by T. M. Logan
“Because I was what?”
He shrugged, feeling the blush rising in his cheeks. “Dunno,” he said quietly, staring at the ground. “I was going to ask you the other day, but Ethan was there and he’s always talking shit about everybody, so I didn’t want to do it in front of him. Wanted to check that you were all right, that’s all.”
“All right?” She snorted. “No, not really. I’m about as far from all right as it’s possible to be.”
The silence stretched out between them until Lucy raised a hand in apology.
“Sorry, Jake. Not having a go at you, but I don’t know more than anyone else, OK?”
“I sort of feel bad because I was the one who introduced you.”
“It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.”
Jake cleared his throat, glancing at her quickly before looking away. “Have you ever been in love?”
She turned to stare at him. It was pretty much the last thing she was expecting him to say. “Love?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I thought I was, once,” she said slowly. “But I was wrong, I don’t know what that word even means anymore. Do you?”
“It means you’ll do anything for the person you love. Anything and everything. Even if you have to—”
He stopped, watching as his mother strode across the lawn toward them, a linen tote bag over her shoulder.
“There you are, Jake,” Jennifer said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“And?”
“So what are you two chattering about?”
“Nothing.”
She smiled, but there was little warmth in it. “Looks like one of those deep and meaningful conversations to me.”
“What, are you spying on us?”
“We’re going down to the gorge, Jake. All four of us, your dad and me and your brother. Come on.”
“No, I’ll see you later.”
“You’re coming with us, Jake. I want us to go exploring together. Come on, it’ll be lovely.”
“I’m not going. I’m talking to Lucy.”
“Come on, they’re waiting.” Her voice was brittle. “We’ve hardly done anything together since we’ve been here and I want to get a nice family photograph of the four of us.”
Mother and son stared at each other, neither willing to back down.
Finally, Lucy stood up to break the impasse.
“It’s OK, Jake, you go on. I was going to go in the pool for a bit anyway. Catch up later, yeah?”
Jake sighed and tossed his Popsicle stick into the bush. Reluctantly, he got to his feet.
“Yeah, later.”
With one last look at Lucy, he turned and followed his mother out of the garden.
38
I lay on a lounger watching the scene unfold on the far side of the garden.
Jennifer seemed determined to keep Lucy and Jake apart, or at least limit the amount of time they spent with each other—she couldn’t even stand to watch them sharing an ice cream. What was that about? Some kind of mother-son issue? Maybe she couldn’t stand to be replaced by another woman, couldn’t cope with not being the number-one female in his life anymore? Was that even a thing? Would I be the same with Daniel in a few years’ time? No. Or perhaps just a little.
A book unread in my lap, the midafternoon heat prickling my skin with sweat, I kept one eye on my daughter and one on my son. Daniel was splashing in the shallow end of the pool with Odette, an assortment of inflatables floating around them. Rowan and Russ sat across from us on the opposite side of the pool, looking at their phones; the others had gone to explore the rock pools down in the gorge.
Sean was laid out on the lounger next to me—an uneasy truce between us for the sake of the children. I had been running through everything he had said when I confronted him twenty-four hours ago, feeling the ground still shifting beneath my feet.
I swear I’m not involved with Rowan.
It’s the truth.
He had denied it point-blank, without a flicker.
And maybe now I knew why—because it was the truth?
Not Rowan, but Jennifer.
Not for the first time, I kicked myself for not confronting him on Saturday when I’d discovered the messages on his phone. If I’d had the guts to do it right then and there, I could have got to the truth. Avoided this agony of suspicion and doubt. If I’d walked up to him and just showed him those messages straightaway, there would have been no way he could deny the affair.
The messages were proof. They were the key.
I’d wanted to unlock his phone again the following day, and the day after that, but he’d not left it out of his sight for more than a second—it was with him now, inches from his outstretched hand on the sun lounger. He lay flat on his back in the full glare of the sun, sunglasses on, skin glistening with factor 30. He burned every summer, with his pale Irish complexion, but it never seemed to put him off.
I turned my head slightly so that I could get a better look at him without attracting his attention. He was quite still, his broad chest rising and falling with a slow rhythm that I knew well from the thousands of nights we had shared a bed.
He was asleep.
And his phone was right there within reach.
Russ and Rowan, across the pool, were still absorbed in their own phones.
Slowly, I shifted my weight, trying not to make a sound that might disturb him. Sitting up, I put my book on the floor and swung my legs off the lounger, leaning toward him so I could get a better look at his phone. It lay faceup on the edge of the lounger, not quite touching his hand.
I leaned in closer and pushed the Power button. The phone’s lock screen appeared, asking for the unlock pattern.
Sean didn’t stir.
I held my breath. With the lightest of touches, I used my index finger to trace his unlock pattern: a J.
J for Jennifer, maybe?
The display shook from side to side, the words NO MATCH appearing. I tried again. NO MATCH.
Shit.
He had changed it, probably after our row yesterday. Telling him about the messages had been stupid, I realized—I had tipped him off and now there was no way I could guess the new pattern. No way. There would be thousands of different combinations—or he could have changed it to a four-digit PIN.
