a screen.

  She took a deep breath as he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. Suddenly, her thoughts turned, as if she’d escaped a burning building, alive and bruised, only to remember that she might have left the gas on and everything could still explode. Ryan had not even kissed another woman, but she had done something terrible . . . A new fear gripped her.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Ryan said. He put her glass back in her hand, pulling her focus from panic back to wine. “We’re in a rut, that’s all. But the kids are out of the house, and it’s just you and me again. We’ll be fine,” he continued.

  She needed that to be true. She loved him, despite their mistakes. She leaned on his shoulder, and he maneuvered his arm around her, holding her close and resting his head against hers.

  “If you’re stressed, I want to help. Maybe I should look for a new job, too,” Shea offered. “Selling a few homes a year doesn’t help much.”

  “You do just fine. And you love it. That’s worth something. That job was never about the money.”

  That was true. Shea had never assumed she’d make much, but she had to do something. There were no more noses to wipe or lunches to make, and then the kids started driving. And she lived in a town of beautiful, historic homes. It was fun.

  “Besides, it’s only been a few years.” Ryan shook his head. “Give yourself some time. We’re going to be okay.”

  “How can you say that?” she asked, finally sitting up and turning toward him. They had to face what was happening. Their savings had to be running dry. How absurd that she didn’t know, that she couldn’t even go to a computer and pull up their accounts and check. Her face grew hot, and Ryan turned away. He always found it insulting to talk finance. When they’d first married and he’d suggested she quit working to be home with the kids, she’d asked about whether they could afford it, and he’d laughed. “I got this,” he’d said. “Don’t ever worry about that.”

  She loved the idea, having spent most of her childhood dreaming of being a mother more than anything else. She’d majored in history, minored in philosophy, never enticed by any one career path, and the idea of walking kids to school, being there for all the scrapes and triumphs, held more appeal than any other job. She had shared with him her student-loan debts and credit card balances and salary, which, as a twenty-five-year-old administrative assistant at a nonprofit, was laughable. In fact, Ryan did laugh and said, “Well, we know who will oversee the money.” And he did. He was the accountant. It was his job, both at work and at home, and every bill had always been paid on time. He filed the tax returns and handled investments. She hated all that stuff and he’d never given her a reason to worry, even now. But she didn’t understand how everything could continue as usual without his job.

  “Can’t we talk about this? You never even told me what happened. I know it must have been hard, after all those years with the same company.”

  He put his hand on hers and shook his head. He obviously didn’t want to discuss it. “It happened, it’s over, I’m fine. We’re going to be fine. I promise.”

  She opened her mouth to press, but he stopped her.

  “What if we just focus on rekindling some of that spark? I know I’m no spring chicken, but I can learn some new tricks.” He grinned, raising both eyebrows. “And if you’re hoping to release my stress . . .”

  Shea smirked. It was that humor that had attracted her to him in the first place. There was a time that every kiss brought butterflies. A time when they never slept in the same bed without being naked, back before kids and homework and house crises and fights over laundry and bickering about the kids—stresses that built with every passing year. He was right—with the kids out of the house, maybe they could get their own fresh start, right here.

  Ryan excused himself and returned with the wine bottle, pouring a bit more in both glasses. They turned off the television and reminisced about some of their early escapades—the time they’d received a note from a neighbor to keep it down, the time they’d been kicked out of a taxi for making out “too aggressively,” the time Shea’s roommate had walked in on them. They laughed and kissed, and Ryan suddenly scooped her up, trying to cradle her in his arms. But he grunted, and she screamed. If he tried to carry her up the stairs, there was a good chance a tragic tumble and ER visit could be next for both of them. Instead, she took his hand, and they brought their glasses upstairs.

  A little voice in her head chided her for being easy. She knew there was more to discuss. She hadn’t gotten a straight answer about their financial situation. But the job loss had obviously been a blow to his ego, and maybe what he needed was her trust. Faith that he could still take care of them.

  And it wasn’t as if the bra was a smoking gun. It could have been . . . well, she wasn’t sure. But he swore he didn’t know . . . he’d looked her in the eyes. He’d sworn on their kids’ lives.

  “Bubbles?” Ryan called from the bathroom, and she nodded.

  While he found the candles, she filled the big tub bought more than a decade earlier. It hadn’t been used in years.

  CHAPTER 7

  April 9

  KAT AND THE OTHERS GRABBED jackets, sunglasses, and some blankets for the boat ride to Put-in-Bay. It was only about fifty degrees by noon, but the cloudless sky offered bright sunshine that glistened on the calm water and warmed their faces while Tori navigated slowly through the channel. She throttled up as they approached Lake Erie, and, within minutes, the choppy waters, bouncing, and constant vibration made Kat sleepy. Their evening by the fire had continued well past midnight. Talk had turned away from Shea after Dee’s explosive allegation of infidelity, and they’d focused instead on outdoing one another with tales of outlandish college mistakes and worst-date-ever stories.

