Until the Day I Die

by Carpenter, Emily

  “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,” she says.

  I nod to show I understand. And I approve. My daughter never did like waiting for somebody to find her. She’s so much like me. We are so much like each other.

  58

  SHORIE

  Our hands release, and Mom and I separate, each of us circling back to find a big enough tree to hide behind.

  Please, please, please, please, I think as the sound of Antonia’s footsteps grows louder. Please let this work.

  I am praying, in a weird way. To my father, to my mother, to Gigi and Ben and Rhys and Dele. I’m asking for help. And hoping that when all this is over, in spite of everything, I will still have a family. Because, I realize now, family is the only thing that matters.

  And then she comes into view, doing this mincing jog down the hill, blonde braids a halo in the sun. She’s holding the gun straight out in front of her, cop-style, but she’s got her eyes down, on the path in front of her. Behind my tree, I’m coiled—ready to go, just like I know Mom is—and when Antonia is inches from crossing the invisible line that connects the two of us, we let out bloodcurdling screams and spring at her.

  We scare the shit out of her, just like I used to scare Dad. I can’t believe how easy it is for us to pin her to the ground.

  59

  ERIN

  By Thanksgiving, I’m living a life I barely recognize. I write it all down in my own slim leather-bound journal. My way of telling Perry.

  Shorie’s back at school, taking classes and doing whatever extra work I throw her way from Jax. Right now, she’s working on the new merchant corporate social responsibility feature. I’ve agreed to let her work full time at Jax over the summer. Even though she doesn’t like to talk about it with me, she and Rhys are dating. A little bird named Dele keeps me up-to-date on the general gist of things.

  Ben’s stepped back a bit from Jax. Not entirely—just enough so that we have the space to heal. I need to understand what he knew and when he knew it—and I need to know that I can trust him. He let his commitment to Sabine cloud his judgment. Now we just need to figure out how to move forward.

  Jax is holding steady. We lost a good chunk of users after the story broke that Arch and Sabine were stealing money from accounts. But because we were transparent about it in the media, and because we recovered most of the money, I don’t believe it will sink us. All we can do is let it play out and concentrate on winning back the confidence we lost. I’m still going in to the office every day, but keeping more reasonable hours, since we’ve hired some new developers, testers, product managers, and data analytics people. I’m going to hang on to the company and try to scale in the next few years. If we get an offer, we’ll entertain it, but we’re not in any hurry.

  Dele wrote her article for the Birmingham News, and it was subsequently picked up by the AP. An explosive piece on Hidden Sands, the story laid bare the murders in crisp, vivid detail. She described the cabal of rich old men who were behind the scheme: Arch Gaines, William Monroe (Jess’s father), and Edwin Erdman, all buddies since their college days at Yale, all with problems they needed to be rid of.

  Dele set the scene well. The fusty golf club down in Augusta sometime in midsummer. The whiskey and cigars. Old jokes and new complaints. Drunken revelations behind closed doors in the wee hours of the night.

  Arch told them about my plan to sell Jax. He confessed to his affair with Sabine, her skimming from Jax, and their plan to run away. If Sabine killed Perry when he became suspicious, as I suspect, he even may have told them about that too. At any rate, William Monroe had a confession to make as well. In a ghastly coincidence, his own daughter, Jessalyn, had become embroiled in an affair as well—and also with a woman named Sabine. Not only that, but William’s beloved son had been involved in cyber fraud, and William was convinced that Sabine had somehow duplicated it at her own company.

  As the two men compared notes, both realized they had unsolvable problems: I was jeopardizing Arch’s romantic and financial future with Sabine. And Jess, if she chose, could bring Sabine’s whole operation crashing down, destroying Arch and pointing a finger of blame at her brother, humiliating her family beyond repair. The two men agreed. Something had to be done.

  Then Edwin Erdman spoke up, offering a solution. A secluded paradise, run by Edwin’s daughter, that offered an experience to end all experiences. Edwin promised it would be the answer to their financial and family woes. Arch and William agreed on a plan to drug Jess and me to explain the need for a trip to Hidden Sands.

