Every Vow You Break(76)
Dear Abigail, I didn’t know if I should send you these pictures, but then I figured that that was your decision, and not mine. I was very sorry to hear about what happened after the wedding. I hope you are doing as well as can be. For what it’s worth, it was great getting to know you and your family and friends a little bit over that weekend in October. The attached link will allow you to look at all of the photographs (almost 500!), if you choose. If you do end up wanting higher res versions of any of these, please let me know. But other than that, no need to respond. All the best and take care, Natalie Ramirez She remembered the photographer, a woman so tiny that eventually you almost didn’t see her, wending her way around the various wedding events with a camera that looked enormous in her hands.
Abigail wondered what Natalie had thought when she first heard about the events on Heart Pond Island. The initial news reports had been somewhat vague. “Police Investigating Multiple Suspicious Deaths on Honeymoon Island.” Then, later, “Inside the Alleged ‘Cult’ That Punished Wives for Infidelities.” At that point it was a federal case, and the story had broken nationally, leading to a deluge of reporters descending on Boxgrove, where Abigail was now living. She hadn’t returned to New York City after what had happened on the island. She’d returned home, sleeping in her mother’s bed for a while, then in her childhood bedroom. A month earlier she’d moved half a block away to a small rental house, already furnished. Her parents thought it was silly for her to get her own place, but her own place made her feel she was moving in the right direction.
It had been more than six months of talking. To her parents, to Zoe, to a succession of therapists. And, of course, constant interrogations, some under oath, with both federal agents and a slew of attorneys. In the midst of all this she’d somehow managed to work on her novel, about the twins in New York. She knew it was less than stellar but didn’t mind. Involving herself in that fictional world, no matter how dark that world was, was preferable to thinking about what had happened in her actual life.
Two months earlier, Charles “Chip” Ramsay III had been arrested in Mexico, where he’d fled after his indictment. Eric Newman, last Abigail had heard, was cooperating with the federal investigation into what was now being called the Silvanus Cult, a small group of men with ties to other men’s rights groups, and with a history of testing their girlfriends and wives for fidelity. Some of the wealthier members, such as Bruce, were also partners in a limited liability corporation set up by Chip Ramsay called Silvanus Incorporated, named after the Roman god of the woods and of wild nature. That corporation had purchased Heart Pond Island and the defunct summer camps on it, as well as a similar island in the Puget Sound, the place where Bruce had gone for his bachelor weekend. Once the floodgates had been opened, a surprising number of current and ex-employees of both these places had stepped forward to give testimony, along with multiple women, all with stories about being elaborately punished for their transgressions. Chip Ramsay’s own wife had disappeared two years earlier, and that disappearance was now being treated as a potential homicide.
Mellie, whose full name was Melanie Nadeau, had turned herself in as a cooperating witness, claiming that she had been coerced against her will by Chip Ramsay to work on Heart Pond Island. Porter Conyers, the man from Bermuda who had once been involved with Jill Greenly, had somehow managed to entirely disappear. Jill’s husband, Alec Greenly, the producer, had committed suicide in his jail cell in February by hanging himself with a bathroom towel.
Abigail was a star witness in the wide-ranging investigation.
She was hoping it would never go to court, but she was also willing to do whatever it took to make sure the various members of Silvanus paid for what they’d done.
Eric Newman had tried to get in touch with her, sending an email to the same address he’d used way back when, before the wedding. He said that he didn’t expect her to ever forgive him, but that he’d like to explain his role in what had happened. She imagined that he wanted to talk about how Chip Ramsay was a charismatic figure, that he’d been seduced like other damaged men during one of Chip’s seminars in San Diego, a weekend event called “Men Finding Their Voice” or something like that—that was most likely where both Eric and Bruce had been recruited years earlier. She never replied to Eric Newman’s email.
She was about to open the photographer’s link when movement in her small backyard caught her eye. It was the black feral cat that sometimes lived in the attached garage. The owners, before renting to Abigail, had informed her about the cat they’d named Bonnie, wanting to ensure that Abigail would keep an eye out for her and occasionally put food and water out, especially if there was bad weather. Abigail had agreed, but she’d rarely spotted Bonnie since she’d moved in.
Abigail watched the cat move stealthily across the lawn, keeping low, stalking a lone sparrow on a fence post that marked the boundary of the property. Bonnie got about three feet from the bird before it sprang into the air and landed on a low branch of a tall maple tree. The cat stretched her spine and nonchalantly circled back, as though she hadn’t been that interested in the bird in the first place. Abigail watched the sparrow, now arcing its way toward a small shrubby tree. Did it know how close it had come to being eaten?
She finished her coffee, went back inside to get a second cup, and made toast for herself. Her father had called and left her a message wanting to know if she’d like to go see an afternoon movie, and Zoe had sent a text to see if she wanted to get lunch.