Good as Dead(59)

“You have a video and you didn’t turn it in?” His blue eyes turned to fire. I suddenly realized I’d made a huge mistake. I shouldn’t have told him that part. Now he knew I was a criminal. In a few short moves he’d crack me like that Rubik’s Cube, figure out my whole life was a lie.

“It might not show anything,” I backtracked. “I never even watched it.”

I could see his mind spinning. I could tell he was distressed. What kind of a person withholds evidence from the police? I had to find a way to bring him back to my side. It was possible the video was just a blur, that this was all a big nothing.

“I was afraid,” I started. My voice was shaking, but I didn’t care. “Afraid to see . . . y’know.” His expression was blank. I was losing him. When he finally spoke, his words surprised me.

“You need to delete it.”

I had thought about that, how I couldn’t get in trouble for suppressing evidence if I didn’t have any. But that video was the only leverage I had. What if whoever Evan worked for decided he didn’t want to pay anymore? We would lose everything. We had already lost so much. We may not have handled this perfectly, but we didn’t deserve to be tossed out on the street.

“I can’t,” I said. “It’s complicated,” I added, even though I knew it would only swell his curiosity.

He thought for a beat, then made a suggestion that made my blood run cold.

“Then let’s watch it,” he said.

I looked into those eyes that made me feel safe and loved, that had seen me naked and never once looked away. “You mean . . . right now?”

He nodded. “Yes. Let’s watch it together. Then you don’t have to be afraid.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the app with shaking hands.

I had no idea what was on that video, but with Logan by my side, I decided to find out.

I clicked on the footage and pressed play.





LIBBY


Three months ago

“Pick three things,” Andy said as he snuggled with the girls in Tatum’s bed.

“A bunny!” Tatum shouted.

“A broomstick!” Margaux offered.

“One more,” Andy said. He was playing the story game, where the girls pick three random objects and he weaves them into a fairy tale—sometimes an absurd one, depending on what they picked.

“A fire truck!” Tatum said, and I knew this was going to be a fun one.

“You can come in if you want,” my husband said to me as he caught me watching from the doorway.

“Well I do love the story game,” I said, then joined them on the bed. It had been a long time since Andy had done story time with the girls, he was so busy writing these days. But he must have sensed they needed it, and maybe he needed it, too.

“Mommy needs to pick something!” Tatum demanded.

“But we already have three,” Margaux said. She was always a stickler for rules, just like her mom.

“We can do four tonight,” Andy offered, looking at me.

I thought for a second. “A banana,” I finally said, and Tatum giggled.

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess,” Andy began. “Princess Elizabeth,” he said, then smiled at me. Elizabeth was my given name, of course, but nobody had ever called me that, not even the minister at my baptism.

Andy launched into the story, about the benevolent Princess Elizabeth who oh-so-desperately wanted a banana, and I was surprised at how eager I was to find out if she would get one. My husband was a master storyteller. If creativity were a currency, we’d be rich. If only it were that simple.

Both my sisters married well. Cricket was the oldest. She married Gary, who worked on Wall Street and made a fortune reselling mortgages. They lived in a penthouse in Lower Manhattan and had a beachfront home on Martha’s Vineyard.

Gabrielle, who we called Gator, was the youngest. Her husband, Richie, did credit card payment processing for huge retail and restaurant chains. They lived in Greenwich and had a boat.

My mother had no shame about encouraging her daughters to marry for “lifestyle.” It’s not that she didn’t believe in love, she told us. It’s just “foolish” to fall in love with a man who can’t take care of you. Because, as she put it, If you don’t love your lifestyle, inevitably you will fall out of love with your man. She told us this because she genuinely believed it. And based on the choices they had made, it appeared my sisters believed it, too.

But I was the middle child, so I had to do things my way. I had a romantic vision of finding a man with potential and shepherding him toward greatness. I wanted a man who wasn’t fully cooked, so that when he bloomed into a magnificent soufflé, I could take credit for helping him rise. I confess my ego was wrapped up in this fantasy. But I also wasn’t attracted to the kind of man whose idea of creating was using money to make more money. I needed someone with more interesting abilities than that.

My mother warned me that marrying Andy might not turn out like I had hoped. It’s not that she didn’t like him, she just wasn’t a fan of unnecessary risks. She reminded me there were plenty of “established” men to love, and even schemed to introduce me to some.

But in the end, I followed my ego and my heart. Mine was the only wedding of the three where my mom cried. And I was the only granddaughter who got a diamond—and we all knew it wasn’t because I was grandma’s favorite.