“Thanks, no. I can find my way.” She knew she should thank him for coming down in the middle of the night, but somehow she couldn’t manage it.
She was almost to the door when he stopped her. “I’m sorry about this, Christine. Truly sorry. Stephen was a friend, but he was also a highly visible public figure. The media’s going to want to know what happened. I’ll do what I can to keep the details quiet, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
Christine nodded, then turned back toward the door, not sure whether she should feel gratitude or dread.
TWO
It was half past four when Christine finally navigated the Range Rover back through the security gate and into the garage. For a time—she couldn’t say how long—she simply sat there with the door open and the engine running. The sun would be up soon, the beginning of a new day. There would be people to call, details to handle, but she was too numb to think about any of that now. Instead, she sat in the eerie glow of the dashboard lights, wondering how her carefully ordered marriage had ended in such a spectacular derailment.
She had married an icon, a catch by any woman’s standards. Not bad for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Stephen Ludlow. Even his name had conjured respect. And if he’d seen it as his job to smooth out her rough edges and make her over into a proper society wife, it was a small price to pay for the stability she had craved. But who was she now that Stephen was gone? A widow suddenly adrift, unmoored from a life that had never quite been hers.
A widow.
How was that even possible? Marriage had never been part of her plan. Far from it, in fact. She’d grown up hard and fast, the way most children of addicts did, and had learned a thing or two along the way. At ten, she learned that no address was permanent, at twelve, that no promise was sacred, and at sixteen, that there was no such thing as safe. There were other lessons too. Lessons that were still etched in her mind—and her flesh.
She dragged back her coat sleeve, and stared at the trio of scars on her wrist, shiny and pale, like a constellation of tiny moons. Her badge of survival. Yes, she’d learned a thing or two growing up, including what happened when you trusted the wrong people.
And then she met Stephen. He was handsome and charming, a rising star in the publishing world. But even more appealing was the fact that he hadn’t batted an eye when she informed him, quite emphatically, that children weren’t part of her long-term plans. In fact, he’d seemed pleased. He was career minded and so was she. At least that was the excuse she’d given. They were married six months later. It wasn’t a storybook marriage by any means, but then she’d never really bought into the whole happily-ever-after myth. Like most whirlwind romances, the early days had been about newness and chemistry, but over time their relationship had evolved into a kind of arm’s length alliance, symbiotic and safe, steady. Or so she thought.
She glanced at the clock on the dash. Nearly five. How was it possible that so much could change in the space of three hours? And yet it had. Everything she knew—or thought she knew—about her life and her marriage had suddenly been turned on its ear. She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back against the headrest, waiting for the tears to come. Instead, her head filled with images—a ghost-white face caved in on one side, violet eyes staring at nothing.
Who was she?
But she was too numb to ponder that question right now, too sick and too weary to wade through scenarios that all seemed to point to the same terrible conclusion. Exhausted, she dragged her purse from the passenger seat and slid from behind the wheel.
There was a moment of disorientation as she stepped into the kitchen, as if she had accidentally wandered into someone else’s home. She was used to the house being empty. For the last few years, Stephen had rarely been home for more than a week at a stretch. There was always somewhere he needed to be, another book tour, lecture, or talk show appearance. But this emptiness felt different. As if with Stephen gone, the house had lost some of its life force.
But then, it had always been Stephen’s house. He’d become obsessed with the idea of living in the house Warner Brothers had used to shoot the ending of Victim’s Rights, his third novel and the first in a series of grittier-than-life box office smashes—so obsessed that he’d made an offer on the place without bothering to consult her. That had been four years ago, about the time she started to realize what a small role she actually played in her own marriage.
She collapsed onto the sofa and unwound her scarf. The sun would be up soon, the morning news hitting the airwaves, newspapers landing on doorsteps. There were calls she needed to make: Stephen’s agent, their lawyer, the insurance company. At least there were no family members to contact. Like her, Stephen had been an only child, and both his parents were dead; his father of a heart attack while Stephen was still in school, his mother of a cerebral hemorrhage two years ago. It was a terrible thing to be grateful for, but knowing what she did, she couldn’t imagine having to tell his parents about the accident—or face them at his funeral.
She was in the process of unlacing her boots when the kitchen phone rang. By the time she got to it, the call had gone to voice mail. She waited for the recorded message to play out, then picked up when she heard Stephen’s agent on the other end.
“I’m here, Gary.”
“Tell me it’s a mistake, Christine. Tell me what I just heard on the news isn’t true.”
“It isn’t a mistake. Stephen’s dead.”
“What the hell happened?”
“The police said there was ice on the bridge. His car skidded into Echo Bay.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry, Christine. This is . . . I can’t believe it. I thought he was on his way to New York for a signing at the Strand. What the hell was he doing up near Echo Bay?”
Christine’s grip tightened on the phone. She wasn’t going there. Not now. Not ever, if she could help it. “He must have finished early and was trying to beat the weather home. Does it matter?”
“No. I suppose it doesn’t. Are you sure there hasn’t been some kind of mistake, though? Sometimes the police—”
“I saw him, Gary. They made me go down and identify his body.”
