by Sara Shepard
Dr. Strasser was looking at me like I was one of those Word Find games; the longer he stared, the more likely it was that the answer would reveal itself. Finally, he said in a voice that wasn’t quite angry but wasn’t quite friendly, either: “Do you even go to Aldrich at all, Raina?”
I felt a cold draft on my thighs. How had he figured that out? But maybe it didn’t matter. I could still feel his yearning. All I had to do was push a little harder, and I’d have him.
“You got me,” I said, pouring myself another half glass of wine. “It’s . . . complicated. Still, I’ll be your Aldrich coed, if that’s what you like. I’ll be whatever you want.”
Alexis snuggles close. I conceal a grin. A new plan is forming, just like it had that night with Strasser. That plan had worked. Worked really, really well.
But now Strasser is gone. And I have to move on to survive.
17
KIT
MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017
The moment I step through our office doors on Monday morning, I feel the same way Alice must have when she walked in on the Mad Hatter and the March Hare having the tea party. All activity on the floor stops. Jeremy stares at me as though he’s seen a three-headed frog.
“Kit!” George rushes over to me. “What are you doing back?”
“You guys need me.” I nervously stuff my key card back in my purse. “Is that all right?”
“Of course, of course.” George follows me as I unlock my office door and walk inside. “I just didn’t want to push you to come back until you were ready.” His gaze slides to the big window that overlooks the street. A few reporters have followed me here. I don’t know what they expect. If I haven’t talked to them yet, what makes them think I’m going to change my mind and suddenly give a statement?
My office has a dusty smell as though it’s been shut for weeks. I can feel my boss watching me. I’ve ignored his calls and e-mails, even the ones about work matters, which mostly had to do with such-and-such donor pulling out because of the hack news. That’s not like me. Kit Manning-Strasser is on point in her job, even in a crisis.
It was Willa who urged me to come back. Create some normalcy again, she said. Even if you stare at your computer for six hours, doing nothing, it’ll get easier with each passing day. Willa said she’d take care of the girls, grocery shopping, and even moving us back into my house, if forensics ever finishes up. Not that I’m sure I want to move back. I’m not sure I can ever go into my kitchen again.
George updates me on some of the pressing hack scandals that most threaten donor support. I offer to make some calls, assuaging the benefactors’ fears and persuading them not to back out of their financial commitments. “You realize they may want to know how you’re holding up,” he says carefully. “Quite a few of them are . . . curious.”
A muscle in his cheek jumps. Is he trying to tell me that a lot of the donors suspect I’m the killer? But the donors are smarter than that. And besides, if I were bad for business, George would have had a conversation with me about it last week. Suggest I take some time off, maybe. He isn’t the type who beats around the bush.
Then George says he has a meeting to get to, adding with a crinkly smile that it’s “really good to have you back, Kit.”
I settle into my desk. My computer is functional again—the Aldrich servers have finally been restored. The IT specialists still haven’t figured out how to take down the hack database, but at this point it’s moot, because the link has been replicated and reposted by a bunch of other sites like Snopes and Open Secrets. I launch my e-mail app, feeling a rush of holy-shit fear. Can I really do this? I’ve just buried my second husband, a murder happened in my house, the whole world knows that my dead husband had an affair, and a man I made out with is married to my coworker. Am I really going to keep it together?
My phone rings. The caller ID reads, Unknown. A reporter? Various news outlets are dying to get an interview with me because of Greg.
I let it go to voice mail. After a moment, I press the little triangle to play it, and some static noises crackle through the speaker. After about ten seconds, someone sighs. The hair on the back of my neck rises. Do I know that sigh? Is that Patrick?
Forget him, I tell myself. He’s married to your coworker. Stop thinking about him.
My phone rings again. This time, I see my dad’s landline number. One of my daughters, probably.
I pick up the receiver. “Sienna? Everything okay?”
“Actually, it’s Willa.”
My sister’s gravelly voice makes me sit taller in my chair. “Oh. Hey.”
“How’s work going?”
