Wish You Were Gone(43)
Instead, she opened the local newspaper she’d grabbed and told her heart to quit its teenaged antics. We’re not in high school anymore, she admonished herself silently, and scanned the real estate section, trying to concentrate on the condo prices. Lizzie hadn’t officially listed the house yet, still hoping for that miracle reprieve. And when she saw what the places by the reservoir were listing for, it made the lait from her café curdle in her belly. It wasn’t like they were a steal. Even if she got top price for the house, she wouldn’t be banking much more than she’d need for Willow’s first year at college. Was she really going to have to downgrade to an apartment rental?
She whipped the newspaper closed, deflated, and tore off a larger piece of the croissant. That was when she saw Gray’s Mercedes pull into the parking lot across the way. This time, however, Gray eased into a space and killed the engine. The other morning she’d simply idled in the center of the lot until Darnell was on the train. Lizzie picked up the paper again and slouched slightly behind it, eyeing the couple over the top of the page. They both got out. They didn’t speak. Darnell simply ducked his head to look at his phone and walked away.
This was new. What had happened to Gray and Darnell, the perfect lovey-dovey pair? And why was he no longer driving to work? It was possible his car was on the fritz, but didn’t people with that kind of money have backup vehicles? Or get loaners from the dealership? Or rent something?
Lizzie was so involved with her theorizing, she almost missed the fact that Gray was now walking toward her. Lizzie snapped the paper all the way open and held it up to hide, just waiting for Gray to accuse her of stalking. But Gray breezed right by the outdoor tables and into the café, eyes on her phone. Lizzie couldn’t help watching her through the window. She bypassed the line and walked right over to Ben, who startled at the sight of her. He came out from behind the counter and the two of them disappeared down the hall to the bathrooms at the back.
That was odd. She began to rise out of her chair when suddenly Gray reappeared—no Ben—and strode through the shop and out again. This time, it was too late for Lizzie to hide without calling even more attention to herself, so she grabbed the door pretending to be coming through. Gray just about tripped over Lizzie’s foot.
“Watch it!” Gray said, before looking up and recognizing Lizzie.
“You’re the one with your eyes glued to your phone,” Lizzie replied. She glanced down to see what had Gray so riveted and spotted a tiny pulsating circle on a map. It was moving steadily south along what appeared to be train tracks.
A tracking app? Was Gray tracking her husband?
Lizzie averted her eyes, pretending she hadn’t seen. “It’s a beautiful day, Gray. Maybe you’d be less tense if you tried to enjoy it.”
Gray’s nostrils flared, but she walked away without getting in the last word. Score one for Lizzie. She went back to her table and pulled the doily out from underneath her croissant.
Go on a date with me?
Lizzie grinned and looked into the shop just as Ben was coming out from the hallway. She expected him to look up at her and make eye contact—to see if she’d read the note—and was ready to mouth a happy yes, but that wasn’t to be. As if he’d entirely forgotten she was there, he trudged back to the counter, head down, pushing an envelope into his back pocket.
EMMA
Nine. Nine half-empty bottles of alcohol. Emma had lined them up on the kitchen counter, where they glinted prettily in the sun streaming through the unbroken side of the window. She had searched only half the house. If she kept this up, she was going to be able to play her very own game of “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” except with bourbon and scotch and vodka, and one oddly shaped bottle of vermouth.
It had been going on all day, this Easter egg hunt of hers. This morning, when she got out of bed, she’d been infused with an odd sort of manic energy, and instead of going back to the computer, she had waited until her children left the house, the sound of the Jeep engine faded to nothing, to launch her search. She hadn’t been sure, at first, what she was looking for, but she’d found the first bottle in the back of a drawer full of carefully bagged and preserved hockey pucks in the basement. From there, it had only gotten more interesting. The bottles had been stashed in such highly creative places, she almost wished James were here so she could congratulate him. There was one inside the old DVD cabinet she’d been meaning to clean out forever but he always teased her she never would. Another was found in the ignored spare powder room, inside the heating grate, where nothing but a tepid whistle of warm air ever came through. But it was when she found a baggie of cocaine, shoved up inside the pool-table ball return, that she’d almost lost it.
Drugs? James had been doing drugs? Since when? How? Did he have a dealer? Emma wasn’t na?ve. She knew that those in positions of power, like her husband, had access to all kinds of shady people and illicit substances, but she had thought that alcohol was James’s preferred demon. Now, she had no clue what to think anymore.
Hunter played pool with his friends in the game room all the time. How would James have felt if his children had found his drugs? If they’d used them? She could just as easily imagine him patting Hunter on the back as he snorted his first line of cocaine as she could imagine him getting enraged at the very idea of Hunter touching drugs. And the realization had left her sitting on the floor of the game room for half an hour, her back against the wall, clutching the baggie and knocking her head against the plaster lightly, over and over again. If Gray or the kids had walked in on her at that moment, they would have called an ambulance.