“Jesus, God. I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“It was.”
“There are things—” He broke off. There was a brief stretch of silence before he went on. “Look, I’m not trying to be a bastard or anything. Stephen was a friend. But there are things we’re going to need to talk about. Details.”
“The medical examiner has to finish up before they can release Stephen’s body. They didn’t think it would be more than a few days. I suppose I could—”
There was an awkward clearing of his throat as Gary cut her off. “I wasn’t talking about funeral arrangements, Christine. I meant contractual details, how things work when an author dies. Part of the advance for his next book has been paid out, and now—”
“Now he’ll never finish it.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t care about any of that, Gary. I never have. You know that. Just take care of it. Whatever needs to be done, do it.”
“All right,” he said, willing for the moment at least to let the subject drop. “We’ll talk again when you’ve had some time. I didn’t mean to get into this today. I just wanted you to be aware that there needs to be a conversation at some point, not that I have anything to tell you right now. I haven’t spoken to anyone at Lloyd and Griffin yet. I’m sure they’re still digesting the news like the rest of us, though I do expect my phone to start ringing any minute. My guess is yours will too. Tragedies sell, and the media’s going to eat this one up with a spoon, Christine. Just remember, you don’t have to talk to anyone until you’re ready. Or ever really. Your grief isn’t anyone’s business but yours. In the meantime, I’ll review the language in Stephen’s contract about editorial control, and of course the royalties, which, as you know are fairly sizable. I do know he named you as his literary executor.”
Christine was t
oo fuzzy to digest what he was saying. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you decide how Stephen’s work is handled going forward; copyright issues, movie rights, that sort of thing. But it’s nothing you need to worry about right now. Right now, you need to take care of yourself and get through this. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, I want you to pick up the phone. I mean it, Christine. Anything.”
She was numb as she ended the call. She had only digested about half of what Gary said and wasn’t sure she cared about the other half. The truth was she’d never had much of a grasp on how and when Stephen got paid. It had been hard enough when there were only three books. Now there were eleven, not counting A Fatal Franchise, which was set to release in eight weeks. The truth was she had no idea how much money Stephen had.
The statements arrived. The funds went into the bank. The bills got paid. As far as Stephen was concerned, that was all she needed to know, and she’d been largely okay with that. She’d never been comfortable talking about money, perhaps because as a freelance editor, she earned so little in comparison. She didn’t even know the name of their broker.
The thought of what lay ahead left her exhausted as she mounted the stairs to the bedroom she and Stephen had shared. She desperately needed a shower, but the effort required to strip off her clothes was more than she could muster. Instead, she settled for brushing her teeth and washing her face. She was foraging in the medicine chest for the bottle of ibuprofen when the phone rang again.
The number wasn’t one she recognized. She let the call go to voice mail, cringing as a reporter for the Boston Globe rambled through polite but curt condolences before finally getting around to business and asking for an interview. The message no sooner ended than the phone rang again. The Portland Press Herald this time, followed by the Times, the Mirror, and the Dallas Morning News.
She let them all go to voice mail. The messages were largely the same, a pretense at sympathy followed by a request for an interview with the widow. When the phone rang a fifth time, she turned off the ringer, did the same with the phone in the kitchen, then shut down her cell for good measure. Gary was right. Her grief—and anything else she might be feeling—was no one’s business but her own.
Out of habit, she wandered back down to the kitchen and made coffee, then roamed the house with her mug, forgetting to sip as she lingered over things she and Stephen had collected over the years; a handblown glass bowl they had discovered in a tiny shop in Rockport; a lamp made of driftwood designed by an artist from Portsmouth; the Thomas Arvid oil painting that hung in the dining room, purchased on their honeymoon. How long ago it seemed now.
Eight years.
How had they slipped by so quickly? And how had she not noticed that things were changing—that Stephen was changing? Or maybe she’d just pretended not to notice.
Determined to shake the thought, she reached for the remote. The screen flared to life; a pair of talking heads behind the WGME news desk, with a bright-red breaking news banner crawling across the bottom. AUTHOR STEPHEN LUDLOW DIES IN CAR CRASH. It was bad enough seeing the words, but when Stephen’s face flashed up on the screen—the headshot from the back cover of his last book—she sagged onto the sofa and turned up the sound.
“Police say Ludlow’s car skidded off the Echo Bay Bridge and submerged in the chilly waters below. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but it’s believed that ice on the bridge was to blame for the crash. Divers recovered the body just after midnight. Ludlow is best known for his Craig Childress detective novels, several of which have been made into successful action films. Ludlow resided in Clear Harbor, Maine, and is survived by his wife, Christine. The couple had been married for eight years and had no children.”
“No,” Christine said, clicking off the set when coverage shifted to an apartment fire in Portland. “No children.”
As if it was anyone’s business. There had been questions, of course. Awkward, intrusive questions she never quite knew how to answer. No children yet? How long have you been trying? Are you considering in vitro? Because if you are, there is a wonderful doctor at the new women’s center in Portland who is having fabulous results.