  But I wonder what Arch’s story was going to be beyond that. What was he planning to tell Shorie? That I’d inexplicably run off? That in my grief and addiction, I’d deserted my own daughter? I don’t have an answer for that, but the lengths Arch was willing to go appall me anew every day. He is nothing less than a monster.

  Now Edwin Erdman, William Monroe, and Deirdre’s husband, who arranged for her death, are in prison. Antonia Erdman’s locked up in a women’s maximum security facility in Bedford Hills, New York. Hidden Sands has been shut down, and I’m not ashamed to say, I hope it rots.

  After Shorie emailed the FBI, they contacted Ben, and he immediately cooperated, providing access to all of Jax’s servers. The feds found hard drives in a safe-deposit box in Sabine’s name, proving she’d implemented the cash-skimming program that automatically deposited money from customers’ accounts into hers. As for me, I had my doubts that she’d written it all by herself, but it didn’t matter. In her confession, she took full credit. Like she was proud of it.

  What the authorities couldn’t establish was that Sabine had any knowledge of Arch’s plot to have me killed at Hidden Sands. While Sabine and Arch had traded numerous messages about their embezzlement scheme, they never discussed murder. That fact, along with Arch’s connection to Edwin Erdman, has everyone convinced that he planned the L’Élu III thing without her knowledge.

  But I have my doubts. I think she knew.

  Sabine was released on bond and is now under house arrest at her parents’ home, awaiting trial. I drove past once recently and parked outside. Just curious, I guess. And hoping for some kind of epiphany about who my best friend really was.

  She’d started sleeping with Arch when she was eighteen, right before we met in college. She dated Ben. But she’d had many other relationships—Jessalyn Monroe, for one. I couldn’t figure it out—who was Sabine Fleming? What did she want? Did any of her human connections have meaning? Or were they all merely transactional?

  Had she ever loved anyone other than herself?

  But that wasn’t the question I wanted to ask her. There was really only one question I needed an answer to.

  Did you kill Perry?

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if she had. She could’ve easily gotten to him that Monday evening after he met his friend and before he drove to meet Shorie and me at the lake. They did a toxicity screen on him at the hospital, but it was hours after his death. And I’ve read that GHB, the newest date rape drug, dissipates quickly in the blood and is often not recognized by emergency room doctors. If, somehow, Sabine was able to dose his beer, it’s too late to prove it now.

  I do think somehow, maybe with someone’s help, she roofied me in Auburn. She—or a flunkie of hers—probably dropped some liquid or powder GHB in my wine glass when I went to the ladies’ room. I also think that later that night she had someone call me, pretending to be Dele and saying that Shorie wanted to see me. Of course, the phone records show the call, from a local Auburn number to mine, but the phone that made it, a burner bought by Arch Gaines the week previously, still hasn’t turned up. So impossible to prove.

  At Sabine’s parents’ house, reporters swarmed the place like bees around a hive. I sat in my car for over an hour, but Sabine never showed her face. Not that I actually thought she would’ve told me the truth even if we’d had a face-to-face. I’ll never know exactly what she did or didn’t do.

  There are other unanswered questions. Jess Monroe disapp
eared from the island, and no one’s seen or heard from her since. Arch vanished, too, somewhere into the ether between the Saint Lucia airport tarmac and Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Buenos Aires, which was supposed to be his destination according to the ticket that was purchased for him from Antonia’s computer at Hidden Sands.

  But the feds are on it, and I will leave the old man to his reward. If he did have anything to do with Perry’s death—and did it for nothing more than a woman like Sabine and a couple of million dollars—then having to wake up, day after day, with only his desiccated, empty soul for company is a good start to his punishment.

