“I got held up. Leaving now.”
“Vicki went to the bathroom right after I last messaged you. She still isn’t back. I think she might be snooping around upstairs. Jesus Christ, hurry up.”
Nadia grits her teeth. So Vicki’s definitely in on this, huh? She isn’t surprised so much as disappointed to think that Phoebe’s closest friend might have murdered her. “See you in a sec.” She ends the call and exits the house, taking off her heels so she can run flat-out for the walking path she used to get here, the same one Jake likely took to visit Phoebe on his regular jaunts, as it’s invisible from the street.
Once she’s through the back gate and back in Miller territory, panting and covered in sweat, she freezes at the sight of a shadow in her bedroom window. A svelte, petite shadow with a pixie cut. Add a pair of wings, and she’d practically be Tinkerbell. “Hello, Mrs. Napier,” she whispers, her heart pounding hard against her sternum.
She’s about to text Wyatt to find a way to get Vicki back down to the dinner table when the shadow moves away and the room’s light switches off. Nadia darts across the backyard to the patio, and then races up the stairs that lead up to the balcony off the master bedroom, entering through the French doors.
Shedding her tool bag, she dashes across the bedroom and through the door leading to the hallway landing, where she catches Vicki more than halfway back down to the first floor. “Oh, hey, did you need me for something?” Nadia asks, taking deep pleasure in the way Vicki stiffens and nearly stumbles. “I was out on the balcony and thought I heard someone.”
Vicki turns around and looks up at Nadia with the barest grin. “You were taking so long on the phone. I just wanted to make sure you were still alive up here.”
Funny turn of phrase, Vicki. Were you hoping to remedy that problem? “Everything’s fine. Almost finished.”
“You’re looking a little sweaty. Must have been an intense conversation.”
“It’s a little humid out there still.”
Vicki nods slowly. “Ah. That must be why I didn’t actually see you.”
Oh, but you were looking for something else, weren’t you? “Must be. Let me freshen up, and I’ll be right down.”
“Okie doke.” She winks and proceeds back down the stairs.
Once Nadia is alone again, she gazes around for obvious signs of tampering. Nothing jumps out at her, but there remains the closet, where the bag holding all that’s left of Nadia’s old life is currently sitting out in the open. In her hurry to dig out her tool kit, she didn’t conceal it again. Like a goddamn nitwit.
She quickly ducks into the closet and finds the bag in the same spot as before. At first glance, it looks undisturbed, but she knows the goal of a thief is to leave things looking just so. She unzips the bag, hoping to find what she’s looking for resting on top where she left it, but knowing in her heart she won’t. Her phone, Nadia’s phone, the one she never expected to need again, is gone. Frantically, she overturns the bag and dumps its contents onto the floor, on the off chance it slid to the bottom. Dozens of stolen trinkets, her journals, toiletries, hair ties, crumpled receipts, her old work badge and pay stubs, and other random junk scatter in every direction. No phone among them. Because when you have a person’s phone, you have them. Cold hands clamp around her guts and squeeze.
Nadia backs out of the closet, balls her hands into fists, and begins punching the bed over and over, somehow holding back the bloodcurdling, primal scream she wants so desperately to let loose. There are things on that phone. Very incriminating things that she didn’t get around to locking down yet, because she had so many other details on her mind. And unlike Phoebe’s phone, the kind of device Nadia could afford in her old life doesn’t have all the fancy fingerprint and iris-scanning tech to keep it secure. It’s just a cheap burner she picked up at a 7-Eleven not long after she got to Lake Forest. She could have locked it down with a passcode, but she didn’t even do that, because she always found it annoying to enter a number every single time she wanted to check a message or surf the internet. Isn’t that how every plan fails? That one detail so simple and commonsense that it’s easy to overlook.
“How stupid are you? How utterly dumb?”
Angry, humiliated tears burn her eyes. But she manages to put on the brakes before all her hopes go completely over a cliff. Breathe, Nadia. This isn’t the end of the game. Not by a long shot. You have definitive proof one of these assholes killed Phoebe. Vicki might have scored a touchdown at the two-minute mark, but there’s still enough time to turn things around. Now isn’t the time to go into “woe is me” mode like your mother.