She never understood why people, women especially, assumed that every woman on the planet felt a bone-deep need to clone themselves for posterity. If they knew what she knew, had seen what she’d seen, they’d know there were worse things than being childless—like having a child you weren’t equipped to care for and scarring it for life.
She rose, carrying her coffee mug to the kitchen, then stood staring out the window over the sink. It had begun to snow, lazy flakes drifting down like small white wings. It was the third week of November, a little early for serious snow even in Maine, which meant it wasn’t likely to hang around. Still, the sight of it accumulating on the deck was depressing.
Stephen had loved the New England winters. Or rather, he had loved the idea of them, of being holed up over the long, frigid months, pecking away in a study with tall windows that overlooked the sea. It was the image he liked, the way he wanted the world to see him. But then, for Stephen everything had been about image. His career, the house, even their marriage had been carefully crafted to resemble something from the pages of a glossy magazine, as if real life had never quite been enough for him.
Perhaps that explained the blonde in the morgue. And yet, there was no proof that he’d actually been having an affair. Maybe Connelly was right. Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. Either way, the detective had kept his word. There’d been no mention of the Jane Doe on the news.
The sound of a car door slamming suddenly caught her attention. Traffic on Pulpit Rock Road was rare enough in season—locals mostly in their Volvos and Subarus—but after Labor Day, when Clear Harbor emptied for the season, cars were virtually nonexistent, though it wouldn’t be the first time a tourist had ignored the PRIVATE ROAD sign and ventured out onto the point.
Curious, she padded to the living room and peered through the curtains, troubled to see that a handful of TV news trucks had gathered outside the front gates, looking like something from a bad sci-fi movie with their giant satellite dish antennas.
When in God’s name had that happened?
THREE
Clear Harbor, Maine
November 26, 2016
It had taken only a handful of days for Stephen’s death to go from local tragedy to national obsession, and now, a week later, Christine couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing some rehashed version of how the literary community had been tragically deprived of its brightest star. And if that wasn’t enough, the number of media trucks outside the gate had been growing exponentially and were now accompanied by a throng of reporters peering through the fence.
She had yet to brave the mob. In fact, with the exception of a phone call to Dorsey and Sons to make arrangements for Stephen’s memorial, she hadn’t braved anything at all, choosing to remain cloistered, licking her wounds without the intrusion of phones, newspapers, or the Internet. But today she would have to leave her sanctuary. Today was Stephen’s memorial.
She had expected to feel something like closure when she woke this morning, or at least the promise of closure, but all she felt was dread. She had managed to get through the morning, skipping breakfast to rake through her closet for something to wear to the service. Now, as she descended the stairs, she caught her reflection in the mirror at the end of the gallery, a dry-eyed ghost wearing the suit she had purchased two years ago for her mother-in-law’s funeral.
She dreaded the day ahead, queasy at the thought of facing Stephen’s friends, playing the grieving widow when the truth was she was quietly fuming. She hadn’t let herself be angry at first, passing those early few days in a kind of haze. It seemed wrong somehow, to be angry with someone who had just died. But then out of nowhere she had been struck with a mix of fury and curiosity, propelling her to Stephen’s study in search of the usual red flags—suspicious hotel bills, clandestin
e e-mails, lingerie receipts.
Initially, she had come up empty. But then she noticed a pattern of monthly autodrafts paid to Star Properties LTD. The name didn’t ring any bells. For all she knew, Star Properties was one of the publicity firms Stephen used to book events and draft press releases. But there were also regular transfers to an account labeled TRAVEL—$4,000 drafted on the fifth of every month. Not that either was proof of an affair. It was entirely possible the payments were legitimate business expenses or that they were related to Stephen’s investments. But her intuition told her they were not.
In the end, it was a photograph that provided confirmation. She’d been sitting at Stephen’s desk, exhausted after her search, thinking, as she stared at a collection of photos on a nearby bookshelf, how little Stephen had aged over the years, when she noticed that in one of the shots his eyes were angled toward a small group of onlookers.
And there she was at the edge of the frame, wearing skintight jeans and four-inch heels, her heavily made-up eyes slanting boldly back at Stephen. It was the intimacy of the look that knocked the breath out of Christine, a private moment captured by chance, and for a moment, she found herself trying to remember if there had ever been a time when she and Stephen had looked at each other that way. If there was, she couldn’t remember it. Was that Stephen’s fault or hers? She couldn’t say, but she felt the thought lodge itself in some dark corner of her mind, like a pebble in a shoe that could be ignored for a while but would eventually have to be dealt with.
The case clock on the mantel chimed softly, reminding Christine that she had somewhere to be. But as she grabbed her purse from the kitchen counter, her eyes slid to the phone. She’d been checking her messages all week, hoping to hear back from Connelly, but so far there’d been nothing.
Eleven new messages awaited her when she pushed the button—reporters, colleagues, even offers of sympathy from neighbors who’d heard the news way down in Sarasota or wherever they went when the leaves began to fall. One by one, she deleted them, but paused when a familiar baritone filled the kitchen.
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