Dream Girl(72)

“Knew what? Who is this?”

But he has been too successful at calming the woman. She hangs up—clicks off, rather—and his smartphone can tell him only that he has been talking to Caller ID Blocked.

*



LEENIE DOES NOT bring him his breakfast until ten A.M. Toast and overscrambled eggs on a paper plate. Her eyes have a feverish glow that he recognizes. She is a writer who senses the finish line is close. Her hair is unwashed, she is wearing yesterday’s clothes. Gerry remembers the sensation, although he never forgot to take a shower no matter how well his work was going.

“Did I hear you talking to someone last night?” she asks, her voice casual. Too casual.

“Maybe I was talking in my sleep. I used to do that, or so I’m told. In fact, I was teased for having long, mundane conversations in my sleep.”

“I did notice that.”

He suppresses a shudder at the reminder that she has been in bed beside him. How many times? Just the once? Every time she gave him the “calcium” pill?

“When my book is finished,” she says, returning to the only subject that interests her, “will you show it to your agent?”

“Of course. Although I’ve been giving this some thought.” He has not. “Thiru might not be the best agent for you. His taste is old-fashioned. I think what you’re writing is more commercial. You need one of those young agents who knows how to create a sense of excitement around a project.”

Her face darkens. “You don’t think I’m good enough. You don’t think I belong with an agency that represents Nobel laureates and Pulitzer winners.”

“Oh, God no, that wasn’t my intent at all. And Thiru doesn’t have a single Nobel winner in his stable.” If he did, Gerry’s not sure he could take it because then that writer would inevitably be Thiru’s favorite, or at least the one on whom he lavished the most attention. “I think this book has the potential to create a lot of excitement, maybe even go to auction.”

He suddenly realizes that this book, with certain revisions, could be his alibi and his SOS. If Aileen keeps going down this autofiction path, maybe he can steer her toward making a full confession. Of course, there will be the unfortunate truth that he believed himself to be Margot’s killer and allowed Leenie to cover up for him, but—he was at her mercy, drugged and addled. If Thiru were to read such a book—

“You know what? Thiru should be our first choice. But we’ll have to prod him to have more commercial instincts, to see the book ’s potential. Toward that end, I do have one suggestion. I think we need more of Gerry’s inner life, but it should be dreamlike, almost off-kilter. I could even give you some prompts about his past.”

She nods judiciously. “That could work.”

As she heads downstairs to write—goodness, she has lost weight, she must not be eating at all—he calls after her, his voice casual. “Leenie, when you went through Margot’s purse, were there letters for me?”

She stops at the top of the stairs. How he wishes he could push her. That would solve all his problems. Give the staircase another human sacrifice and maybe he’ll be allowed to go free.

“Letters? No. Why do you ask?”

Not: No, there were no letters. But an echo, a denial, and then: Why do you ask?

“I still think about her claim that she had something on me. I thought maybe she wrote me, then decided to visit instead. It’s such a mystery, what she thinks I might have done. Because I’ve been lying here, reviewing my life, and, until Margot died, I can’t imagine anything I’ve done that would rise to the level of being a credible threat against me.”

Leenie smiles. “I hope I can say the same when I’m your age.”

It doesn’t seem to occur to her that she can’t say the same now. She has murdered two women, one of them her friend for almost a decade. Yet she’s the one who sleeps soundly, depleted by her work, while Gerry crushes his pills and stares at the ceiling, trying to figure out how this all ends.





1970




GERRY WAITED for his mother in the kitchen. I am the man of the family, he said to himself. He knew it was an odd thing for a twelve-year-old to think, but it was true as of today. I am the man of the family.

His mother arrived with the groceries. She looked so pretty and happy. He didn’t want to upset her, but she had to know.

“Where’s your father?” she asked.

“Gone.”

“Gone? He wasn’t supposed to leave again until Tuesday.”

“Gone forever, Mom. I sent him away.”

“You—What—Gerry, please make sense.” She turned her back to him and began unpacking the groceries, but her hands were shaking and she put the milk in the pantry, on the shelf with the canned soups.

“He has another family, Mom. An entire family—a wife, two daughters. I heard him talking to them on the phone.”

“He called during the day? With the rates at their highest? That doesn’t sound like your father.”

“She called. Person-to-person, collect. There was some sort of emergency. I think one of the”—he needed a moment not to find the right word, but to find the courage to say it—“daughters broke her arm? I didn’t hear all of the conversation, but I heard a lot. I heard enough.”