Reputation

by Sara Shepard

  But then he takes a step back. Turns his back, hunches his shoulders. “I have a right to be angry. Hell, I have a right to never see you again.” He draws in a shaky breath. “You know, I wish you’d gone and done it that day on the bridge. I wish you were dead now, like that asshole Strasser. You would’ve both gotten what you deserved. And I’d have the kid all to myself.”

  And then, just like that, he strides forward and walks out of the house.

  21

  LYNN

  MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017

  The mussels for monsieur.” A waiter in a tuxedo places a steaming plate of slick black shells in front of Patrick. “And the oysters for madame. Bon appétit.”

  I shoot the man a tight, anemic smile, and then inspect my plate. Eight oysters sit on a bed of crushed ice. Little silver bowls of dipping sauce, smelling pungently of garlic and chilis and oil, are nestled on the side. The oysters look perfect, and they smell fresh. I shoot my husband a saucy look. “Want one? You know what they say about oysters . . .”

  Patrick cracks a mussel. Steam rises into his face, bringing with it the scent of garlic and white wine. “Thanks, babe, but I’m good.”

  “More for me, then,” I say playfully, and then, because I can’t help it, add, “though I doubt they’ll be as good as the ones at Lou’s.”

  Patrick lowers his head guiltily, and I feel a stab of satisfaction. I’d been the one who’d had to make the reservation at Pistore’s, a lush, excessive restaurant that’s a favorite of the town’s sports stars, politicians, and actors who come through during on-location shoots. I figured Patrick would have handled arrangements for Lou’s, our usual anniversary spot, but when I asked him about it yesterday, he said it totally slipped his mind. When I called Lou’s and begged for a table, the bitch on the phone told me they were all booked.

  After we chat for a while about the kids—Connor has taken to video games, and I’m concerned that could be a slippery slope, and a girl in Amelia’s class just got her period, which is terrifying—we fall into silence. Patrick uses a slice of bread to sop up some of the sauce. I try an oyster—not bad. Actually, better than Lou’s, not that I’d admit it.

  “So.” I place the empty shell on the plate. “Did I tell you that two of the donors I met at the benefit transferred their endowments today? George is thrilled.”

  He chews his bread, not looking at me. “That’s great.”

  “I know.” I smile smugly. “I’m the only one in the office who seems to be making any headway. This hack is holding so many people hostage.” I reach for my wine and take a long sip. Patrick’s jaw is chewing furiously, steadily, like he’s trying to murder the bread with his teeth. “We got numbers back from the benefit—they were dismal. The only donors we hung on to were the ones I dealt with.”

  “Is that so?” Patrick eats another mussel.

  “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how disastrous it was.”

  Finally, he looks up at me. “What do you mean, disastrous?”

  To our left, a maître d’ seats an older, silver-haired couple. The woman wears a gray column of a dress and simple makeup, and her pearl necklace looks expensive. The man gazes at her adoringly, the corners of his eyes wrinkled with a smile. Hopefully, that will be Patrick and me, thirty years from now. Except I’ll have better skin.

  The discovery of Patrick’s gift in the trunk the other day was a wake-up call. Now that I’m confident Patrick’s love for me hasn’t wavered, I feel I should get something off my chest. I could probably go for the rest of my life keeping what I’ve done a secret, but somehow, seeing that extravagant bracelet in that velvet box, I feel that I need to give Patrick something more than just an object. I need to give him a gift of vulnerability. I need to show him that I’m not always as perfect as I seem. It’s got to be hard living with someone who handles everything with such ease, as I do. I read a few articles on the situation yesterday: how men with perfect, beautiful wives begin to question their place within the marriage—if they’ll ever measure up, if they’re even needed.

  I want to make sure Patrick knows he’s needed. I want to assure him that I’m human and make mistakes. And I also want to clear my conscience. I have to tell someone.

  I clear my throat. “So many people were drunk that night. It was because of everything that was exposed in that hack. And my team had to scramble around to make sure the donors were shielded from most of it. Except there was this one person on our team . . . well, she was supposed to be pulling her weight, too, but instead . . . well, instead, she was a mess.”