Unless … unless it wasn’t either of those. Perhaps he’d changed it to something quick and altogether more personal than a pattern or a number. Something unique that I couldn’t get past again. Why not? It was worth a try. I picked his phone up off the sun lounger, heart thudding in my chest.
His right hand was hanging over the edge of the lounger. Gently, oh so gently, I touched the phone’s home button to his thumb.
The phone recognized his thumbprint instantly and came to life.
39
With the phone unlocked, I quickly selected the little blue-and-white Messenger icon. The menu screen came up, with a list of conversations.
There she was. Right there at the top, the most recent conversation: CoralGirl.
With a quick glance at Sean—who still seemed to be asleep—I selected the conversation with CoralGirl, where I had found the string of messages five days ago.
The conversation history was empty: all the previous messages had been deleted.
Bile burned in my throat, as if I might be sick.
What do I do now? You weren’t imagining it before. His affair is still going on and he’s trying to hide the evidence. It’s been Jennifer all along: she’s CoralGirl.
But how could I be sure?
Sean’s head turned slightly toward me but his chest continued to rise and fall, rise and fall, in its steady rhythm. He was still dozing.
How do you explain it, Sean? What does she give you that I can’t?
I had an idea.
In the text box I typed a new message:
Need to talk to you URGENTLY. Meet me in c
learing at top of gorge in 15 minutes
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement as Daniel launched himself into the pool, cannonball style. A splash of water landed on Sean’s foot.
He stirred on the lounger, turning his head toward me.
I hit the phone’s Power button and hurriedly laid it back down next to his hand, reaching for the suntan lotion.
“You’re going to get burned if you’re not careful,” I said.
He pushed his sunglasses up his forehead, blinking in the glare of the sun.
“Eh? What were you doing, love?”
A flush of guilt rose to my cheeks: caught red-handed.
“Just getting you the lotion.” I passed it to him. “You should get some shade. Can you watch the kids? I’m going inside to cool down a bit and put my swimsuit on. Think I fancy a dip after all.”
He squirted suntan lotion into the palm of his hand and began rubbing it onto his shoulder.
“OK. I’m about ready to go in myself.”
I grabbed my sandals and sarong, walking slowly, as casually as I could, to the stairs that led up to the balcony, checking my watch as I did so. It was only as I reached the top and glanced back that I saw Russ was now alone on his side of the pool.
Rowan was gone.
In the house, I went straight through to the kitchen, grabbed the key from the hook on the wall, and went out into the main living room area. The air conditioning was set high in here and the cool air against my skin was a blessed relief after the scorching heat of the sun outside. I wrapped the sarong around me and went to the bottom of the wide marble staircase.
I stood very still and listened.
Just the faint sound of squeals from the pool outside. Nothing nearer.
“Rowan?” I said into the silence.
No response. The estate and the villa were both huge, but there were a limited number of places where she could have got to in the last couple of minutes. I ran up the stairs to the master bedroom to find the big oak door ajar. I knocked, once.
“Rowan?”
I pushed the door open and took a step inside.
Neat, orderly, exquisitely furnished. A faint smell of Rowan’s expensive perfume lingering in the air.
But empty. She wasn’t here.
Perhaps it wasn’t Jennifer, after all.
Where are you, Rowan? On your way to meet my husband, summoned by text?
How about I give you both a surprise, instead?
I ran back downstairs and into the bedroom Sean and I shared. I kicked off my flip-flops and grabbed some strappy sandals from the bottom of the wardrobe, sitting down on the bed to pull them onto my feet. Flip-flops were fine around the villa but I needed better shoes if I was going to be skulking about down in the woods. Standing up, I caught sight of myself in the mirror by the door. I looked flustered and flushed, lines of worry creasing my forehead. There was fear, too, in the eyes that stared back at me. Not just fear. Terror. The anticipation of what I was about to find out, and what it would do to me, to my family. To my life.
To all our lives.
You could have left this alone, but you chose not to. You chose to set this in motion, you laid this trap, and now it’s time to find out who gets caught: time to find out who’s left standing when the music stops.
I pulled the bedroom door closed behind me and checked my watch. Twelve minutes to get down to the meeting place. Plenty of time, if I didn’t delay.
“Mummy?”
I jumped at the sound of my son’s voice behind me in the corridor.
“Daniel?” I said, a hand on my chest. “You startled me.”
“You were scared.” He grinned. “What were you doing?”
“Didn’t hear you coming, that’s all. What is it?”
“Can you help me find Daddy’s goggles?”
“Now?”
“Mine broke,” he said sadly, holding up the snapped elastic strap of his own pair. “And now the pool water is making my eyes all red.”
“Can we find them later?”
“That’s what he said.”
“I’m just a bit busy now, that’s all.”
He looked at me, standing there with nothing in my hands except my phone. “Busy doing what?”
“Things.”
“Please, Mummy.” He put his little hand in mine and looked up with a hopeful grin. “I can never find things on my own.”
“That’s because you’re like your dad, you never look properly.” I checked my watch: eleven minutes until the meeting time. “I’ll help you in a little while, I just have to do something first.”
