An Anonymous Girl(64)

Perhaps Thomas is on edge, too.

Approximately fifteen minutes into the meal, the shrill peal of a cell phone cleaves through the room.

“It’s yours,” he says.

“Do you mind? I’m expecting a call from a client.”

This is only a partial fabrication.

“Of course,” he says.

The phone number on the screen is yours.

It is imperative that my tone remains steady and professional. “This is Dr. Shields.”

“Hi, it’s Jessica . . . I’m feeling better. Thanks so much for the chicken soup.”

Thomas can’t discern any clues from my end of this conversation.

“My pleasure.”

You continue: “Also, I just wanted you to know that I heard back from that guy at the coffee shop. Thomas.”

The instinctive reaction that follows: a quick intake of breath as my eyes fly to Thomas.

Thomas is staring. It’s impossible to know what he is reading on my face.

“One moment, please,” you are told.

Quickly, the distance away from Thomas is increased. The cell phone is carried into the next room.

“Continue,” you are instructed.

Variations in tone, along with cadence, reliably provide information about the contents of a conversation. Bad news is often delayed, while good news bubbles forth.

But your voice remains neutral.

It’s futile to attempt to prepare for what will follow.

“He said he’d like to meet. He’s going to call me tomorrow to make a plan when he figures out his schedule.”





CHAPTER


FORTY-THREE


Tuesday, December 18

I’ve lived in New York for years, but I never knew this tucked-away garden existed.

The West Village Conservatory sounded like a place that would be filled with people. And maybe it is, in the summertime. But as I wait for Thomas on a raw, gray afternoon, feeling the damp wood of the bench seep through my jeans, I’m surrounded only by the husks of bushes and barren branches. They look like giant spiderwebs stretched across the bleak sky.

I thought I could trust Dr. Shields. But in the past forty-eight hours, I’ve learned she lied about so many things: Not only didn’t Ben transpose those phone numbers, but there isn’t even a study right now. Dr. Shields isn’t married to the bushy-haired man in the photo in her dining room; she’s married to Thomas. And I’m not anything special to her. I’m just useful, like a warm cashmere shawl or a shiny object to be dangled in front of her husband.

What I want to learn today is why.

Don’t tell her anything, Thomas instructed me.

But I’m not going to let him call the shots.

I have to stall Dr. Shields until I figure out what’s going on. So I told her Thomas replied to my text and wanted to get together. But I didn’t say it would happen today; she thinks I’m still waiting to hear back from Thomas to confirm a time.

He appears on the path leading toward me at precisely four o’clock.

He looks much like he did when we first met at the museum and again at the bar: a tall, athletic-looking, thirty-something guy in a heavy blue overcoat and gray slacks. A knit cap covers his hair.

I glance behind me, suddenly fearful that Dr. Shields may appear again, just as she did outside her town house when I was talking to Thomas on the phone. But the area around me is empty.

As Thomas approaches, a pair of mourning doves burst into the air, loudly flapping their wings. I flinch and put a hand to my chest.

He sits down next to me, leaving a foot or so of space between us. It’s still a little closer than I would like.

“Why did my wife send you to follow me?” he asks immediately.

“I didn’t even know she was married to you,” I say.

“Did you tell her we slept together?” He looks even more scared than I feel about the possibility of Dr. Shields finding out.

I shake my head. “She’s been paying me to help her with her research.”

“Paying you?” He frowns. “Are you in her study?”

I’m not sure I like the fact that Thomas is asking all the questions, but at least it’s telling me how little he knows.

I exhale and watch my breath form a wisp of white. “That’s how it started. But now . . .” I don’t even know how to explain what I’m doing for Dr. Shields.

I switch gears: “That day at the museum, I didn’t realize until I saw you at the diner that she must have wanted me to meet you. I never would have, uh, reached out to you had I known.”

He grinds the knuckles of his right hand into his forehead.

“I can’t get into Lydia’s warped mind,” he says. “I left her, you know. Or maybe you don’t.”

I think about the two coffee cups Dr. Shields cleared away the first time I went to her town house, and the lightweight men’s jackets in her closet.

And there’s one more thing.

“You were with her just last night!” I blurt.

I could hear clanking noises in the background when I’d phoned Thomas yesterday, the rattle of pots and pans and the running of water. It sounded like someone was cooking. And there was something else that at first didn’t seem significant: classical music, but not the somber, almost tense kind. It was . . . cheerful.