“Pete, my regular.” He pauses, and Pete stands up straighter. “Make it my Friday regular. Not Wednesday.”
We sit down in the window. I look at the view, one long gray dock extending between wood-shingled buildings out toward the ocean. I feel his hard gaze and think of Uncle Cal, unflinching, searching for weakness. I drop back in my seat and return his stare.
“You know Agent Fincher?” Stefano asks, his dark-brown eyes steady on my face.
“A recent acquaintance of yours?” I say and get no reaction. “We’ve worked together.”
He takes the napkin off the table and drops it onto his lap. “Where?”
“Statehouse,” I say. “It’s been a few years.”
“And today was a coincidence?”
“Yes. Seems we’re both tracking the same man.”
Pete steps over to the table and pops a bottle of Dom. “Two glasses?” he asks, but I shake my head no before Stefano can do the same. He pours, then steps back with the bottle.
“Leave it,” Stefano says. “And close off this room.”
You’ll never beat him.
One way or the other.
This will be your undoing.
Pete is at the bar with the Dom. He scoops ice quick and loud into a silver bucket and drops it off between us at the table. Then pulls a curtain at the two entrance points before slipping out of the room.
“They really care about customer service here,” I say.
Stefano leans into the table. “Why don’t you start with how you know Agent Fincher.”
He’s irritated, which is helpful. “I help the FBI from time to time. I’m here because of an employee of yours. Alec Mathers?”
Before he can answer, Pete enters the room, balancing a large silver bowl full of shaved ice with a lobster heaped in the middle. As he places it at the center of the table, I see unshucked oysters and clams and a small knife. Pete leaves the room quickly, and it’s quiet.
Stefano picks up the lobster and looks at it end to end. He takes a sniff, shakes it, then, seeming pleased enough, grabs the claw cracker. He begins where most people would, at the main large claw, and gets most of the meat out quickly. It’s shiny even before he dunks it into the butter.
But he doesn’t eat it. Instead, he puts it on the large plate Pete left. Just where the meat would be in the actual lobster. He continues, cracking and twisting and pulling the meat from the claws. Then he moves on to the body, popping the jagged edges under the belly, flipping up the sides until the large middle portion is free of shell. He plops it onto the plate. It’s mesmerizing, like watching a Michelin-starred chef work.
He continues until every edible part of the lobster is outside its shell. After scooting the small silver bowl of butter closer, he dips a knuckle and slurps it down.
I’ve nearly forgotten my question, but he has not.
“Alec is a protégé of mine. He wasn’t much of a fisherman, but he had the right connections to run a business of that kind. He listened, did his best, and I wish him well.” Stefano pauses to slurp another knuckle, much more loudly than seems necessary. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t think he killed Belina.” I watch him chew, but there’s no break. “In fact, I have evidence to the contrary.”
Stefano raises a bushy eyebrow. “You’ve given it to the detective? What’s his name? Ramsey?”
“Ramos,” I say. “Yes, but it hasn’t made a difference.”
“Perhaps your evidence isn’t very good.”
He sees you’re a joke.
Reckless, out of your depth.
The last person to help anyone.
I cross my arms as if miffed, but it’s a fair point. “Belina kept a day planner. A lot of meetings between you two, including the very last entry. Guess what day that was?”
He stills his hand; the large piece of claw meat drips butter onto the table. “Are you accusing me of . . . hurting her?”
“I’m asking,” I say. “Who was in her life. Who she cared about. Who cared about her. Or, maybe didn’t care about her as much as she thought.”
He dips a meaty chunk, pinkish and floppy, and takes an exaggerated bite. Stefano chews loudly, mouth slightly open. Not like a successful businessman. The armor is slipping. Or maybe it’s been a weak façade all along.
“I put a lot on the line, personally, for her,” he says.
“You pushed her to work for Alec. To have him work for you. She was a part of his family and ran his business. Seems she put a lot on the line for you.”
He chomps loudly and takes a quick sip of Dom. “She made her own mistakes.”
“Like working for you?” I say.
He doesn’t look up as he grabs the meat of the next claw.
“I spoke to Tina.”
“Well, she loves to talk.”
“About her dead daughter?”
He drops the last bite of lobster onto his plate with a plop. “Tina tried,” he says, leveling a look at me that dares me to contradict him. “Not everyone who is a mother should be one.”
He sees you.
He sees you.
We all see you.
That I certainly won’t contradict. “And Belina?”
“She did better than most with her situation.”
I can’t disagree with him there. “You think Alec killed her?” I ask.
He stares out at the water, then focuses back on the oysters and clams remaining in the ice. He picks up the small knife and takes an oyster. He jams it into the side, gently turning until it pops open. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “He was going to leave his wife for her. Maybe Belina changed her mind . . .”
I’ve been staring at the oyster in the shell in his hand, but with that last statement, I find his hard gaze. “How do you know?”
“The way I know anything.” He slurps the oyster and drops the shell into the ice. “When someone tells me.”
“Alec told you he was leaving Misha? When?”
Stefano cracks into a clam this time, scraping the top and bottom of the shell. “The morning Belina was murdered.”