“I just got here,” I remind her. “I haven’t really done anything yet.” I idly navigate to Facebook, though that’s a mistake. My feed is full of both Greg In Memory messages and a few hundred reposts of Greg’s e-mails to Lolita. “How are the girls?”
“Well, they haven’t come downstairs, even when I knocked.” Then she clears her throat. “Maybe they should go back to school.”
“They’re still so shell-shocked.”
“I wonder if it would be better for them if they went back. They’ll be around friends. Classes will take their minds off things.”
Out the window, a siren wails. I twist away from the noise. “Just because you convinced me to go back to work doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for them.”
“I was serious when I said they’ve been off since this happened.”
I ball up my fist. “What do you mean, off?”
“Don’t you think they’ve been acting sort of weird? Distant? Kind of . . . cold?”
“Their stepfather was murdered in their home—a home we can’t even go back to yet. I think that’s a valid excuse for not acting like themselves.”
“I wonder if they should talk to someone.”
“A counselor?” I start to open the paper bag that contains a muffin I’ve brought for breakfast, then decide against it. I’m not hungry.
“Or even me. As a start. Maybe they’re afraid to talk to you.”
I scoff. “Why would they be afraid?”
“A lot has happened. Maybe they’d feel more comfortable talking to someone who isn’t so close to the situation.”
I’ve tried to reach my girls over the past few days. The morning after I found Greg murdered, I sat on the couch with them, cradling their bodies. I tried to say things to make them feel better, safe. But I’d been in shock, too. All of my swirling emotions of horror and loss and anger stewed close to the surface. Perhaps I was more concerned about my own self-preservation right then, but can you blame me? I basically bathed in a pool of my husband’s blood. I was also the one who’d had those violent, angry thoughts about him just hours before he was stabbed.
I figured I’d just let them grieve on their own and then, in a few days, we’d talk. I also need to get that awkwardness out of my head first, so that I don’t tarnish their opinions of Greg now that he’s gone.
Unbidden, the image of Sienna and Greg sitting at his old kitchen table in Shadyside flashes back to me. How happy they were. How tickled I’d felt when I watched Sienna laughing for what seemed like the first time since Martin died. I flash on another memory, too: Aurora, at fourteen, rushing home from school so she could log into a website at precisely 3:00 P.M., when Beyoncé tickets went on sale. But the bus had been late; by the time she logged in, the tickets were gone. Greg and I watched as she bit back tears. Fast-forward to the next night: Greg slyly sitting down to dinner and, with a twist of his mouth, pushing an envelope across the table to Aurora. She opened it, and her eyes popped wide. “How did you find them?” she screeched, and got up and threw her arms around Greg . . . just as one would a father.
Willa clears her throat. “There are a few other things I want to ask you. Stuff I meant to ask yesterday . . . but things were so crazy . . .”
I swivel away
from my computer to the window. Down on the street, the student bus, which takes kids to dorms all over campus, huffs past, kicking up a plume of black exhaust.
There’s a long pause. “Who was that guy you were talking to after the funeral?”
I curl my toes. I had a feeling Willa might ask. “Just a friend.”
“You looked . . . uncomfortable.”
I peer nervously into the hall, fearful that Lynn Godfrey is lurking around a corner somewhere, listening in. “I’m not particularly good at accepting people’s sympathy, that’s all. I haven’t exactly processed that Greg’s dead.”
“Okay,” Willa says. And then, after a pause: “Also, this other thing. Maybe I have my information wrong, but was Greg Martin’s surgeon?”
I roll a few inches back, my chair hitting the radiator behind my desk. The heat is on, and my spine is instantly too warm. “Yes. Yes, he was.”
“Is there a reason you never told me this?”
“I . . . don’t know. I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“You said Greg was part of the team that diagnosed him. Not that he’d been the guy who actually operated on Martin’s heart.”
“You mean the guy who let him die,” I say stonily. “You mean the guy who deliberately killed him so we could be together.”
Now it’s Willa who’s silent. “Wait.” Her voice is small. “You mean . . . it’s true?”