She takes a quick look in the mirror to assess the damage. It isn’t as bad as she feared, given all the sweat and tears. Thank you, Phoebe, for your high-dollar makeup. She applies a bit of powder to dull the shine and straightens her hair with a brush before heading back down to the dining room, where fifteen minutes ago, she claimed she had to take an important call from her accountant.
They’re all seated at one end of a shiny glass table long enough to accommodate at least a dozen with plenty of elbow room. Like much of this house, the cavernous formal dining space resembles a modern-art museum, complete with an eclectic assortment of colorful abstract paintings on the walls, and a huge twisted blown-glass sculpture for a chandelier that appears to almost float over the table like a psychedelic squid, and probably cost as much as Wyatt’s Audi. Such a room, fit for the grandest of dinner parties, seems almost comical in a house owned by a woman who eschewed every pretense of a social life, aside from her more recent girlfriend lunches with Vicki. Maybe the Millers enjoyed it for its intended use once upon a time. Nadia has yet to ask.
The spread of roast beef, potatoes, asparagus, bread, and wine Nadia laid out nearly a half hour ago is still untouched. Wyatt slumps back in his seat, his face awash with relief, when he sees her. The two Napier men seem more interested in their empty plates. “I’m sorry that took so long. You didn’t have to wait for me. Everyone dig in, please.”
“Like we would even think of eating without our hostess,” Vicki says.
“I don’t know about that,” Ron says with a sloppy grin. He might not have eaten any food, but he’s clearly enjoyed plenty of wine. “I’m starving.”
Vicki elbows him. “Oh, he wouldn’t have dared, Phoebe.”
There’s something different about Vicki right now. Squarer posture, a sparkle in her eye, a new note in her voice that telegraphs pure triumph. Nadia wants to stab the bitch with her fork and wrestle her phone back. Wyatt and Ron move in for the platters while the women continue to stare each other down from their places across the table. Their disguises feel all but useless now, but neither of them seems ready to unmask just yet. Vicki could just be looking out for her son. Nadia watches her dote over him, filling his plate with meat and vegetables like he’s five. But unlike a five-year-old, Jake has a full wineglass. The better to dull his frayed nerves with, Nadia guesses. He might be a few years shy of legal drinking age, but as the old saying goes, if they’re old enough to bang and possibly murder one of their mom’s married friends, by God, they should be able to have a drink.
“So is all well in the land of numbers and ledgers?” Vicki asks.
“It’s all fine,” Nadia says. “I try to involve myself as little as possible in the family business, but sometimes issues come up.”
Ron looks up from his nearly demolished plate of food. “Yeah, but we all know you don’t mind waving Daddy’s money around from time to time.”
“Ron, for God’s sake!” Vicki looks mortified.
Nadia has no idea what any of this is about. She exchanges a glance with Wyatt, who seems equally clueless.
“Don’t get hysterical. I figured since we returned Phoebe’s generous offering, we could all joke about it now.” He drains his wine and then grins at Nadia.
Vicki closes her eyes for a moment, like she’s
reciting the serenity prayer to herself. “Don’t mind my husband. He spends so much time drinking scotch that I forgot wine can turn him into a real asshole.”
“Guys. Stop,” Jake says. He’s sitting low in his seat, like a sullen child who might at any moment decide to hide under the table.
“The food is delicious, honey,” Wyatt says. Bless him for trying to keep this slow-motion train wreck going.
“Thank you,” she says. The room falls maddeningly silent, save for the clink of silverware on dishes. Nadia isn’t sure what’s worse, this or the awkward and stilted conversation, but at least it gives her a chance to ponder what Ron just revealed. It sounds like Phoebe tried to give them some money, but whose idea was it to return it? She would bet on Ron, given the cutting nature of his remarks. With the stack of bills Nadia saw on the counter and the size of the Napiers’ monthly rent, they sure could have used the assistance. But maybe Ron resented Phoebe’s interference in his family affairs. Sounds like a possible motive for murder, but what does that mean for Nadia’s theory that the Napiers moved here specifically to get close to Phoebe, and ostensibly, her money? Every time she thinks she’s lining up all the pieces, a wind comes through and blows them all around again.