  Gigi’s experienced the biggest change of all of us. She’s reinvented herself—a spunkier, more resilient version of Ruth Madoff—and made her grand reappearance into Birmingham society. Who knows if she’s really okay or if she’s tossing back all kinds of pills and potions to get her through the day. There’s always the chance, too, that she’s plotting some kind of Count of Monte Cristo–level revenge and that’s what is giving her the extra bump. But I can’t worry about that.

  So here we are. November. Thanksgiving. The weather’s been windy and gray for weeks, and I have to admit, I’m not looking forward to the rest of the holiday season. It’s been eight months since I’ve held my husband in my arms, but that feels like an eternity.

  After dinner, Rhys and Shorie and their friends head out, and Ben stops by on the way home from his parents’ house. It rained during the day, so we spread beach towels over the Adirondack chairs by the clean, empty fire pit, and settle down to let our turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie digest.

  After a while I speak. “I think I get why Sabine stole Perry’s journal—she didn’t want anybody to read about the error messages and put two and two together—but I can’t understand why she held on to it.” I sigh. “I think you were right about her, Ben. I think she had a thing for Perry. I think she loved him all along, and wanted to have something of his.”

  “Maybe she had a thing for him.” Ben shakes his head. “But you’re wrong about the other part. She didn’t love Perry. She’s never loved anybody.”

  He drums his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  “I’ve been reading through the journal,” I say. “Looking for something that’ll explain what happened to him.”

  He sighs. “Oh, Erin. You’ll just drive yourself crazy, you know that, right?”

  “But I think I found something. Right before he died, Perry had put contacting the Global Cybergames on his to-do list.”

  “For Shorie?”

  “I don’t think so. One of the committee member’s phone numbers was in the back of the journal, somebody named Mason P., and I called the guy. Turns out he and Perry had talked, specifically about a certain student who competed back in 2016. He sent me an email with some interesting information.” I hand him the envelope from under my chair. “Check out the name and address on the last page.”

  His eyes go wide.

  I go on. “Two days before he died, Perry set up a meeting with Sabine. Probably to let her know about this information. That a few things had slipped through the cracks on one of the background checks she’d run. Only, my guess is, she already knew about it.”

  Ben collapses back into his chair and shakes his head dumbly. “Holy shit, Erin.”

  “Yeah, I know. Holy shit.”

  We’re quiet for a long time, watching Tiger sniff out God-knows-what in the shadows of my backyard. We can deal with all this tomorrow, report everything to the FBI. Right now, I’m just glad Ben seems to want to enjoy the remainder of the day with me. It was a good one.

  He turns to me. “So tell me. What are you thankful for today?”

  “Hmm.” I think for a minute. “I’m thankful for my crappy garage door. And this fire pit.”

  Ben laughs. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Perry built it for me, but we never actually got around to having a fire in it. It’s a good fire pit. We owed it better.”

  “Agreed. It’s a very solid fire pit.” Ben clasps his hands and gazes into it. “I could build a fire, if you want.”

  “I can build a fire, too, believe it or not. Among other things.”

  “Let’s do it together,” he says.

  Ben gathers an armful of pinecones that have escaped the rain, and I pull out a few sticks of starter wood from the stack near the back door. The wood and pinecones catch and blaze up, and we throw a couple of logs on that. We sit there for hours, talking about nothing and everything and watching as the clouds flee the sky, revealing the web of stars above us.

  60

  SHORIE

  After we finish cleaning up the Thanksgiving dishes, Rhys suggests he and I and Dele and Lowell all go for ice cream.

  After a mere two days at home on Thanksgiving break, I’m pretty sure Rhys can tell that Gigi is driving me nuts. Since everything happened, she’s traded her conservative Stepford Wife image for this wild new look with au naturel silver buzz-cut hair, giant cuffs, and hemp caftans. She keeps saying, “Girl power!” and trying to high-five me and Mom all the time. I’m happy for her and all, but it’s wearing on my last nerve.

  I run up to my room and shoo Foxy Cat, who is, as usual, hunkered down on top of all my important papers. I grab Dad’s Caldwell Creamery punch card, and we all go. Using the last punch, Rhys gets Brownie Chunk. In honor of Dad, I get my free cone. Pralines and Cream.