“Of course not! But I know people talked. Of course they speculated about it after we got together. I guess that’s why I didn’t tell you what his role was. I didn’t want you to judge him.”
“Oh.” Willa sounds both relieved and sheepish. “Okay. I mean, it sounded a little far-fetched to me, too.” There’s an awkward pause.
I stare at the family photo in a silver frame on my desk. It’s of me, Greg, and Sienna and Aurora on that disappointing Barbados trip, though we’re smiling cheerfully for the camera. In my desk drawer is another family photo—of me, Sienna, and Aurora . . . and Martin. Not in Barbados—we never could have afforded Barbados—but at Ocean City, New Jersey. There’s significance to why I saved that photo and why, sometimes, I pull the drawer open and look at it. Maybe I do feel guilty. I was unfaithful, in a way.
“I will say this,” I tell Willa. “Greg did sweep me off my feet the moment I met him. He was just so vibrant. Larger-than-life, the doctor who could save anyone. And he was . . . complimentary.”
“How so?”
“He kept saying how caring I was as a wife. He recognized that I had a lot on my plate and was impressed with how together I seemed.” I sigh. “Martin hadn’t recognized any of that in a long time. Which, I mean—it makes sense. He was so sick. Scared. But I’m still human. Greg’s attention felt good. And also . . .” I trail off, not wanting to tell her the rest.
“Also what?” Willa asks.
I lace my fingers around my coffee mug. There are certain limits to what I’ll admit. What will Willa think if I tell her that, when my eyes drifted to Greg’s expensive shoes and slick watch, I felt a deep, envious desire? And when the appointment was over and Martin’s surgery was set, when we were walking through the parking garage to find our car, I saw a beautiful Porsche parked in the RESERVED FOR DOCTOR spot and almost blushed with lust? I’d fetishized Greg’s wealth and possessions. I’d become ravenously material.
“Greg called quite a bit, but we always talked about Martin,” I say instead. “Or, well, mostly all about Martin.”
“What’s that mean?”
There’s a lump in my throat. Sometimes, during those phone conversations, after a barrage of questions about Martin’s chances of recovery, or if whether perhaps a heart transplant did make more sense at this stage, I’d talk about my daughters. I felt so alone in navigating Martin’s illness; Sienna and Aurora were more concerned with their friends and social media minutiae. I remember sitting on my kitchen floor one night, talking to Greg about how I’d asked Sienna if she wanted to be there in the hospital during Dad’s surgery. Sienna shrugged and said callously, “But homecoming is that night, Mom.”
“She’s just scared,” Greg assured me. “She’s distancing herself from the situation so she doesn’t have to face the tough emotions.”
It was weird to be telling this to my husband’s cardiologist instead of my husband, but how could I share it with Martin? It would break his heart to know that his beloved Sienna was pushing him away. Those two always had a special bond, with inside jokes and special hobbies and interests they pursued together. I wouldn’t be surprised if Martin wanted Sienna and Aurora by his side even more than he wanted me. We loved each other, sure, but marital love is complicated, whereas love between parent and child is pure.
“It just felt so good to be listened to,” I say softly, knowing how poorly I’m explaining this. “I was so, so scared.”
“Of course you were,” Willa says softly, sympathetically.
I remember looking up at Greg in the hospital, after he’d told me Martin hadn’t made it. I’d drunk up the strangeness of him—his full head of wavy hair, the smattering of freckles on his cheeks, the bone structure of his clean-shaven, youthful face. Our gazes locked, and something stirred low inside me, something both lustful and shameful. It almost felt as if we were going to kiss. We didn’t, of course. I turned in the hall and saw that my daughters were standing there, watching.
“Did you ever ask your girls what they thought about all of this?” Willa asks, as if reading my mind.
I crinkle my muffin bag between my fingers. “What do you mean?”
“What did they think about you dating the surgeon who couldn’t save their dad?”
I don’t like the way she’s phrased that. “He didn’t . . . look, I don’t think they would have liked anyone I dated.” I blow out a breath. “What was I supposed to do, Willa? Be alone forever? I didn’t have any support system.”
