Mother of All Secrets(66)

I started cutting slices. Vanessa looked up from the floor where she was feeding Phoebe and laughed. “Um, if you’d ever had this cake before, you’d know we need much bigger pieces than that! You’re fired. Kira, take over please?” I laughed and put my hands up, surrender-style, and handed Kira the knife, relinquishing my duties.

As fun and shockingly normal as our meeting was that day, the goodbye felt heavy. The hugs were loaded; we knew they were the last we’d give as the women we were at this moment. Next time we dispersed from one another, only a few hours from now in the same place, we would all be changed forever—and our bond would truly be irrevocable, for better or for much, much worse.





Chapter Thirty-One



Monday, October 12

That night as I put Clara to sleep, the fears I’d been pushing out of my mind crept in. As much as I’d been trying to play it cool and stay the course, I could no longer deny that I was terrified. After tonight, I would be a murderer, or at least an accomplice to murder. To first-degree, premeditated murder. I was too scared to google the specific types of murder and their usual prison sentences, for fear of having an incriminating Google search history, but I was pretty sure the type of murder we were committing was the worst one. If we got caught, we’d go to jail forever, or at least what would surely feel like it.

And if we didn’t get caught, would I be different after tonight? Because even though we were murdering someone who deserved it, it was still murder. Would I be traumatized, hardened, unable to be myself ever again?

There was an even worse potential outcome, too: that Connor would overpower us, hurt us, kill us.

I let Clara fall asleep nursing. Stay as long as you want, sweet angel, I thought. I had hours until I was expected at Isabel’s. Clara was zipped up in her fleece sleep sack, so cozy, her cheeks so full and soft against my breast. I couldn’t stop stroking her soft, fuzzy peach head. “I love you so much,” I whispered again and again into her hair. “So much.”

She’d been sleeping in my arms for nearly an hour when I finally put her in her bassinet and walked into the kitchen. Normally I’d pour myself a glass of wine at this moment, but I couldn’t tonight. I needed to be totally clearheaded.

Like most nights, Tim and I watched TV after we ate the salmon burgers that he’d made while I was putting Clara down. We were watching one of the greatest episodes of The Office ever, when Michael and Jan host a torturous six-hour dinner party, but I couldn’t focus on it at all. All I could think about was what I’d be doing merely hours from now. Was I making a huge mistake? How had I let myself be talked into killing some guy I barely knew, to help a woman who I also barely knew? What the hell was I thinking? I had a great life. And I was jeopardizing it all to help Isabel.

It wasn’t just for Isabel, though. It was also for Allison, Vanessa’s sister. It was for me, so that I could say goodbye to that awful night once and for all. It was for every woman who’d become entangled in a situation she couldn’t safely or feasibly get out of. It was for Naomi, so that she wouldn’t have to grow up with a dad who was in all likelihood incapable of love and kindness.

And I was pretty sure that these women would do something this big for me, if I needed it. Having that in my life felt good.

The plan, which we’d pored over painstakingly in Montauk, seemed straightforward enough. At first, Connor would think it was just a confrontation. An act of rebellion on Isabel’s part that he’d later punish her for.

He’d pour himself a drink—something Isabel assured us he nearly always did when he came home, no matter how drunk he might already be, and would be certain to do tonight, given the crowd he’d be coming home to.

Apparently he used the same glass every night—a thick crystal tumbler, heavy as a cannonball and elaborately engraved with CH.

I’ve always hated monograms.

Unbeknownst to him, on this night, his special glass would be lightly doused with GHB, to slow him down and disorient him so that he wouldn’t be inclined (or at least able) to lash out or fight back.

Then, at the right moment, when he was distracted or weak, Vanessa would inject him with a lethal amount of a drug called Trilaptin that would freeze his muscles, including his heart, and make it appear that he’d had a heart attack. Vanessa had access to all the medical supplies we needed through her job. After the fact, Isabel would tell medical examiners he’d been complaining of arm pain and shortness of breath, to corroborate the likelihood of a heart attack. Oh, he had such a high-stress job. The poor guy was always working. Heart problems ran in his family. Not to mention he’d just endured the stress of his wife’s disappearance. A heart attack, even at his young age, seemed believable enough.

Officially, he would be alone in the house at the time of his death: just that afternoon, Isabel and Naomi and the dog would have gone to stay at her mom’s in Tarrytown for a couple of nights, as her mom was helping her recuperate from her recent ordeal. Connor worked long hours, after all, and Isabel was still fragile. She needed her mom’s help. So Connor likely wouldn’t be discovered until the next morning, or even afternoon, after failing to show up to work.

And any evidence of our footprint there, the moms’ group, would be easily explained by our meeting earlier that day, before Isabel left for Tarrytown. If it came up at all.

Of course, the Nest cameras would be offline, unfortunately. The town house frequently had Wi-Fi issues; it was surprising, considering how wealthy they were, that they hadn’t addressed this problem earlier. Freaking cable company.