I made to move past him but he grabbed my leg with both arms, pressing his face against my side like a limpet.
“Pleeeeeeeease! You’re the best at looking.”
“Daniel, let go of my leg.”
He gripped a little tighter. “You’re the best mummy in the world.”
“Hardly,” I muttered.
“The absolute best.”
I sighed. He wasn’t going to let go. “Come on then, let’s be quick.”
“Yes!” he said.
“Where did Daddy put his goggles?”
“Dunno. Somewhere in his stuff?”
He detached himself from my leg and followed me into the big bedroom. He sat in the armchair while I did a quick search of the wardrobe, bedside drawers, and under the bed.
“He didn’t say where he’d put them?”
Daniel shook his head.
The suitcases were in the walk-in wardrobe. I hauled Sean’s down, feeling that it was light and empty even as I did so. I laid it flat on the floor anyway.
Kneeling and unzipping the case, I flipped the top open. Empty. I was about to move on to our hand luggage when I remembered there were a couple of zip pockets in the top lining. The first was flat and empty but in the other—the smaller of the two—there was something small. Hardly noticeable.
“Aha,” I said.
“Have you found them?” Daniel said excitedly from behind me.
I put my hand into the little pocket, fingers brushing smooth plastic, flexible, yielding—
Condoms.
40
There was a fluttery, weak feeling in my stomach, as if I were going to be sick.
Six condoms, loose, a brand I’d never seen before. I held them in the palm of one shaking hand, a small bundle of square plastic wrappers, trying to think of a reason why they were there, a legitimate reason, an explanation that made sense—instead of being one more nail in the coffin of our marriage.
But there was nothing. No explanation other than the obvious one—because I had been on the pill since our son was born.
Daniel came up behind me and I quickly shoved one of the condoms into my pocket, the rest back into the case before closing it again.
“Have you got the goggles?” he said.
“False alarm,” I said, heaving the suitcase back onto the shelf. “Let’s keep looking.”
I found them in Sean’s hand luggage, under a bundle of charger cables. Daniel put them on straightaway, tightening the strap and giving me a frog-eyed thumbs-up.
“I knew you’d find them, Mummy.”
I walked him out onto the balcony so I could be sure he was going back to Sean. He started down the steps to the pool, then turned back to me.
“Last one in the pool’s a doughnut!” He gave me a grin. “Come on then, Mummy!”
I stayed where I was. “I’ll be down in a bit.”
He ran down the rest of the steps and leaped into the pool with a splash, narrowly missing his sister in the deep end. I lingered a moment longer, watching as he ducked below the surface and swam to the edge. Sean was there, and Russ. He would be safe.
Go.
I hurried back through the villa and headed out the front door, closing it quietly behind me. Down the big curving staircase, past the parked cars, branching onto a gravel path that took me out to the manicured lawn. An arched iron gate threaded with purple bloss
oms led into the vineyard, out of sight of the pool.
Shielding my eyes against the sun, I squinted toward the stand of trees that bordered the bottom of the vineyard. There was no one around. I scanned the breadth of the slope on both sides of me but saw no movement. There were probably other ways down there, other ways of reaching the woods, but I didn’t know what they were. Certainly you could come up from the gorge side—Rowan had showed us the path cut into the rock—and maybe there were also ways around the far side of the estate. But there was no time to check now.
I looked at my watch again—barely six minutes left—and broke into a half run. The bare path between the rows of vines was rutted and uneven, threatening to trip me as the slap-slap-slap of my sandals took me downhill. The sun seemed hotter out here than by the pool, high in a cloudless sky, its blistering heat beating down on my head and shoulders like a physical force. There was no shade out here on the hillside—the vines were only about four feet tall and provided no protection from the heat of the afternoon. Neither did they give any concealment unless I bent double and stooped over as I ran. But there was no time for that.
I felt totally exposed for every yard that I hurried away from the villa.
Perhaps she’s watching me right now. Watching me coming.
At the tree line I stopped running, panting for breath, hands on my hips, trying to make my breathing as quiet as possible, still dazzled from the bright sun on the hillside. There was sweat at the small of my back and under my arms, but at least there was some shade here. The worn dirt path wound around the big oak and sycamore trees, the bark of their trees rutted with age. Here was the dip, the hollow, then up and around again, past the big rock and the fallen tree. The sign stuck lopsidedly into the ground: ATTENTION! in faded red lettering. Here was the clearing that led out to the bluff. This was the spot. I stepped off the path and into the trees. The cover wasn’t great here, but there were some low bushes and the thick canopy of leaves above threw much of the woods into a warm, earthy shade.
Edging farther into the undergrowth, branches scratched at my arms and a mulch of old leaves rustled at my feet. I knelt down behind a fallen tree, getting as low as I could, gathering the fabric of the sarong around my thighs. It was as good a spot as any. From here, I could see right across the clearing to where the trees thinned out and gave way to the cliff edge. I would also get a good view of whoever came along in a few minutes’ time, well before they could see me. My phone was warm in my hand and already slippery with sweat. I opened the camera mode and selected the Burst option, which would shoot a dozen images in rapid succession, in case there were only a few seconds to get the picture.