The Cloisters(85)

Leo paused and walked to the fridge and pulled out a beer, cracking it open.

“Since I may not get many more of these,” he said, making a cheers gesture in my direction. “I’m impressed by how well insulated she has ended up from all this, actually.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It was a stupid question, I knew. In the end, what would knowing have meant for me? What would I have done with the information?

“You were only supposed to be temporary.” The way he said it wasn’t unkind or dismissive, but tender, like I was a foreign exchange student or au pair they had taken in and loved but who would inevitably, necessarily leave. “But Rachel took to you. I took to you. And then the cards, the tarot cards ruined it all.”

I had never mentioned the tarot cards to him, despite the fact it had been on the tip of my tongue many times. It was a secret I had kept for Rachel; one she clearly hadn’t kept for me.

“You know.”

“Rachel told me about them. You know, she and Patrick had met at Yale. He was giving a lecture; she was in attendance. They were introduced, and he offered her a part-time job at the museum her senior year. I don’t know how quickly they started sleeping together. Frankly, I didn’t care. I’ve never been one to be bothered by things like that. We’re all animals, after all, just trying to pass the time. But Patrick. Patrick was into Rachel. When he found out about us, he punched me in the face. It took two weeks for the bruising to disappear, and I had to tell everyone at work that the guitarist accidentally hit me during a set. I think Patrick thought he and Rachel were it. That she was going to get her PhD and come back to the city and move in with him in Tarrytown. But then he bought the cards. He was a big collector, you know, always buying things and just storing them around his house. She said she kept asking him to give them to her, as a gift. Then she offered to buy them from him, but he wouldn’t budge. She was mad, you know? No one likes to hear the word no less than Rachel Mondray.”

“She—”

Leo nodded.

“I’m a thief,” he said, “and a moral relativist. Do I feel badly about stealing from The Cloisters? No. They are inanimate objects; I don’t feel bad. But did I kill Patrick? Absolutely not. My moral relativism doesn’t extend that far. Rachel’s, I suspect, however, does.”

“And you told this to the detective?”

“No,” he said, sipping the beer. “Why would I? Who are they more likely to believe—me, a criminal, or Rachel Mondray? She set me up good, of course. Knew I couldn’t turn her in because there were still a few things we’d stolen floating around, but even if I had, it wouldn’t have made a difference.” He shook his head. “I didn’t expect her to frame me for Patrick’s murder. But after the police realized it was a poisoning, I guess she had no choice.”

“Didn’t she worry it could all go wrong?”

“Rachel is meticulous. She’s a planner. But when something goes wrong, she’s always been able to come out on top. Why would this be any different?”

“We have to hold her responsible,” I said, looking at Leo, a kind of desperation, an urgency to my voice, even though I knew in my bones, and the cards had told me, Leo was right.

He shrugged. “They don’t have enough to convict me,” he said. “At least, that’s what my lawyer says. Too circumstantial. I’ll do a few months in low security for the thefts before I make parole. I’ll work to pay off my fine. I’m actually looking forward to it, you know. A few months to work on my writing without interruption? It’s all the same to me if I do it here or upstate under a security guard. There’s nothing to get Rachel on. She’ll deny everything. I’ve seen her do it before. The day Patrick found out we’d been sleeping together, he confronted her about it. I think Moira told him. She was always hoping Patrick would get over his fixation with twenty-year-olds and date someone age-appropriate. But he confronted Rachel in the garden. I heard them arguing. She categorically denied it, even though earlier that day we had had sex in the shed. I think some of my semen was still inside her.” He laughed tightly. “She’s an excellent fence, that one. An incredible poker face.”

When he saw the look on my face, he walked over to the table and sat down across from me.

“Oh, Ann.” He touched my cheek. “I don’t want you to think I did that with all the girls. Like I said, we both thought you were special from the beginning.”

I stood up from the table, leaving him sitting, slightly bent forward, his hand still where he had reached out to caress my face. Part of me wanted to scream and fight. To burn it down. But the other part of me couldn’t help but be excited that I had been in the middle of it all along, a buffer between them, someone they both enjoyed.

“You won’t be able to catch her, you know,” he called after me as I reached for the door. “You’ll have to meet her on her own level. That’s the only thing Rachel respects.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


Leo’s words stayed with me, rattled around like ice in a glass, loosely, until they dissolved into something like a plan. Which was how I found myself agreeing to go to Long Lake, when Rachel said on our way into work, at the end of her last week:

“We should take one last trip before I have to leave.”