  “So, what’s the game this time?” Dee yelled to Tori over the roar of the diesel engine.

  “We’ll have to come up with one together,” Tori shouted. “I forgot to look online!” Tori always had some silly game planned for their getaways. During Kat’s last trip to the lake a few years earlier, Tori had organized a relay race in which everyone had a balloon attached to the seat of her pants. While the first woman held the back of a chair, the next woman on her team had to come up behind her and pop the balloon with her pelvis, which, as it turned out, was easier if the first woman bent over the chair. They’d all howled, nearly wetting their pants, at the absurdly suggestive and disturbing maneuvers used to pop one another’s balloons.

  Tori nudged Kat with her hip. “Did you hear what Dee did during our last trip?” She turned her head
and spoke up so everyone could hear the story. “We all drew dares from a jar and had to complete them while we were at the bar. Dee’s dare was to convincingly fall down in a large crowd of people.

  “You wouldn’t necessarily assume that would be funny,” Tori said. “But it turns out Dee could be a stuntwoman. She was so good at the pratfall that we all just about died laughing.”

  “I would have been afraid of hurting myself,” Kat said, grinning. “I swear I’ve twisted my ankle just getting out of bed!”

  “Yeah,” Dee yelled, standing up. “But I’m spry,” she added with a wild kick, her regular imitation of Molly Shannon’s fifty-year-old Saturday Night Live character.

  She joined them under the canopy. “My hip was covered in bruises the next day, but you all enjoyed it so much—and to see the look on people’s faces when they saw me fall—I couldn’t help myself!”

  “What was your dare?” Kat asked Tori.

  “I had to walk up to a table of strangers and do a cheer from high school.”

  “What was Shea’s?”

  She laughed. “Shea went a little rogue. Keep in mind, she was drinking a lot. But she climbed on top of the bar . . .”

  “Oh no.”

  “You remember what Drew Barrymore did when she climbed on top of David Letterman’s desk, as a kind of birthday gift?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Lina and Evelyn, both laughing, looked at each other, and Lina counted to three. They both pantomimed a quick breast flash.

  “Are you kidding me? Oh my God!” Kat said, laughing, shaking her head. “She was beyond bold.”

  “Well,” Tori joked, “it wasn’t like she had that much to show. Not like Dee or Evelyn over there.” They both laughed.

  “Remember, we all had to use fake names, too,” Lina yelled from the bench behind them.

  “Oh yeah,” Tori added. “If you slipped and called someone the wrong name, you had to cough up twenty bucks. The last one standing got the money.”

  “So, who won?” Kat asked.

  “Shea, of course. She made up all the names, though, so I don’t think that was fair! They were all stripper names—like Amber and Trixie.”

  “I was Lolita,” Evelyn yelled.

  Kat grinned at the thought of Shea coming up with that one. Evelyn was the essence of conservative sophistication, with that silky, straight blonde hair, pearls, collared shirts—a walking Talbot’s catalog, and the antithesis of a Lolita.

  After they docked the boat and walked to Rudolph’s, Tori ordered a couple of pizzas at the food counter while Dee grabbed a pitcher of beer at the bar. Kat wasn’t a huge beer drinker, but it was tradition: always this bar, always pizza and beer, and maybe a few Bloody Marys. Had Shea come here, too? Maybe she had sat at the bar, drinking in a place she knew so well, on an island that had provided years of happy memories, but where no one knew her.

  The room was filled with spring visitors, most of them watching the baseball games on the large flat-screens hanging from every wall. They’d been there about an hour when Tori, returning from the bathroom, said, “You guys, look!” and pointed toward the back of the bar.

  Everyone followed her finger toward a group of men.

  “Those are the guys we were hanging out with in November.”

  “I remember that one,” Lina said, pointing toward the heaviest guy in the group. “Dave. He was funny.” He had a big belly but skinny legs, almost like a Mr. Incredible doll.

  “So it was their friend Blake that died that night,” Tori said.

  “Died?” Evelyn and Dee asked.

  Tori began telling them what she’d already told Kat in the car, and Kat stared at the men. Maybe they knew how Blake died. Maybe it was relevant to understanding why Shea had come back here. One of them stood and took his pitcher to the bar, and Kat jumped off her stool and joined him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hello,” the man said with a smile. “I’m Michael. And you are?”

  “Kat. Katherine.” She suddenly realized that she appeared to be a bold, confident woman approaching a man in a bar, none of which was true. “This is a little weird, but I came here with a group of friends”—she gestured toward their table near the front—“and they recognized your group of friends from last November. I guess they all hung out together for a while.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I wasn’t here in November, but I know several of my buddies come all the time. I guess that’s possible.”