  When I peek at Patrick, I see he’s listening intently, his head tilted to one side.

  “I could see it in her eyes the moment she stepped into the room,” I go on. “She was hysterical. I eavesdropped on some of her first conversations with donors—it was all over the place, and certainly not good for Aldrich.” I shake my head in dismay. “She shouldn’t have come.”

  Patrick frowns. “Who was this?”

  “Oh, no one you’d know.” I slide another oyster into my mouth. “Just a colleague.”

  I can’t give him any specifics. I’ve never vented about working with Kit, but he’ll recognize her name because of Greg’s murder. And I’m certainly not going to get into the reason the story about Greg broke wide open. When the hack started, I looked up Kit. Problem was, there was nothing interesting about Kit, so I got the bright idea to look up her husband. And there—well. Obviously, there was a treasure trove. I might have forwarded some of the e-mails to a few very gossipy people I know. And they might have forwarded them on. And on and on, until they got to Kit.

  “Anyway, it’s probably better you left,” I go on, dabbing my mouth with my napkin. “How’s your stomach been, by the way?”

  “Fine,” Patrick says cautiously. “So what happened with this woman?”

  “Oh. Well, she was causing such a spectacle, but George was tied up with his other clients, so I felt that I needed to babysit her. And so . . . well, I’m not proud of this, but I made a decision. I did it for the good of the department. It was the right choice. I’m sure of it.”

  Patrick sits upright. “What did you do?”

  I wave my hand. “I put Ambien in her drink. I had one in my purse, and I thought she needed to chill, and so . . .” I shrug. My heart thumps. Is this coming out okay? Do I sound blameless?

  Patrick gapes at me. “Did she know you put a sleeping pill in her drink?”

  “Of course.” I can feel my lips twitching, a tell Patrick recognizes. “I mean, I think I told her it was in her drink. There was a lot going on.” I push my lips out in a pout. “What would you do if you had a colleague that was being completely inappropriate at a public function?”

  “Not give her drugs.” Patrick crosses his arms. “You shouldn’t mix sleeping pills with alcohol. The woman could have died.”

  The scent of seared steak wafts into my nostrils. The word died slices through me like a blade. “She’s fine,” I say quietly. “And it’s not like I’m going to make a regular habit of it.”

  Patrick scoffs. “I hope not.”

  We fall into silence—but not the good, comfortable kind. I open my mouth, wanting to protest the way everything has just played out. I’m the good guy here. I saved the department. I want Patrick to tell me that Ambiening someone isn’t a crime—and that there’s no possible way that someone under the influence of Ambien and alcohol would go home and murder their spouse. I want Patrick on my side, but instead he seems . . . unnerved. Like he’s sitting at the table with a monster.

  “I thought you of all people would understand,” I say. “I made a few mistakes.”

  Patrick looks at me carefully, and then something in his face softens. “I guess you’re right. There are moments when your decision seems like the right one, even if it isn’t totally ethical.” He says this in a small voice, almost to himself.

  �
��Exactly,” I say. And here’s the rush of gratitude I’ve been waiting for. The true, clean whoosh of absolution. “Nothing would get accomplished if people didn’t take risks now and then.”

  There’s a faraway look in Patrick’s eyes. “I guess that’s true.”

  “I bet I’m going to get a promotion. I mean, Patrick, I brought in millions last week.”

  Patrick’s eyes crinkle, just like the old husband a few tables away. “I’m really happy for you, babe. You’re so good at your job. You’re so good at everything.”

  Thank you, I think, and once again, I’m on top of the world. “Anyway,” I say, reaching into my bag and pulling out a small leather box. “Happy anniversary, baby.”

  Patrick eyes the box with surprise. When he opens it and sees the gold, antique Patek Philippe watch I’ve chosen for him, he sits back. “Lynn,” he says sternly. “This is too much.”

  “Oh, stop.” I wave my hand. “You deserve it.”

