Big Summer(77)

Inside, sitting on a couch with padded vinyl cushions, was Stuart, dressed in the standard-issue white-guy uniform of Docksiders, khaki shorts, and a blue-and-white-checked short-sleeved button-down. Corina, in a tight white T-shirt and pale-pink capri pants, was curled against him, her head on his chest, one hand stroking his cheek. They weren’t kissing, but the way Corina was touching him was not the way a woman would touch a friend.

I cleared my throat. Neither of them noticed me. “Excuse me,” I said. That did the trick. Stuart jolted upright, jerking himself away from Corina and putting twelve inches of vinyl seat cushion between them. Corina moved more slowly, unwinding her limbs slowly, extending her legs and stretching her arms over her head. Her T-shirt rose over the firm, golden-brown convexity of her belly. She moved languidly, like a woman who’d just rolled out of bed.

“Daphne,” said Stuart, his resonant voice thin. He cleared his throat. “It… it isn’t what you think.”

Corina rolled her eyes and said, “Actually, Daphne, it’s exactly what you think.” Her voice was pitched normally. Instead of sounding like a little girl, she sounded like an adult, and I remembered Drue telling me, She isn’t what you think.

“Corina…” Stuart said.

She turned her eye roll on him. “What’s the point of hiding now? We don’t have to lie anymore! The dog days are over!” The breathy baby-doll voice, the kittenish gestures, the girlish affect, all of it was gone. Maybe this wised-up, hard-edged woman was the real Corina. Maybe there was no real Corina at all, just different versions, different Corinas for different occasions.

Stuart put his hand on her shoulder. Corina shook it off. “No. No, don’t shush me. I’ve had it. I’m done with the lies.” She turned to me, a smug expression making her pretty face significantly less pretty. “Stuart and I love each other. We never stopped loving each other. And now we’re going to be together. Love wins.”

Corina gave me a smile that showed all of her teeth. Stuart, meanwhile, looked like a man trying to pass a kidney stone. I thought of the woman whose voice Nick had heard in the darkness, the woman who’d said I’m done waiting and I’ve waited long enough.

“Did Drue know that you and Corina were still together?”

Stuart’s shoulders slumped. Corina sat up straighter. “Of course she knew,” she said. At some point, she’d taken time to put on a full face of makeup, from foundation to lip liner to fake lashes. Her nipples strained against the fabric of her T-shirt, and she’d scooted so close to Stuart that the side of her thigh was right up against his.

“Look,” she said. “I know Drue was your friend, so I’m sorry. But she was a horrible person. She treated Stuart like her servant. Do this, do that. Fly there, stand here. Marry me in June, on Cape Cod, so the whole world can see, and not… ow!” I looked. Stuart had taken her by the wrist and was pinching her. Not gently.

“That’s enough,” he said.

Corina wrenched herself away from him, glaring. On the show, her fingernails had been short and polished pale pink, her fingers bare. Now her nails were painted blood red, so dark that they could have been lacquered with the same stuff that Tinsley, the show’s villainess, had worn.

“We don’t have to talk to you,” she said.

“No,” I acknowledged. “But if it turns out that Drue was murdered, and that the girl they arrested didn’t do it, you two are going to be at the top of the list. I mean, I’m no Angela Lansbury, but this”—I made a gesture that encompassed the two of them and, I hoped, their activities the night before—“doesn’t look good.”

“We have alibis.” Corina’s voice was smug.

“Seriously? You’re going to tell the cops that you were together last night?” I asked, letting her hear the skepticism in my voice.

Maybe Corina was oblivious, but Stuart, evidently, could grasp how terrible an idea it was. “Corrie…” he said.

She ignored him. “It’s the truth. And the truth shall set you free.” Turning toward me, silvery hair swinging, she said, “They were never in love. And there wasn’t even going to be a wedding. The whole thing was a fake.”

I looked at her, then turned to Stuart, who was bent over, with his elbows on his thighs and his head cradled in his hands.

“What,” I asked, “was going on?”

“Drue needed money,” he said, without looking up. “The family business was in trouble, and she wanted to save it. She couldn’t get access to her trust fund until she turned thirty, unless she got married before then.”

I nodded, remembering how Drue had explained it to me. “Okay, so she needed to get married. But didn’t you just say there wasn’t going to be a wedding today?”

Stuart Lowe had the grace to at least look ashamed. He couldn’t even meet my eyes, so he addressed his remarks to the floor. “Drue and I got married six months ago, at City Hall. She got her trust fund. And we started planning this whole thing.” He nodded toward the door, toward Truro, and the rented mansions, and the beachfront party, the caterers, the DJs, the hand-knotted silk rugs on the sand. “The plan was…” He looked up at Corina, his expression miserable. She gave him a tight-lipped nod.

“Go on,” she said. “Get it all out.”