Dead to Her(82)

“You didn’t know?” Virginia waved Iris on to fill the large glass to the top. “Although neither did I. Not my business and all, and Emmett doesn’t like to talk about friends’ money.” She took a long sip.

“What investments?” Marcie repeated, wanting to take the glass and smash it into Virginia’s too smooth, expensively plumped face.

“I don’t know exactly, I’m afraid. Some big sums apparently. High risk, high yield. Some more secure but with longer investment periods. That’s all I’ve gleaned. But now I know why Emmett was getting all those early-morning calls when we were in the islands. Jason wanted his returns or his money back. It was getting very heated apparently. Emmett couldn’t get the money out as fast as Jason wanted it. I don’t know how all this works, if I’m honest. But Emmett didn’t know that it wasn’t—” Virginia checked herself. “Might not have been—all Jason’s money. He figured Jason was playing the market to raise the money to buy William out and pay the house off or whatever.”

She at least had the decency to look slightly flustered and embarrassed as she spoke, but Marcie barely noticed. Her head was spinning. All those late-night and predawn calls? Were they all to Emmett? Why had Jason started panicking?

William came back from Europe early. Of course. Marcie’s throat constricted as if a noose were around it. A social noose for her, and potentially a literal one for Jason. Could he have tried to kill William because the audit was going to show what he’d been doing and there was no longer enough time to put it right? He knew about the syringes—although there was no way she’d be telling the police that—he knew where the coolant was, and he knew Keisha was a bit crazy and maybe even knew that William was having second thoughts. If William had told Noah he could easily have mentioned it to Jason too.

She swallowed some wine, her fingers trembling on the glass. What was the prison time for fraud or embezzlement or whatever he’d done? It was enough for Jason’s father to have killed himself rather than face it. Was it worth killing William to save himself from prison and to keep his position in this world? No, not keep. Improve it.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Iris said. “And Marcie’s worried enough.” She flashed Virginia a look. “After everything that happened with Jason’s father, and how hard Jason fought to get back on track after it, I can’t believe that it won’t all turn out to be a mistake until someone presents me with hard evidence. And you should do the same too, Virginia.”

“I was only saying,” Virginia replied, archly.

“Well don’t, dear.”

And that was that. Iris moved the conversation to tennis and the latest tornado to hit Florida and how lucky they’d been to escape it, but maybe there was something they could do to raise money for those who’d lost their homes. Virginia didn’t stay long, thankfully, a call from Emmett summoning her home like a good wife, but at least while she’d been there, Marcie had been able to zone out and sit lost in her own dire thoughts.

Would they let her see Jason tomorrow? Maybe they’d let him go. That didn’t seem likely. Investing large sums with Emmett. The office being ripped apart. Their house being searched. They wouldn’t do that to Jason if they didn’t have some sort of evidence already. He was too well connected to want to get him pissed if they weren’t pretty sure something was awry. Everyone involved in this was too well connected. Except Keisha. Had she been thrown to the wolves as a distraction?

Underlying everything, all of it, was her terrible fear for herself. Jason had said he’d thrown the yearbook away, but was it still sitting in the trash? What about her hidden box? What had he done with that? Would the police find it? Was the person who’d sent the yearbook to Jason the same one who’d tipped off the police about his fraud? And if so, why? Why try to destroy them? And why now?

“I think an early night is what you need, dear,” Iris said. “I’ll settle you into Eleanor’s room and then bring you up a hot chocolate.”

“Eleanor’s room?”

“I need to stop calling it that. But it’s the room she used to sleep in when she stayed over.”

“Did she stay here a lot?”

Marcie’s legs felt like lead as she followed Iris up the grand old staircase, her bag over her shoulder. She was dog-tired even though she was convinced she wouldn’t sleep.

“Sometimes. When William would be away for work when we were a lot younger. When the kids were small they’d all play together. Lyle was smaller but such a sweet boy. And then of course, after . . .” Iris opened a door down the corridor leading to the master bedroom. “She needed somewhere she could grieve properly. So we gave her this room to have as her own. It’s not the largest guest room, but the coziest I think. This house is too big. If it hadn’t been in Noah’s family for generations, I’d have wanted to sell and move somewhere smaller. Somewhere homier.” She sighed. “I don’t see why everything has to be so big all the time. You must feel it in that monstrosity of a house Jason just moved you into.”

Marcie let the unintentional insult slide. Monstrosity. The house had been her choice. She’d demanded it. She’d thought it was as good as this one. Maybe Iris thought this was a monstrosity too. An albatross of history around her neck. Marcie didn’t comment though, because she was too distracted by the wall of her room for the night, a room that by nobody’s standards was anything other than large, at the center of which was an oversized double bed with a huge patchwork comforter on it. A thick rug lay on either side of the bed, and away from the dresser and wardrobe, against the far wall, were four bookshelves of different heights that created a quirky skyline of colored spines. Iris was right. There was something comforting about it. The wall though, the one that her eyes were drawn back to, that was something else. So many framed photographs. So many of Eleanor and Lyle. A lifetime in images.