The House Across the Lake(33)

That turns out to be easier planned than done. Because as I push the boat away from the dock, I catch a glimpse of Tom watching me leave. He stands in a slash of sunlight that makes the mark on his face stand out even more. He touches it again, his fingers moving in a circle over the angry red reminder that Katherine had once been here but is now gone.

Seeing it prompts a memory of something Katherine said about him yesterday.

Tom needs me too much to agree to a divorce. He’d kill me before letting me leave.





I text Katherine again as soon as I get back to the lake house.

Heard you’re back in the Big Apple. Had I known you were plotting an escape, I would have hitched a ride.

I then plant myself on the porch and stare at my phone, as if doing it long enough will conjure up a response. So far, it’s not working. The only call I receive is my mother’s daily check-in, which I let go straight to voicemail before heading inside to pour a glass of bourbon.

My second of the day.

Maybe third.

I take a hearty sip, return to the porch, and check the previous texts I sent Katherine. None of them have been read.

Worrisome.

If Katherine called Tom after arriving home in New York, then she certainly would have seen that I had called and texted.

Unless Tom was indeed lying about that.

Yes, he told the truth about their fight, but only after I prodded. And on another matter—the scream I’m still fifty percent sure I heard—he remained frustratingly vague. Tom only said he was asleep past dawn. He never actually denied hearing a scream.

Then there are those two sentences—easy to dismiss at the time, increasingly ominous in hindsight—Katherine spoke while sitting in the very same rocking chair I occupy now. They refuse to leave my head, repeating in the back of my skull like lines I’ve spent too much time rehearsing.

Tom needs me too much to agree to a divorce. He’d kill me before letting me leave.

Ordinarily, I’d assume it was a joke. That’s my go-to defense mechanism, after all. Using humor as a shield, pretending my pain doesn’t hurt at all. Which is why I suspect there was a ring of truth to what she said. Especially after what she told me yesterday about all of Tom’s money being tied up in Mixer and how she pays for everything.

Then there’s the fight itself, which could have been over money but I suspect was about more than that. Seared into my memory is the way Tom pleaded with Katherine, repeating that word I couldn’t quite read on his lips. How? Who? All of it climaxing with him wrenching her away from the window and her striking back.

Just before that, though, was the surreal moment when Katherine and I locked eyes. I know from the phone call afterwards that she somehow knew I was watching. Now I wonder if, in that brief instant when her gaze met mine, Katherine was trying to tell me something.

Maybe she was begging for help.

Despite my vow to drop the binoculars in the trash, here they are, sitting right next to my glass of bourbon. I pick them up and look across the lake to the Royce house. Although Tom’s no longer outside, the presence of the Bentley lets me know he’s still there.

Everything he told me mostly adds up, signaling I should believe him. Those few loose threads prevent me from doing so. I won’t be able to fully trust Tom until Katherine gets back to me—or I get proof from another source.

It occurs to me that Tom mentioned exactly where they live in the city. A fancy building not too far from mine, although theirs borders Central Park. I know it well. Upper West Side. A few blocks north of where the Bartholomew once stood.

Since I can’t go there myself, I enlist the next best person for the job.

“You want me to do what?” Marnie says when I call to make my request.

“Go to their building and ask to see Katherine Royce.”

“Katherine? I thought she was at Lake Greene.”

“Not anymore.”

I give her a recap of the past few days. Katherine unhappy. Tom acting strange. Me watching it all through the binoculars. The fight and the scream and Katherine’s sudden departure.

To Marnie’s credit, she waits until I’m finished before asking, “Why have you been spying on them?”

I don’t have a suitable answer. I was curious, bored, nosy, all of the above.

“I think it’s because you’re sad and lonely,” Marnie offers. “Which is understandable, considering everything you’ve been through. And you want a break from feeling all of that.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No. But this isn’t the way to take your mind off things. Now you’ve become obsessed with the supermodel living on the other side of the lake.”

“I’m not obsessed.”

“Then what are you?”

“Worried,” I say. “Naturally worried about someone whose life I just saved. You know that saying. Save a person’s life and you’re responsible for them forever.”

“One, I’ve never heard that saying. Two, that is, like, the definition of being obsessed.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “That’s not what’s important right now.”

“I beg to differ. This isn’t healthy behavior, Casey. It’s not moral behavior.”

I let out an annoyed huff so loud it sounds like rustling wind hitting my phone. “If I wanted a lecture, I would have called my mother.”