  Patrick bites his lip, looking like he wants to say something but then changing his mind. “Well, thank you.” He slides the watch onto his wrist, then turns it this way and that.

  Throat bobbing, he reaches into his jacket pocket. “Here. Happy twelve years.”

  The box glints in the light, the logo of the jewelry store winking at me. I smile at him innocently, pretending I have no idea what’s inside. I wait in case Patrick wants to say something else—usually, when he gives me such a grand gift, he has a whole spiel about the process he went through to choose it. But he’s just looking at me with a bland, faraway smile on his face.

  I open the lid and let out a preemptive gasp I’ve been holding in since the soccer game. Yet when I look down, I see a thin gold pendant against the velvet backdrop. I blink hard. Where are the diamonds? Where is the platinum? My joy is quickly replaced with confusion.

  “Do you like it?” Patrick asks. “It’s three loops for you and the kids.”

  I touch the delicate gold loops hanging from the chain. Does Patrick not remember that he got me an almost identical necklace for Mother’s Day? I picture that beautiful tennis bracelet I came upon in his trunk. I hadn’t hallucinated it, had I? Did Patrick return it because he thought it was too expensive? Did he think I’d find it too ostentatious?

  But that’s ridiculous. I love ostentatious. I would have worn the shit out of that bracelet—to dinners, to galas, to school pickups, to fucking spin class.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say. Because I’m too stunned to scream.

  But a hot flame wells in my stomach as I remove the chain from the box and place it around my neck. I’m going to call the jewelry store tomorrow to check if Patrick returned the diamond bracelet, but I think I already know the answer. That bracelet didn’t go back.

  He just didn’t buy it for me.

  22

  WILLA

  TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2017

  After a seven-mile run on the noisy Marriott treadmill, I drive to the house and set up shop at the kitchen table with my phone and laptop. My phone beeps with a few updates from work about the university hacks—a colleague from “The Source” has run with the story, and she seems compelled to keep me informed about some off-the-record stuff, perhaps because of my connections to one of the schools that was targeted. I read her report about how the hack has revealed that the Brown admissions staff inflated the SAT scores of its student body. I read something about how Princeton parents are pulling their kids out for the rest of the year. I almost, almost ping her and ask if she’s dug up anything about Chi Omega at Aldrich—or any of the schools. I think of the rumors my boss intimated the other day. But I decide against it.

  A New York Times story has also come out that the socialist group that authorities thought might have hacked the universities was a false lead. Apparently, hackers commonly used proxy machines and fake IP addresses and planted false clues in their malware to throw investigators off their trail. “The truth is, we might not be able to attribute this hack to anyone,” an FBI agent named William Cornish told Meet the Press. “Hackers are clever. They know how to hide. What we need to do now is damage control and make sure this never happens again.”

  Heels clack on the wood floor. Kit has on a pencil skirt and blouse, about to go off to work. She looks toward the ceiling, then at me. “Can you check on the girls in a bit?” she asks, thumbing toward the ceiling. “Without grilling them?”

  “I didn’t grill them,” I protest.

  Kit rolls her eyes. “Of course you did. I shouldn’t even be speaking to you.”

  “Kit, I’m sorry,” I say, feeling frustrated. I thought we’d gotten past this. Kit and I had talked late into the evening last night, strategizing about how we wouldn’t go to the police with this new information until absolutely necessary. We both felt conflicted—it didn’t seem right to hide evidence—but I wanted to do some more digging before we pulled the trigger. “But look at it this way: Now we know. It was obviously tormenting Sienna to keep that secret to herself. And Aurora, too.”

  Kit shrugs. “I guess we know what they were arguing about the day of the funeral, anyway. And why they’ve been acting so weird.”

  “True.”

  Kit squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t know what to do now.”

  “What about Raina?” I ask quietly.

  Kit grabs her handbag from the chair, her expression clouding. “She says she was at a party with Sienna when it happened.”

  “Are we sure? Was she there the whole night?”

  Kit looks conflicted, like she’s about to say something. Then she shakes her head. “If Raina stabbed him, I’m not sure I want to know.”

