Good as Dead(55)

CHAPTER 30


“We need to talk,” Evan announced when I answered the phone. It was late—after ten o’clock—but he said it couldn’t wait until morning. “I’m coming over.”

He sounded upset. It wasn’t like him to show his emotions, at least not to me. I knew him to be professional, disciplined, reserved. I tried not to panic, but the possibilities scared the shit out of me. Had someone found a piece of evidence linking us to the scene? Did Holly break? Or maybe it was Savannah, was she having buyer’s remorse?

I kissed my wife, muttered something about having to catch up on some work, and headed to my study to wait. We never talked about the incident over the phone. Only in person. It was our hard-and-fast rule. But I tried to reassure myself—just because he wouldn’t tell me over the phone didn’t mean it was catastrophic.

I thought about how the accident had changed my life. My son was supposed to be a freshman in college, but I wouldn’t let him go, not until I knew we were in the clear. I told him he needed to stay close to home, get a job, let things settle. He wasn’t happy about it, but he obeyed.

It was not a big deal to defer his admittance. I made the call to the dean of admissions myself. We had “a family situation,” I’d explained. And it was done.

Kate was surprised when our son told her he wanted to defer starting college, but not disappointed. She loved having him at home. He sometimes even joined us for dinner. She cooked all his favorite meals—shrimp scampi, spaghetti carbonara, jambalaya—even though it was murdering my waistline.

My phone chirped with Evan’s text announcing his arrival, and I went to the front door to let him in. Kate was in the kitchen making her nightly cup of tea. I didn’t think she could hear us over the sound of the kettle humming, but I played it safe. “Thanks for coming,” I said, shaking his hand. “Shall we go to my study?”

He knew this formality was just for show, and he played along. “Lead the way.”

We walked to my office in silence. This is what a man having an affair must feel like, I thought, sneaking around at night in the dark. I had made the decision to hide this from Kate the day it happened, and it was too late to go back now. She had no idea I had reassigned our son’s trust fund. It was Evan’s idea—a way to hide the payout from both the IRS and my wife. And while losing this money surely hurt him, it was far less painful than what would have happened to him if he had turned himself in.

I opened the study door for Evan and indicated for him to sit, but he declined, so we both just stood there. He had called this meeting, so I waited for him to speak. When he finally did, his voice was raw, stripped down to pure emotion.

“I have some difficult news,” he began. He looked exhausted. Whatever he was about to tell me had really rattled him. I braced myself for the worst. He looked up at me with hollow eyes.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Holly tried to kill herself today.”

Shame bubbled up from the pit of my stomach. I grabbed the desk as my legs went numb. We had talked about her “breaking,” but never in a million years thought we would push her to this.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I thought about Savannah, how happy we’d been that we’d gotten to her first. We never thought about what it might do to her mother. “Is she going to be all right?”

He nodded and said, “Yes, thank God,” then sank down onto the couch. “I got her to the hospital in time to pump her stomach.” I let the image wash over me. I deserved to feel the grotesque shock of it. Neither of us spoke for a long, solemn minute.

“Maybe I should talk to her?” I finally suggested. I hated hiding in the shadows like this. Perhaps the best thing to do at this point was to tell her the truth.

But Evan wouldn’t have it. “Absolutely not,” he said firmly. He was right, of course. My fame and popularity had smoothed many a ruffled feather in the past, but this was bigger than even me.

“There’s something else,” Evan said, and now I sat down, too, hoping he had led with the worst of it. “Your son came to her hospital room.”

And that confused me. “He did what?” I asked dumbly, unable to make sense of it. “Why would he do that? How did he even know?”

And Evan’s reply was so absurd I almost laughed.

“He’s dating Holly’s daughter.”

I repeated his words in my head to make sure I’d heard him right, then shook my head. “Logan knows better than to go anywhere near either of them,” I insisted. “He’s smarter than that!”

But Evan was insistent. “They’re dating. He introduced himself as her boyfriend. They were holding hands.”

I felt anger rise up the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure if it was meant for Evan for saying something so implausible, or for my son, because I thought there was a chance it could be true.

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” I suggested, and Evan laughed out loud.

“No way.”

My anger turned to panic. Because Logan was smart—deviously smart. Which meant he knew exactly what he was doing. Even though I didn’t have a clue.

“There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation,” I offered, even though I couldn’t think of one. Logan was a good kid, a varsity athlete and straight A student. I knew it was hard for him sometimes, being the son of a celebrity—never knowing who your friends are and having to share your dad with the world. But he handled the pressure of being under the public eye well—or at least he seemed to. Maybe I had missed more than I knew during all those months away shooting movies. Had I overlooked something? Was there a side of him I’d never seen?