Maybe I should believe that Alec didn’t have that kind of relationship with Belina, but I don’t.
“Look,” Stefano begins. “Alec is a poor rich kid through and through. Expects everything, even though he’s really only good at screwing up. Belina kept that business going as long as she could. But what none of us could admit is that Alec is more loser than winner.”
“You mean the money,” I say. “The half million he blew through?”
“No comment,” he says, scowling at the clam he’s cutting into.
“Did you get any of the money back?”
“Not yet.” Stefano sounds as if that’s a temporary issue.
“Not one hundred thousand dollars?”
He looks at me now, I realize, for the first time. “How the hell do you know about that?”
“How does anyone know about anything?” I say, parroting his phrase. “Someone told me.”
He sighs deeply, setting down his knife. “Devon,” he says, and I almost jump at him knowing my name. “I owe your uncle a few favors. That’s why we’re having this conversation. But now, it’s over.”
“What about Alec’s partner, Ricky?” I ask. “He says the relationship went bad with him and Alec. Belina knew a lot about—”
“Do not put Ricky and Belina in the same sentence,” he hisses, real anger flashing. “I hated that Alec brought Ricky into the business.”
“But you still worked with him. I guess money washes all sins?”
He smirks at my phrase, though he doesn’t acknowledge that that was basically what they were doing, cleaning his dirty cash through their fishing business. “Ricky is trash,” he says. “He comes from trash. Actually, he comes from crazy.”
“Crazy,” I say. “Who is crazy? His mom?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“But it’s yours?” I say. “Because he works for you? Or was Ricky’s
mom an employee with benefits too?”
“She killed herself,” he says coolly. “That’s all I’m saying. He’s from crazy, and I should never have done business with him.”
I feel a little guilty at bringing up Ricky’s mom but not enough to stop. “What did Ricky do to you?”
“This topic is over. As is our conversation.” He picks up an oyster and digs into it, popping it open. Then he grins at it and leans it my way.
There’s a white speck, pear shaped, floating amid the meat. “Is that a pearl?” I ask.
“It is,” he says and scoops it out. He rolls it between his finger and thumb before dropping it into the ramekin with vinegar. “It’ll dissolve in a few minutes. Portuguese royalty would drink pearls whenever an explorer left for a great journey.”
He presses the flat of the oyster knife onto the pearl, stirs, then presses again, as if making a powder. “Medicine from the old country,” he says, and I think of Belina’s words when I first met her.
“Purifies the blood,” I finish.
His eyes narrow as if he’s angered that I know the phrase. He shoots the pearl and vinegar, then wipes his mouth with his sleeve.
The small distraction gone, I’m left with the truth. Alec lied about Stefano and the money laundering. Lied about how he owed a lot of money to a powerful man. How can I go after someone like Stefano with half truths?
You can’t.
You were always going to fail.
As he slurps his last oyster, I’m suddenly nauseated by his efficiency with the knife, seeing flashes of Belina’s butchered arm.
An easy smile appears at my silence because he must see the truth: I’m outmatched.
He knows what the FBI has and that it’s not enough. He knows there’s even less than that relating to Belina. He’s not going to tearfully admit to killing his girlfriend. He’s not going to weepily hand over all his books and confess his evil deeds. Not even when he’s caught, hook in mouth, knife at the throat.
Remember what your grandfather taught you.
I see my hand around a knife hidden under my ruffled pillow as I whisper: “Whatever they do to you, if you want to win, you have to do worse.”
My grandfather’s scream. A slap across my face.
What difference did it make?
Do worse.
I can barely stand, the shaking moving from my hands through my body. I steady myself on the table and back of the chair.
“I will turn you inside out,” I whisper. “This is our beginning.”
My vision narrows and blurs as I hurry from the room. The blackness is here, but still I hear my feet move.
Do worse.
Do worse.
Do your worst.
Chapter 28
Thursday, December 15
I open my eyes in my bedroom, and I blink at the chandelier above me. The lights are off, but the sun is up. I reach for my phone, and my arm pinches, but I can’t feel any scrapes.
My phone tells me it’s the next day. I got a full night’s sleep. The first time since I had Ester that I slept all night.
My phone also shows several missed calls from Phillip.
I decide to table reality for a moment, taking a deep breath to savor how good a full night’s sleep feels. My body is lighter. I stand on my new bird-bone legs.
But then I realize I have no idea how I got here. I must have blacked out. Not like that moment at the cemetery before meeting Phillip. But a real one. Like the DC days. Like when I was a girl.
“Jack,” I call out into what sounds like an empty house.
They’ve finally left you.
There’s no response, but I won’t let myself panic. Instead, I go to the nursery and pump quickly to relieve the pressure that’s built up over the full night’s sleep.
I head downstairs, and the tightness of worry eases as I find Ester sleeping in her mamaRoo, the hum of the motor the only sound as Jack watches something on his computer with his headphones on. I put the milk into storage bags and into the freezer and sit next to him on the couch.
He slips off his headphones. “You look better,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, not wanting to admit I have no memory of what happened. “How was Ester?” I ask, glancing at her, itching to hold her and hide my face in her neck.
Great, because she was far away from her terrible mother.