  I cross my arms. “So you’d rather everyone think you did it?”

  Kit peers out the window, touching the stained-glass ornaments our mother hung there years ago. I wonder, briefly, if her fingerprints are still on them. Or has too much time passed? “Look, if you want to investigate, I can’t stop you. But I also can’t help. I can’t handle something like this.”

  There is a cacophony of barks out the window, the kind of ruckus kicked up when a new dog comes onto common territory and interrupts the balance. I wonder if that’s what Kit thinks I’m doing—interrupting the balance. Checking in the closet for ghosts. “Just be careful,” she says finally.

  “You, too,” I tell her. After all, there’s still a killer on the loose.

  * * *

  The easiest thing to do would be to interrogate Sienna more about Raina’s relationship with Greg, but every time I knock on her door, she doesn’t answer. Maybe in a day or two she’ll settle down and forgive me for exposing her.

  Instead, I spend the afternoon reading through Raina’s e-mails on the Aldrich hack server. She has a tidy inbox with only about fifty messages, no specialized folders, and very few e-mails in the trash. She must be diligent about cleaning out her files, whereas I have tens of thousands of unread messages I’m never going to get around to reading. I parse through essays she’s written for school, rants to friends, and a few messages from people asking for access to my father. In each of those, Raina politely replies that she no longer works for him, and she refers them to his new assistant, a girl named Angie.

  Is it strange that Raina worked for my father for such a brief time? Back in the day, my dad kept his assistants on for a whole year, if not more—especially if they were pretty. So why was Raina cut loose so soon? Was it her doing, or my father’s?

  I pick up my phone to call Dad, but when I’m taken off hold, Marilyn O’Leary, his second-in-command, comes on instead. “Oh, hi,” I say, caught off guard. I don’t know Marilyn well—she’s one of those polished, hyper, always-on cheerleader women who overuse catchphrases like “circling the wagons” and “think outside the box.” Today she seems a little guarded, too, but that’s probably because of all the hack bullshit. “Alfred’s in an important meeting,” Marilyn chirps. “Can I help yo
u with anything?”

  “Do you remember Raina Hammond, Alfred’s old assistant?” I ask her.

  Marilyn pauses for what seems like a beat too long. “Of course,” she says crisply. “Why?”

  “Do you know why she stopped working for him?”

  “You’ll have to take that up with your father. But my understanding is that she wanted to focus on her academics. Can you hang on for a sec, Willa?” Before I can answer, she places me on hold again.

  I can tell she’s overwhelmed, so I hang up. Focus on her academics? Huh.

  Still, there’s nothing incriminating about Raina in her e-mails. She doesn’t even seem to have a boyfriend, which puzzles me—she’s too hot to be single.

  Fifteen minutes later, and I still can’t find anything. Whom can I turn to for answers? I comb through her e-mails for messages to her parents or siblings, even a cousin, but I don’t find a single Hammond in her contacts list.

  The bursar’s files have been hacked, too, so I click on their files next, hoping this will give me some personal information. Raina’s information pops up, and after parsing through her files, I discover a few disconcerting details: First off, she started at Aldrich only this semester, not last year. That’s a red flag. As a rule, my father only hires students as his assistants, and I can’t imagine him changing his policy even for Raina. And wait—how could she leave to focus on her academics if she wasn’t even a student yet? Maybe that’s why my dad let her go—he found out she’d tricked him? Only, why did Raina trick him in the first place? I don’t understand why anyone would want to work for my father so badly as to lie.

  Starting in January, Raina became a student for real. In her enrollment paperwork, she didn’t list contact information for either of her parents. However, she did provide the necessary birth certificate and immunization records, and they say she was born in Cobalt, Pennsylvania, a coal town about an hour and a half from Pittsburgh. I squint at the words until they blur. From what I remember, Cobalt is quite poor. Is Raina on scholarship, then? I click through her records but see no awards. I do see, though, that she’s paid her tuition on time. The last record the bursar has of her is from the beginning of the semester, in January. She paid $9,500.