“Did you get the meat at Earthbound?” Vicki asks her.
Nadia shakes her head numbly, forcing her bite of food down. “I went to the Jewel Osco.”
“Well that’s a good thing. I haven’t been back to Earthbound since they found that guy murdered behind the store. Don’t think they ever found who did it, either.”
This topic can’t be a coincidence. Vicki saw the Earthbound pay stubs and badge bearing Nadia’s name, and now she wants to play. The gleam in her eyes is almost predatory now. I know who you are, those eyes say. I have you in a box and I’m going to make you squirm.
Nadia returns the volley; she can’t help herself. “I hope everyone is okay with how I sliced the meat. I haven’t been able to find my best knife anywhere. So weird. Not the sort of thing that just gets up and walks away on its own.”
Vicki looks startled and Wyatt shoots Nadia a look. “It’s just fine, honey,” he says, a tiny note of warning in his voice.
Jake stands up. His face is a little pale. “I’m sorry. Can I use your restroom?”
“Jake, just sit down and finish eating,” Vicki says.
Ron grunts. “He looks a little like he’s going to be sick.”
“Well, I guess I should trust the drunk doctor who let his underage kid drink wine,” she snaps.
“I’m sorry,” Jake says again, heading out of the dining room. A moment later, the sound of retching comes from the bathroom, the same one Nadia lost her breakfast in the other morning.
Vicki is rubbing her temples, like she has a bad headache coming on. “Ron, will you go check on him, please?”
“There’s no need to coddle him. He’s a grown man.”
“He’s still our son, so would you please.” The words come out through clenched teeth, the classic sign of one who has about had it.
Ron’s face clouds over and he takes a deep breath, presumably to launch a nasty barb, or a hail of them. Nadia clears her throat, and this seems to remind him that he’s not home, where he can yell at his wife with impunity. Ron gets up, muttering, “Excuse me.”
When Vicki opens her eyes again, there’s a raw desperation in them. “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,” she says to no one in particular.
Ron returns. “Jake is heading back home. I think we should go with him.”
Vicki doesn’t move. Nadia can feel everything this woman wants to say pressing against the backs of her lips, straining to get out. Her slender fingers are still wrapped around her fork. Nadia notes only a plain wedding band, no engagement ring. Must have pawned it, she thinks.
Ron grabs his wife’s upper arm and tugs, like she’s a child who won’t listen. “Vicki, come on.”
She yanks her arm out of Ron’s grip, which was significant enough to require a little wrenching, and picks up her wineglass. “Weren’t you the one saying we shouldn’t coddle him? He’s just going to go straight to his bedroom anyway.” When no one says anything, she becomes flustered. “We’ve barely even started the meal Phoebe worked so hard on.”
Nadia wonders how this is going to end. Ron’s complexion is deepening to an infuriated plum shade. “It was no trouble,” she says. “We can pick things up again when Jake is feeling better.”
Vicki shakes her head, drains her wine, and finally stands. “Oh, we’re definitely going to be picking things up again. Sooner rather than later, I hope.” She isn’t smiling, but a bit of the sparkle from earlier has returned to her eyes.
“Just let me know when, and we’ll be ready,” Nadia replies.
As they stand in the doorway, watching the Napiers cross the cul-de-sac to their house, Wyatt asks, “What exactly just happened here?”
Nadia lets out a long breath. “We’re nearing the end of this weird little masquerade, I think. And thank God.”
■■■
INTERLUDE
I’VE NEVER BELIEVED in ghosts, but I felt you with us at that dinner table. We sat there pretending like things were normal, and failing miserably at it because we all know you’re really gone, but nobody wants to say it out loud. It’s so stupid, but would you honestly act any different if you were one of us?