“You had the girls. And Martin was their father. They adored him.”
“It wasn’t like Greg replaced Martin.” This just isn’t something Willa can understand. “And, Jesus, they adored Greg. They were . . . I don’t know, impressed by him. Their grades went up when he came into the picture, almost like they felt they needed to prove themselves. Also, Greg was able to give them things they never had. Cool clothes. Fancy handbags all the popular girls were carrying. Lavish vacations. Stuff we never got to enjoy before. And over the years, they really bonded. Half the time I’d walk in and Greg and Sienna would be talking about something I had no clue about. Aurora had him correct her science homework. She went to him when she got the best grade in her biology class.”
“But what about in the past few months? I heard that Greg kind of acted like the girls didn’t exist.”
A shock goes through me. “Who said that?”
“Just . . . more reception gossip. People are assholes, but sometimes in gossip there’s a kernel of the truth.”
I rise from my chair. “Because you know the situation so well.” I’m hurt. I’m shocked. But below this, I’m horrified. Was that how people saw us? Did Greg shut the girls out, just like he’d done to me?
No. The past three months, besides Barbados, were normal. We all went out to dinner as a family. Greg and the girls binged Netflix shows. He dropped Aurora off at school almost as much as I did. Sienna told us at dinner one night that she had a crush on Anton, a boy in the dorm, and Greg asked her a million questions about him—what’s his major, is he athletic, what are his friends like, does he smoke pot.
“Are you sure I can’t talk to your girls?” Willa asks quietly, breaking me from my thoughts.
“About Greg? No.”
“But they’re a part of this puzzle. They’ve had a lot of stuff happen in a few short years—their dad’s death, their mom’s remarriage, stepdad’s affair, his murder. It’s a lot to unpack. And also,” she goes on, perhaps sensing that I’m about to int
errupt, “I just want to know, too. Personally, as their aunt. I regret not getting to know them better through the years. I’ve interviewed a lot of kids for some of my investigative pieces. I know how to do it without pushing.”
“But they aren’t your interview subjects. They might not open up to you. You might make it worse.”
“But maybe I’ll get something out of them. Like at the funeral, Sienna said Aurora’s angry with her about something. Any idea what that might be?”
I glance back and forth. My thoughts are scattered.
“What are their thoughts on all that Lolita stuff? They’re teenagers, they must be humiliated.”
“I didn’t get to talk to them about it.” But this is a lie. I avoided talking to Sienna about it on the phone. And at the grocery store, I told Aurora nothing was wrong. Deflect, deflect, deflect. But my girls aren’t idiots. They must have read those e-mails. Everyone did.
God, they were probably crushed. Maybe they saw an inevitable future hurtling toward them: Another broken family. A lonely mom. A mess. Maybe they even worried we wouldn’t have nice things anymore. Some mom I was, instilling in them that only nice things lead to happiness.
Suddenly, I’m seized with uneasiness. “Leave the girls out of this.”
“But why?”
“I appreciate what you’re doing, trying to figure out what went on, but just . . . don’t.”
There’s a long silence. Down the hall, a shadow looms in the break room. A moment later, Lynn Godfrey’s tall, slender form appears in the doorway. She holds a cup of coffee, the steam rising over her face. Her gaze holds mine for a moment, and one eyebrow raises. She tips her chin upward and marches away. My cheeks blaze.
“Get to know them, ask them questions about themselves, but please don’t get into this with them,” I repeat. “What happened is too fresh. Please.”
“Okay.” Willa sighs. “Fine.”
After we hang up, I place my forehead on the desk. I wish I could tell Willa I don’t want her to talk to the girls because I want to talk to them first . . . but I’m not sure if this is true. Lately, I’ve been thinking there are two Kit Mannings in one body: the Kit Manning from three years ago, the frazzled mother, the loving wife, the worrier. And then the Kit Manning of today: a polished, well-heeled doctor’s wife, the head of the donations department who can throw a party and charm a room.