  It’s still misting rain, so most everybody is crammed inside the shop. But we’re outside on one of the soggy picnic tables, licking our cones in the semidark. Dele and Lowell skipped the cones and went straight out to the edge of the parking lot, where now I can see them making out hard-core behind her car.

  “So,” Rhys says, wiping his mouth with one of the tiny napkins. He’s watching me closely. “How are you feeling?”

  “Brave,” I say. “Determined, happy . . .”

  He grins.

  “. . . meditative, grateful, open minded.”

  “Good. Those are a lot of good words.”

  “How are you?” I ask.

  “Good. Busy. Dismantling the business hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. I told my mom everything, by the way. She wanted to kill me, but she was glad I told her.” He hesitates. “You want to read it now? Or wait till later?”

  “Now, I think.”

  I take a few deep, cleansing breaths—in and out, in and out—and open the folded papers I’ve twisted into a baton. It turns out Dad had finished his letter to me after all. Or at least the first draft of one. He’d composed it on his computer and saved it in a random file that Mom hadn’t noticed until just a few days ago. A file labeled SMS—Shorie, my sweet.

  And I’m ready for this, I think. Ready as I’ll ever be.

  Rhys flicks the flashlight on his phone, aims it at the first page, and I begin to read.

  61

  PERRY

  . . . I’m proud of the father I have been to you, Shor. I think overall, I have been a pretty good one, and I hope you feel the same. One of the things I’ve tried hard to teach you is resilience. Get back up when you fall off the bike. Take another shot in lacrosse. Go all the way back to the very first error message . . . as many times as it takes.

  I’m sorry to tell you this, but failure is the best way—sometimes the only way—we learn.

  But here’s what I’ve learned from my failures: it’s not about the product, it’s about the build. Jax is a great tool, but it’s just a thing. And a thing will never be the true reward. My reward, what I gained from the past three years, is so much bigger than a little yellow square. My reward was the days and nights, hanging out at the office with you and Mom and Ben and Sabine, playing Ping-Pong and eating cupcakes. Creating something with the people I loved. Teaching you and seeing your eyes light up when you finally got it. It was all about the build.

  And now, even after having built the product and accomplished the goal I set out to achieve, I feel sad—because the building days are over. Jus
t like our building days are over, my girl. I’ll miss those days, Shorie, but now the job is done, you’re grown and smart and ready, and it’s time for you to move on.

  Do me a favor, will you? Take note of everything. The smell of the classroom, the professor with the heinous tie, the girl sitting next to you with nails painted like a van Gogh. The kid sitting in the back who’s afraid to speak. Write these things down, all of them. You’ll be glad you did.

  I’ll keep writing, too, about Jax and Mom and all my boring chores and how much I miss you. And I’ll send you all my crazy Oulipo poems, okay? Maybe I’ll write an epic poem without the letter s, in honor of your absence. At any rate, enjoy college. Learn everything. Make friends. Let yourself fall in love, if that chance comes along. But above all, believe in yourself.

  Because sometimes, most times, you will be the only person who can fix the error.

  Rest assured, I’ll always be here if you need someone to talk to. My love for you is, in the words of old Will Shakespeare, an ever-fixed mark. It will never alter or bend.

  Shorie, my sweet, I will love you until the day I die and all the time that comes after that.

  Dad

  TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER

  Epilogue

  ARCH

  Some days when I wake up, I can’t remember where I am. I don’t know if it’s a function of aging or that, after six decades in the same town, I’m living someplace new. Eventually, though, much like the persistent, unchanging tide, everything comes back to me.

  Ah, yes . . . exile.

  I did this to myself.

  Made my bed. Sealed my fate. Nailed the coffin closed.

  I live in a shack made of woven bamboo that sits just beyond a strip of white sand at the edge of a bay on a private island called Nosy Ankao. The island lies off the coast of Madagascar, at the edge of the deep, blue Indian Ocean.