I did think about ending it all right there, just telling them what I did so all this pretending could stop before someone else got hurt, because I know the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that that’s what will happen. The words rose to the back of my throat so many times, but they kept getting stuck there. I had to swallow them back before I choked.
It’s clear to me now that we all have secrets when it comes to you, but because no one wants to break first, we’re going to have to break each other instead. I’m just afraid of what that might mean.
CHAPTER 21
NADIA RETRIEVES HER bag from upstairs, and then they set up in the living room to escape the awkward vibe still lingering at the dinner table. There’s a lot to unpack, between the dinner conversation, what Nadia learned from her trip to the Napiers’ house, and what Vicki gathered from her little scavenger hunt. She’ll leave that nasty tidbit for last. From her bag, she pulls out the knife, holding it gingerly by its wood-grain handle. “This was under Jake’s mattress. Look familiar?”
He goes white when he sees it and then shudders before looking away. “Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“The set was custom made. If you look at the handle, there’s a stamp with Phoebe’s monogram.”
Nadia looks, and sure enough, she finds the initials PEM. Again, she almost feels like it’s Phoebe’s way of speaking from the grave. You’re on the right path. Keep going. “Are you comfortable with thinking Jake did it now?”
“I’m sure he was at least part of it, but unless you can do prints or DNA on that thing . . .” He shrugs as if to say, Who knows?
Nadia reluctantly agrees. The knife alone isn’t enough to point directly to Jake, regardless of where she found it. She sets it down on the ottoman in front of them. “And after Vicki’s snooping tonight, we know she’s involved too. At the very least, she’s trying to cover for her boy.”
“Or her boy is trying to cover for her.”
“Right.”
They sit thinking for a minute, then Wyatt says, “What’s the deal with Phoebe trying to give them money? I couldn’t believe when Ron mentioned that earlier. It doesn’t really sound like her.”
“She wasn’t very charitable?”
He gives a so-so gesture. “She was more like her dad that way than she’d care to admit. Friends don’t give friends money, that sort of thing. With Daniel, though, it was greed. For Phoebe, it was more of a self-protective thing.”
“Maybe she felt guilty. She probably kn
ew they were having money problems, and she was sleeping with their kid.”
Wyatt nods. “Now, that sounds more like Phoebe. Did you find anything else over there?”
“Unfortunately no. There just wasn’t a lot of time.”
A quiet moment ensues during which Nadia tries to decide how she’s going to tell Wyatt what Vicki took from her bag, but when she opens her mouth, Phoebe’s phone dings twice in a row with text alerts, as if coming to her rescue. The messages are from Jake.
When she opens them, she realizes there’s nothing rescuing about them at all. Her body ripples with sickening waves of goose bumps, and the phone slides out of her hand and lands in her lap. “Oh God,” she murmurs, but why is she so surprised? The moment she discovered her old phone was missing, she knew this was coming. The only unexpected part was seeing it come from Jake and not Vicki. They must be over there comparing notes like she and Wyatt are doing right now.
“What?” Wyatt leans forward. “What is it?”
She hands over the phone. The messages contain no text. Only pictures. Two very familiar, gruesome pictures. One with Wyatt in the foreground, another with Nadia, but both of them featuring Phoebe’s lifeless, bloody face behind them. So much for the insurance policies Nadia had been so intent they create to protect themselves.
Wyatt glances at the screen for only a second and then puts it down between them. He doesn’t explode as Nadia had been expecting. Instead, he only slumps back into the couch cushions with an exhausted sigh, as if nothing can surprise him anymore. “I had a feeling if she took anything from upstairs, it would be this,” he says. “How did this happen?”
“Vicki was in Phoebe’s room snooping around when I got back from the house. When I checked to see what she’d taken, I noticed my old phone missing.”
His face flushes red, but he’s doing a remarkable job keeping his voice level. Probably employing every mental calming trick he has up his therapist’s sleeve. “And now Jake has it, apparently.”
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