The Shadow Box(89)

Abigail, Sloane, and I had stuck together. I had been grateful to Abigail for giving us a tour of the house; I couldn’t stand the sound of Griffin’s voice cajoling the crowd, while I knew who he was, what he had done. It had been eating me up for so long, and I knew I was coming to the end of my time with him.

I remembered joking with Sloane Hawke that she had finally met her match in terms of the preppiest girl’s name ever, that Abigail’s sister-in-law, Evans Coffin, had her beat. I had thought Evans might join us, even show us the rooms, but she stayed in the salon, listening to my husband. As I walked past her, she gave me that same look: be careful. At least that’s how I read it.

And it turned out that I had read her right.

Abigail identified most of the staid characters in the family portraits, and she said the men with guns had been photographed at the family’s hunting preserve just a few miles north.

“The one where the guys still go to hunt?” Sloane had asked as we entered the book-lined study.

“Yep,” Abigail said. “That’s the place. Named after this house. Or the other way around. I always forget. Neil and Max’s grandfather liked consistency and reminding everyone of the, ahem, ancestral pile in the western highlands.” We all chuckled.

I looked around at the taxidermy—dead animals and birds, especially ravens, hawks, and owls, gathering dust on shelves around the room. But that wasn’t the memory that took my breath away: next to a raven with wings outstretched was a row of Nate’s books. Ten volumes by my ex-husband, Nate Browning. I glanced inside one and saw an inscription in Nate’s hand: To Max, who knows what matters. NB.

“Worlds collide,” Abigail said, leaning closer. “These people read books by your first husband and are trying to elect your second husband. And trust me, Max won’t let you alone until you make that shadow box for him.”

I chuckled, but inside I was shaken; Nate was academic and nonpolitical, a scholar who spent his time in the field or at his desk—when he took a stand politically, he was single issue, voting for the candidate who vowed to fight climate change. To Nate, that was what mattered. Did Max agree with him?

Griffin was a political animal who pretended to care about conservation. He certainly did fight to protect the land around his home, but across the state was another story. He would never put the environment first, certainly not at the expense of business, of attracting large corporations into the state. That’s what the gathering was about—to drum up support for him and his agenda. I assumed Max would be in line with Griffin’s way of thinking, not Nate’s.

“Why would Gwen be drawing a picture of that house?” Jackie asked now.

“I don’t know,” I said, still stuck on the memory of seeing Nate’s books there. I remember thinking that I would tell him, that we’d have a laugh about it—political high rollers interested in his poetic research. And I would tell him about the raven gargoyles, the absurd grandeur of a fifteen-thousand-square-foot Scottish castle in a New England town of sea captains’ houses and candy-colored fishermen’s cottages, how the Coffins had wanted me to replicate it in a shadow box.

And how I had started to do just that, because it was so over-the-top Gothic, surrounded by hedges and English gardens, straight out of one of those dreams that verges on nightmare. My husband was the only reason I had gone to Ravenscrag: a den of vipers gathered together to raise a fortune to elect Griffin Chase.

“Claire, I know you’ve felt safer staying hidden, but we have to call Conor. And I want to call Tom. They both need to know you’re okay and to hear about this place. We’ve all thought Gwen has been fantasizing but maybe . . .”

“It’s real,” I said. My mind was racing, recalling the piece I had started, the notes I had made based on that talk with Max Coffin, and the secret I had hidden beneath the frame.

“I believe you,” she said. “We have to call Tom and Conor right away.”

“Can I use your computer first? I have to send an email.”

“Sure,” she said. “Someone’s going to be very surprised to hear from you.” We walked to the desk, to the same laptop I’d used to contact Spencer, and I logged in to my Gmail account. I ignored the hundreds of emails and wrote one to Nate: I’m alive. I never would have guessed you were one of them. Never. Were you in on the plan? Did you know they were going to kill me? Not you, Nate. Why did you have to be part of it?

My eyes were wet when I hit send. Of all the people in my life, I would have expected that Nate would be true-blue forever. It felt brave to use my voice, but this was just the beginning. I had a lot more to say to many more people. I felt my strength full force—it was back, and I was going to use it. First thing, I needed to get that letter.

“Jackie, you call Tom and Conor, okay?” I asked. “I have to go to my studio. There’s evidence there. Now that I know Ravenscrag is involved, I need to get it. It’s the link.”

“That’s crazy, Claire,” she said. “You can’t go back there on your own, not after what happened to you.”

“No one will see me,” I said. “I’ll go through the path along the beach. Besides, you’ll know where I am. That makes me feel safe.”

“Conor will want to interview you . . .”

“You can tell him where I am too. He can find me at the Bluff—I’ll tell him everything right there. I’m doing the right thing, Jackie. I’m taking care of my own life, and I promise you, I’m going to bring these guys down. Especially Griffin.”