The Wife Upstairs(40)

Looking back, Bea could see how it was almost too perfect, too much of a romantic cliché, but at the time, it had just felt exciting and … right, somehow. Like she was finally getting everything she deserved.

They talked, and she was surprised at how easy it all was. How easy he was. He was from Maine, originally, and loved boats. He was in Hawaii because he had a friend looking to get into the yacht charter business, and they were scouting out other companies, seeing how it was done.

And she’d told him about growing up in Alabama, leaving out the more Southern gothic aspects of her childhood, focusing on the fancy boarding school, the debutante scene, the all-girls college she’d attended in South Carolina. As she spun out her tales, she realized that she was doing it again, papering parts of Blanche’s life over the less savory parts of hers, but she’d been in the habit for so long that it hardly registered anymore.

Over dessert, laughing sheepishly, a little chagrined, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck: “You are really fucking beautiful.”

Shake of his head. “And I am clearly really fucking drunk,” he added.

But he hadn’t been. He’d had one old-fashioned earlier, and his wine was mostly untouched.

Maybe it should have alarmed her, that he was faking being drunk as an excuse to say something like that to her, a woman he’d just met.

But it didn’t alarm her. It interested her. It felt like it might be a hint at a weakness in a man who, from what she could see, had no reason to be weak. Good-looking, smart, successful …

Bea would eventually find out that he wasn’t in Hawaii “on business” like he’d said, that the charter yacht idea was closer to a pipe dream than an actual pursuit, but by then it was too late and she didn’t care anyway.

“I’m sure you get that a lot,” he went on, and Bea had looked at him, really looked at him.

His eyes were blue, and there was just a hint of red high on his cheekbones, from the sun she thought, not booze or embarrassment.

“I do,” she replied, both because it was true and because she wanted to see how he’d respond. If the script he’d come up with in his head had counted on her playing that mythical creature boys sang about, the pretty girl who didn’t know it.

But he didn’t seem flustered at all. He narrowed his eyes slightly, tilting his glass at her. “So, beautiful and smart enough to know it.”

“And rich,” she added. Also true, and again, she wanted to see the look on his face when she said it.

To his credit, he didn’t give anything away. He just smiled again. “A triple threat, then. Lucky me.”

Bea laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear, sincerely charmed for maybe the first time that evening. She liked that he didn’t bluster about it, didn’t pretend it was no big deal. He probably already knew, of course—later, she’d wonder a lot about that first encounter—but something about the way he handled it appealed to her. He accepted her, right from the start. She’d built an image of the person she wanted to be, and Eddie was perhaps the first person who truly understood it.

Probably because he was little more than an image himself.





PART V



JANE





18





Eddie takes the detective out to the backyard. There’s no ride to the police station, no Eddie in the back of a car, and I tell myself that this isn’t serious. This is nothing, really.

If it were something, he wouldn’t be offering the detective bottled water with a smile.

I stand in the kitchen, absentmindedly cleaning the counters, putting glasses in the dishwasher, anything to keep my hands busy and make me look just as relaxed as Eddie does right now.

But I’m not Eddie, and when Detective Laurent comes back inside, I have to fight the urge to go hide in the bedroom and lock the door.

It sounds stupid, but I’d thought this kind of money and lifestyle insulated you from things like this, the police showing up at your door with questions and hard eyes.

The detective is friendly enough, though, holding up her empty bottle. “Recycling?” she asks, and I take it from her, smiling like I’m totally unbothered.

She leans on the counter, casual, and asks, “How long have the two of you been seeing each other?”

I have no idea if this is an actual question she’s asking as a police officer, or if she’s just making small talk, and my palms sweat as I reach up to tuck my hair behind my ear.

“A few months?” I say. “Eddie and I met back in February, started dating in March?”

Great, I’m doing the questioning thing that makes me sound like an unsure little girl, not the kind of woman who belongs in a house like this.

But the detective just smiles at me, her dark eyes warm, the skin around them crinkling.

“Your fiancé says you used to be his dog-walker.” Wrinkling her nose, she gestures around us. “I said, ‘What the hell do people in this neighborhood need a dog-walker for?’ but that’s the bougie set for you, isn’t it?”

I laugh along with her, nodding even as my heart keeps pounding and my hands keep shaking. “I said the same thing. But it was a good job, and I like dogs.”

I could not sound more insipid if I tried, but that’s the point, right? Make her think I’m no one worth even talking to. And whatever this is, it has nothing to do with me. Plain Jane, blending into the background again.