  The bartender appeared, and Michael ordered a refill.

  “I know this is a strange thing to ask,” Kat continued, “but one of my friends saw an article about a man who died on Lake Erie the night they were here. She thought it looked like one of the men they’d met.”

  Michael’s expression turned somber. “Yeah, that was our buddy Blake.” He pointed toward his table.

  “I hope this isn’t rude to ask, but we were wondering what happened to your friend that night. The article had no explanation.”

  “Actually, none of us know for sure. Blake was known to pull the occasional Houdini, so when they couldn’t find him that night, they went down to the dock and his boat was gone.”

  “So he just left your friends?”

  “Well, they figured he’d hooked up with a woman, but they were pissed because the water was too rough and they’d already decided to leave the boat behind and take the ferry home, just to be safe. His wife called the house around noon, because he’d promised to be back for their son’s soccer game and she couldn’t get ahold of him. That’s when the search began.”

  Kat didn’t visibly react to the married-with-children part. It wasn’t relevant, though it was disturbing how casually he said it, as if cheating on one’s wife was no big deal.

  He told her how it had taken several days before the authorities found Blake’s boat capsized on one of the small islands near Canada, and that the police had been a bit dismissive, because, after interviewing his friends, it was obvious that excessive alcohol had been involved.

  The bartender arrived with the refilled pitcher, and Michael threw down some cash. “Well, Kat, it was nice—”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to hold you. It’s just that we just lost a friend, too, Shea, and her death makes no sense. From what I understand, she and your friend met that night and hit it off. So—”

  “Wait—Shea? What did she look like?”

  “Like five seven, wavy blonde hair to the shoulders, big eyes, freckles, kind of exotic-looking.”

  “Beautiful, right? Like forty-five?”

  “Yeah.” Fifty-two, actually, but she wasn’t surprised he’d say that.

  “When did she die?”

  “Just last week. She was here,” Kat said. “No one knows why, but she came to the island without telling anyone and was found at a B and B. She drowned in the bathtub.”

  “Wait, oh my God,” he said. “We saw her. She came to Blake’s memorial.”

  Kat felt her heart stop for a beat. “When? What? I thought your friend died last November.”

  “It was a missing-person case for a long time. His family refused to believe he was gone. But after all those months, they were finally ready to face the reality, and they held a service at a lighthouse on the island he had always loved as a child. We all saw her. Dave pointed her out to me and said she was the woman from that night.”

  “Hold on, can you come see my friends? Actually, let me just get them.” Kat shuffled away and ran up to her table.

  “You guys,” she said excitedly, “he saw Shea here before she died! She was here for Blake’s memorial. Come on.” Kat led them over to the men’s table.

  Tori made quick introductions, and most of them recognized one another from the fall. “Didn’t you all have other names last time?” Dave asked. Kat sensed irritation.

  “It was just a silly game we played,” Tori said.

  Michael explained. “Their friend Shea, the one we met at the memorial—she’
s dead.”

  “She’s dead?” Dave asked.

  “Did you talk to her?” Kat asked.

  “Yeah. We were startled to see her. I mean, she was the last person to see Blake, as far as we knew. We didn’t know if they’d gone out on the boat together, if she had died, too, nothing. No one knew her real name, but police confirmed that no one else had been reported missing that night. We couldn’t track her down, having no idea where you all came from. And then she just showed up at the memorial.”

  “So what did she say?” Tori asked.

  Dave shook his head. “Not much. I wanted to know what happened that night. No one had ever been able to question her.”

  “I thought it was strange that she was there,” one of the other men said. “I mean, how would she even know Blake died if she was from out of town and had nothing to do with it?”

  “She only knew about it because I saw his picture in the local paper a couple of weeks ago,” Tori said protectively. “I’m sure she found it upsetting, but she was only with your friend for a little while. We all headed home together that night.”

  “I saw them leave the bar together,” Dave said.

  “But she didn’t go out on a boat with him,” Tori said. “We would have known.”

  “That’s right,” Lina added. “Shea came back to the bar not long after she left with your friend. I remember she said he went off to get a bite to eat. Then we got on the ten o’clock ferry.”

  “So, wait,” Kat said, focusing on Dave. “What did Shea say at the memorial? Was she alone?”

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “I grilled her a little bit, and she seemed genuinely upset by Blake’s death. She said she had no idea what happened and that she was sorry, that she just wanted to pay her respects.”

  “It’s so strange,” Dee said. “We were all together only a few hours. No offense, but she hardly knew your friend.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Dave said. “I asked her if all her friends were here, too—meaning you all—but she said it was just one friend this time. Then she excused herself to the bathroom. I guess she snuck out, because we didn’t see her again.”