Dead to Her(65)

She stood up straighter and dabbed at her face with a paper towel. Anyway, he was keeping his own secrets, wasn’t he? Those calls. The lies. Was it Jacquie he’d been talking to? Maybe she was even here, at the party. It was impossible to tell with everyone so overdressed and disguised, and there were so many people. Could it have been Jacquie who’d been doing the digging, who’d unearthed this stinking dirt on her? Did she now want her old life back and was going to any length to get it? Maybe she’d heard that the second Mrs. Maddox was on the rise and wanted to stop it. That bitch.

Her overheating panic was subsiding and a chill descended onto her skin. This was a mess that she needed to figure out. But what was she going to do? One thing was for sure, she couldn’t stay here, at this party. Keisha was unstable and Jason wasn’t talking to her. She’d feign a headache and go home, where she could think.

She retied her mask and took comfort in her reflection for a moment, soothed by her own beauty, and unlocked the door. She knew what she had to do. Find William and make her excuses. If Jason had told him, it would be obvious by his reaction to her. She’d know then how much she needed to plan.

The party outside sounded like it was from another universe, one of carefree laughter and music and noise, a place that was entirely alien to her. She was about to head back toward the patio to try to find their host in the madness of it all when she saw Noah and Iris standing just inside the French doors, for once alone, not surrounded by sycophants. They were locked in a private conversation, their heads turned inward, Iris’s face lined and serious, her filigree mask held down by her side. Marcie’s heart thumped hard. Were they talking about her? Did they know? Maybe Jason wasn’t the only one to have gotten an envelope delivered about her. Her stomach tightened again. That didn’t bear thinking about. She needed to deal with the problem in hand rather than inventing more. She retreated farther into the house, not wanting to face them, whether they knew or not. Her head was pounding and her body exhausted.

At least it was cool inside, and with Julian and Pierre operating from their glitzy catering truck, the house was blissfully quiet and dark, thick walls protecting it from the decadence that raged in the heat of the gardens. It was creepy though, devoid of life, and Marcie couldn’t help but think of Eleanor wheeling herself around as she slowly faded, her body eating her up while her mind stayed sharp, and now there was Keisha, beautifully powerful and healthy, but with her mind collapsing. A cursed house. A cursed girl. Maybe they were all cursed in one way or another.

She shivered. Maybe she wouldn’t try to find William. She could sneak away unnoticed without saying her goodbyes. Would Jason care? Had anyone even asked him where she was?

“A mistake? That’s all you can say?”

In the silence the voice made her catch her breath—a sharp retort, bullets in the night. Was that William? She froze in the corridor, stilled by his tone. He sounded impatient. Angry. But who with? Keisha? Marcie crept forward, past the sweeping stairs of the main house, following the words like bread crumbs, until she drew closer to William’s study. Had he called Keisha in there like a headmaster would a naughty schoolgirl to reprimand her for some misdemeanor? His voice dropped as she drew closer, as if aware that someone somewhere might hear him shouting and that would never do.

“For God’s sake, you should be able to explain it.”

“It was the system crash—”

Jason. That was Jason, not Keisha. What were William and Jason fighting about?

“To hell with the system. The system couldn’t do this. The audit starts Monday, Jason, and if this isn’t made good by then—”

“It will be. It’s an error, that’s all. A transfer gone wrong somewhere. This stuff happens. You’re worrying over nothing.”

“Are you all right?”

The hand on her shoulder was like a cobweb brushing against bare skin and Marcie almost shrieked as she spun around toward the worried face. Elizabeth. It was just Elizabeth. “Marcie? Are you okay?”

Elizabeth had a mask painted on, quite a delicate design of flowers and birds, expertly done, but it was already starting to run at the edges, where her full cheeks crushed the skin around her eyes whenever she smiled. She was in danger of becoming clownlike. Poor Elizabeth. She didn’t belong here either.

“No, I’m not, I’m afraid,” Marcie said. “I’ve got an awful headache. I was looking for Jason to tell him I’m thinking of getting a taxi home.” She glanced toward the office door, thinking fast. She’d been caught eavesdropping, so there was no point in pretending otherwise. “But it sounds like he and William are having words. I was too nervous to interrupt.”

“Men always do sound so angry, don’t they?” Elizabeth said. “I don’t know why they need to half the time. Sensible conversation is so much more productive . . .”

The office door opened and both men came out, silencing Elizabeth, and for an instant Marcie didn’t recognize either of them, their expressions demonic half-shadows behind their masks. Then they saw the two women a few feet away and light smoothed the darkness as if it had been simply a figment of her imagination rather than an insight into who perhaps they really were.

“What are you doing here?” Jason was looking at her with such disgust, such irritation, that she couldn’t find any words.

“I . . . I . . .”