The House Across the Lake(34)

“Call her,” Marnie says. “Please. She’s been bothering me instead, saying that you’re ignoring her.”

“Which I am. If you go check to see if Katherine is there, I’ll call my mother and get her off your back.”

Marnie pretends to think it over, even though I already know it’s a done deal.

“Fine,” she says. “But before I go, one last question. Have you checked social media?”

“I’m not on social media.”

“And thank God for that,” Marnie says. “But I assume Katherine is. Find some of her accounts. Twitter. Instagram. The one her husband literally invented and owns. Surely she’s on that. Maybe it’ll give you an idea of where she is and what she’s up to.”

It’s such a good idea I’m pissed I didn’t think of it on my own. After all, following someone on social media is just a more acceptable form of spying.

“I’ll do that. While you go check to see if Katherine’s home. Right now.”

After a few muttered curse words and a promise that she’s leaving this second, Marnie ends the call. While waiting to hear back, I do what she says and check Katherine’s social media.

First up is Instagram, where Katherine has more than four million followers.

Of course she does.

The pictures she’s posted are an eye-pleasing mix of sun-flooded interiors, throwbacks to her modeling days, and candid selfies of her slathered in face cream or eating candy bars. Interspersed are gentle, earnest urgings to support the charities she works with.

Even though it’s all carefully curated, Katherine still comes off as a sharp-witted woman who wants to be known as more than just a pretty face. An accurate representation of the Katherine I’ve come to know. There’s even a recent photo taken at Lake Greene, showing her reclining on the edge of their dock in that teal bathing suit, the water behind her and, beyond that, the very porch I’m now sitting on.

I look at the date and see it was posted two days ago.

Right before she almost drowned in the lake.

Her most recent photo is a view of a pristine, all-white kitchen with a stainless steel teakettle on the stove, a Piet Mondrian calendar on the wall, and lilies in a vase by the window. Outside, Central Park spreads out below in all its pastoral splendor. The caption is short and sweet: There’s no place like home.

I check when it was posted.

An hour ago.

So Tom wasn’t lying after all. Katherine did indeed return to their apartment, a fact that seems to have surprised her famous friends who’ve left comments.

Ur back in the city?! YAY!! one of them wrote.

Another replied, That was quick!

Tom himself even weighed in: Keep the home fires burning, babe!

I exhale, breathing out all the tension I didn’t know I was holding in.

Katherine is fine.

Good.

Yet my relief is tempered by a slight stab of rejection. Maybe that was another of Tom’s truths—that Katherine gets bored quickly. Now that I know with certainty that she’s been on her phone, it’s clear Katherine didn’t miss my calls or texts. She’s avoiding me, just like I’m avoiding my mother. I realize I’m the kind of person Katherine gently chided in her voicemail message. The ones who are being ignored.

After last night, I can’t really blame her. She knows I’ve been watching her house. Marnie was right when she said that’s not healthy behavior. In fact, it’s downright unnerving. Who spends so much time spying on their neighbors? Losers, that’s who. Lonely losers who drink too much and have nothing better to do.

Okay, maybe Marnie’s correct and I am a little obsessed with Katherine. Yes, some of that obsession is valid. Since I saved Katherine’s life, it’s only natural to be concerned with her well-being. But the truth is harsher than that. I became fixated on Katherine to avoid facing my own problems, of which there are many.

Annoyed—at Katherine, at Marnie, at myself—I grab the binoculars, carry them inside, and drop them into the trash. Something I should have done days ago.

I return to the porch and my go-to security blanket of bourbon, which I sip until Marnie calls back a half hour later, the familiar sounds of Manhattan traffic honking in the background.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” I tell her. “Katherine’s there. You were right and I was stupid.”

“That’s not what their doorman just told me,” Marnie says.

“You talked to him?”

“I told him I was an old friend of Katherine’s who just happened to be in the neighborhood and wondered if she wanted to grab lunch. I don’t think he believed me, but it doesn’t matter because he still told me that the Royces are currently at their vacation home in Vermont.”

“And those were his exact words?” I say. “The Royces. Not just Mr. Royce.”

“Plural. I even did the whole oh-I-thought-I-saw-Katherine-across-the-street-yesterday routine. He told me I was mistaken and that Mrs. Royce hasn’t been at the apartment for several days.”

A fierce chill grips me. It feels like I’ve just been thrown into the lake and am now lost in the water’s frigid darkness.

I was right.

Tom was lying.

“Now I’m really worried,” I say. “Why would Tom lie to me like that?”