Wish You Were Gone(70)
Her phone rang for the fifth or sixth time since she left the house. Gray. Again. She finally held down the button to turn it off. For the first time, she wondered if maybe the firm had confiscated James’s cell phone, too. But if that was the case, then why would someone have answered it? Regardless, she’d have to ask Gray about that, too. If Gray had known that Darnell’s lawyers had had the phone all this time and had let Emma go on this wild mistress goose chase, Emma was never going to speak to her again.
After strolling for a few minutes, Emma found the spot. The very spot where James had skateboarded into her and knocked her swirled ice-cream cone to the ground and said the first words he’d ever said to her—“Oh, shit. Sorry.” She was pretty sure she’d fallen in love with him when he flipped his long bangs out of his eyes and smiled at her. They’d visited this spot once a year for ten years until life got in the way. Maybe if they’d kept that tradition up—made their relationship a priority in their lives—things would have ended up differently.
But she wasn’t going to think like that anymore.
Emma took the nearest set of steps down to the beach and walked until the toes of her sneakers were kissed by the very edge of a foaming wave. She reached into her pocket and took out her wedding ring. Emma had never been a big one for dramatic gestures, but somehow, she needed one for this. She needed to prove to James and the universe and herself that she was serious. It was time to put him and all the anger and fear and confusion and bullshit behind her. She was going to focus on herself. On her kids. On the future. She couldn’t pretend that James had never happened, but she could stop obsessing about him like she had when he was still here.
“James,” she said out loud. “I want to say thank you for leaving me with two amazing, beautiful, and good-hearted kids.”
She reached back and threw the ring as hard as she could into the waves. It was so dark, and the ring so small, that she didn’t see the splash.
“May you rot in hell.”
GRAY
Until James Walsh died, Gray Garrison had never called in sick to work on a day that she wasn’t deathly ill, but here she was, doing it for the second time in as many weeks. On the morning after the memorial, having slept maybe two or three hours, she left a voicemail for her assistant telling her she wouldn’t be in and would be unavailable all day. She saw Darnell off to work, then attempted to go back to sleep, but her racing thoughts prevented it. Around 8 a.m., she hauled herself up and out the front door to retrieve the New York Times. Darnell had left it on the doorstep for her, knowing she didn’t like to bring the bag it came in inside, in case it was wet from the sprinklers.
My man, she thought with a smile, followed by a pang. He wasn’t quite the same man anymore, was he? She was going to have to get used to that.
Gray was bending to pick up the paper when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. A car was just pulling away from the driveway. A silver crossover of some kind. Gray saw a flash of red hair, and then heard the squeal of brakes as the car stopped down the street.
Her heart skipped a beat. Was that Lizzie?
Gray slammed the door and tossed the paper on the hall table. She hustled into the kitchen and grabbed her phone. Was Lizzie stalking her now? Was she going to transfer her obsession from Emma to Gray?
She went to her contacts and hit Lizzie’s name with her thumb. Her arm shook as she held it to her ear. It rang four times before voicemail picked up. Gray almost ended the call, but then thought better of it. She took a deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth—as Lizzie’s irritating voice chirped the outgoing message.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you, Elizabeth Larkin,” Gray said, biting out her full name. “Stay away from me and stay away from my family or you will regret it.”
She ended the call, then dialed Darnell. He picked up right away.
“How are you feeling, my love?” he asked.
Gray’s insides melted slightly.
“I was fine until I went outside to get the paper and saw Lizzie watching our house.”
“What do you mean, watching?” he asked, with a calm that irked her.
“She was just sitting out there on the street, her beady eyes on me.” Gray went to the front windows and peeked out. “You know I’ve always thought her interest in Emma was borderline disturbing. What if she’s unhinged?”
Gray suddenly remembered bumping into Lizzie at the café last week. Had she been watching Gray then, too? Did she know Gray had gone there to meet with Ben?
“Don’t worry about it, Gray,” Darnell said in his best no-nonsense voice. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she said, feeling silly at his taking charge. This was Lizzie. The woman could barely run her own business and clothe her daughter. It wasn’t as if she was a threat. “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate.”
“No. It’s fine. I’ve got it,” he said. “You get some rest and I’ll see you tonight.”
Gray said goodbye and hung up the phone. It was odd, how well he’d taken that call, how he seemed like he’d almost expected it. But maybe it was just his not flying off the handle—that he’d seemed more like his old, reasonable self—that was throwing her.