The Perfect Couple(47)

She stares at him for a beat, then she rises.

Nick follows Greer down the hall. They step through an arched doorway into an anteroom—there’s a niche built into the wall that holds an enormous bouquet of hydrangeas and lilies—and Greer opens a door. There’s a sitting room with a sofa, a love seat, antique tables, and a desk that faces out a window. The view out the window is of the side yard—of a fence and the top of the pool house. Through a connecting door, Nick sees the master bedroom. There’s a king bed made up with white sheets and a comforter and an assortment of pillows, all of them neatly arranged. A cashmere blanket embroidered with the word Summerland is draped on the diagonal across the corner of the bed. Nick blinks. Greer found the time to make her bed so artfully after she found out Merritt was dead—or before? But at that moment, a woman pops out of the master bath holding a bucket and a roll of paper towels. The housekeeper.

“You’ll excuse us, please, Elida?” Greer says.

Elida nods and scurries away.

“Does Elida live here?” Nick asks.

“She does not,” Greer says. “She works seven to five. Today she came a bit earlier because of the wedding.”

Nick follows Greer over to a simple mahogany desk, gleaming as though just polished. On the desk are a laptop, a legal pad, three pens, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. There’s a Windsor chair at the desk and Nick takes a seat and turns his attention to the computer. “So this here, A Slayer in Santorini, is the piece you were working on last night?”

“Yes,” Greer says.

“It says you closed it at twelve twenty-two a.m. But you told me eleven fifteen.”

“I stopped writing at eleven fifteen. I closed the document at twelve twenty-two, apparently.”

“But you said you went right to bed. You said you went to bed around eleven thirty.”

“I did go to bed,” Greer says. “But I had difficulty falling asleep, so I had a drink.”

“Of water?”

“No, a drink drink. I had a glass of champagne.”

“So sometime between eleven fifteen and twelve twenty-two a.m. you went to the kitchen for a glass of champagne?”

“Yes.”

“And did you notice any activity then?”

Greer pauses. “I did not.”

“You didn’t see anyone?” Nick says.

“Well, on my way back to my room I saw my daughter-in-law, Abby. She was going to the kitchen for water.”

“She was?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t she get water from the bathroom?”

“She wanted ice, is my guess. She’s pregnant. And it was a warm night.”

“Did you and Abby have a conversation?”

“A brief one.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said she was waiting for Thomas to get home. He had gone out with Benji and the others.”

Ah, yes. Nick recalls that Abby was annoyed that Thomas had decided to go out. “Anything else?”

“Not really, no.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No.”

“And after you got your champagne, you returned to your bedroom to sleep?” Nick asks.

“That’s right.”

Nick pauses to scribble down notes. She lied to him ten minutes ago; there’s no reason to believe another word she says.

“Let me switch gears here. We found a two-person kayak overturned on your beach. Do you own such a kayak?”

“It belongs to my husband,” Greer says. She cocks her head. “It was left overturned on the beach, you say?”

“Yes. Does that seem odd to you?”

She nods slowly. “A bit.”

“And why is that?”

“Tag is fanatical about his kayaks,” Greer says. “He doesn’t leave them just lying about.”

“Is it possible that someone else used the kayak?”

“No, he keeps them locked up. If the two-person kayak was left out then he must have taken someone out on the water. If he were going out alone, he would have taken his one-person kayak.”

“Any idea who he might have taken out?”

Greer shakes her head. She looks far less confident than she did a moment ago, and Nick feels her losing her grip on the explanation she had so neatly written in her mind.

“I suppose you’ll have to ask my husband that,” she says.





Wednesday, May 30–Tuesday, June 19, 2018





TAG


He takes Merritt’s number but makes no plans to see her again. It’s a one-and-done, a weekend fling, which is how he likes to keep things with other women. There have been half a dozen or so over the course of his marriage, one-or two-night stands, women he never sees or thinks of again. His behavior has nothing to do with how he feels about Greer. Or maybe it does. Maybe it’s an assertion of power, of defiance. Greer entered the marriage with more money and higher social standing. Tag has always felt a touch inferior. The prowling around is how he balances the scales.

When he gets back to New York, two things happen. One is that Sergio Ramone calls. Tag considers letting the call go to voice mail. He fears that Sergio has learned that he took Merritt to the wine dinner and he’s calling to express his disapproval. But then Tag reminds himself that taking Merritt to the dinner was done with Greer’s blessing.