“Fine,” he says, as if waiting for me to apologize or something.
“Coming home is a little fuzzy.” I rub the pinch in my shoulder and feel a Band-Aid I hadn’t noticed. “What happened?” My casual tone is too high-pitched, too obvious.
“You scared me,” Jack says. “You were ranting about Max and Stefano and hacking into the FBI databases.”
“Oh,” I say, sinking into the couch.
Jack scoots closer. “I know you hate drugs, but I had to call the doctor to sedate you. So you’d sleep.”
“Right,” I say as if I remember. “I overdid it in Newport.”
His eyes watch me carefully as tension freezes his face. I remember that same terrified expression from when I was in the hospital with Ester. As if I were a skittish deer frozen in front of his speeding car.
“Did you black out?” he asks, real fear in his eyes. And memories. I’ve blacked out before from stress. But not like this since we moved. Not since I promised I’d change.
I think back to how bad I let it get in DC. One minute I’d be working late in my office, trying like hell to figure out how to convict some rapist or child trafficker. The next minute, I’d find myself buying a drink at the bar where the defendant was known to hang out. Waking up in my car at the corner of the school where he’d stalk young boys. No memory of how I got there. Only knowing it was what my mind thought I needed to do for justice.
But in DC, the voice that’s taunting me now didn’t come with these blackouts, so at first I thought it’d go away. But as the cases kept growing along with my stress, it was happening more. It scared me enough to tell Jack the truth. About why I would lose time, hours, as a girl. Why the blackouts had returned in DC. I was honest then but not today.
“It wasn’t so bad,” I say. “I’m feeling better.”
His eyes are wide at my lies. No shock or anger but longing for the words to be true. His desire for me to be better is so strong I can almost feel it between us, wrapping me, tethering me, drawing me closer to him and what we once were before.
You’ll never be able to go back to the good.
It’s only the bad from now on.
“Will you hit pause on the case?” he asks. “For a few days? For me?”
Say the wrong thing.
He’s going to leave you.
Say the right thing.
He’ll never trust you again.
“I’m close to the truth,” I say quietly, pulling back. It’s not an answer to his request because I don’t have one yet. I don’t want to be so upset I have to be sedated.
But none of this is a shock. My mother used to lock me in my room when I got out of control. Of course, she never took the time to understand that being in that room was half of why I’d break.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” he says.
“I’m not. Phillip is helping. Cynthia is too.” I don’t mention Uncle Cal because that’d just lead to a fight. “Yesterday was too much. I’ll go easier.”
He takes my hand. The lines around his eyes seem deeper, new since Ester and the stress we created. “I watched Phillip’s TODAY Show interview from Swan Point this morning. He’s hinting at Stefano’s involvement. You need to be careful.”
“I saw Stefano yesterday,” I say. “Spoke to him, actually. He said Alec was leaving Misha for Belina. It makes sense, if you follow the money. He was paying off all his debts with Stefano’s dirty money to start fresh with Belina. Alec has lied about the money. His relationship with Belina. Everything.”
Jack nods and clears his throat. “Is it possible . . . if Belina ended up backing out, maybe . . . tha
t Alec could have done it?”
Ester begins to cry before I can answer. “Sorry,” I say. “I’ll take her for a walk. I need to check in with Cynthia anyway. You can get to work.”
I kiss his cheek, and he rubs my wrist gently. “I thought bringing you home with . . . her after the hospital was a good idea. But maybe it was too soon—”
“No,” I say too loudly because it’s a threat, even if he doesn’t mean it that way. “God, no, I’m getting better, Jack. I love you for supporting me. For letting me find my way back to my old self.”
The concern in his stare breaks, and I see real pain. “I don’t know, Dev,” he whispers. “I don’t know if I’m doing anything right.”
I drop to my knees, ignoring Ester’s cries, and put my hands on his cheeks. “Trust me like I trust you.”
He nods, clears his throat, forces a little smile. “I’m trying.”
You always ruin those who are stupid enough to love you.
Ester’s cry is piercing, and I can’t ignore her anymore. I kiss his temple, then take her into my arms, inhaling the baby powder scent.
“Everything is okay, baby girl,” I say and shush against her soft, cool cheek. “I’m here with you now.”
She’d be better if you weren’t.
They both would.
I decide to take a little time with Ester and find the book of Portuguese myths Tina gave me. I put Ester in the bouncer and do a quick comparison of Stefano’s signature and the inscription on this volume. I scroll through the photos I snapped. It’s certainly similar but not definitive proof that the books were gifts to his girlfriend.
Taking up the myths again, I open a few pages. I snuggle Ester onto my chest and begin to softly read stories to us both. There are tales of kings and princes and fairies. Catholic references are woven into the morality portions.
I shift Ester, and the pages fall open to a well-worn spot, the myth of the Adamastor. There are doodles in the margins, Os and Ds colored in. The story is a retelling of an epic poem, The Lusiads, which reads like a Greek myth. The Adamastor descends from gods, who he disobeys by falling in love with a nymph. As punishment, he’s turned into a jagged, isolated mountain. He spends his banishment trying to destroy the sailors who pass along his waters.
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