Every Last Secret(6)

On my back, with him above me, I thought of William Winthorpe. There was something dark and delicious about him, a temptation that had existed as soon as he’d introduced himself at my interview. William. There had been a tug in his tone, a tightening of the cord between us. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Gruff and sexual. He was a walking chunk of masculinity and instantly more alluring than any of my prior affairs.

William was, among the rich and successful men of Silicon Valley, the best. Top tier. The sort of man I should have gone after, had I not tied myself down to Matt right out of high school. Back then I had been so desperate to escape my father that I hadn’t understood my true potential. I’d thought I was winning the jackpot. A life with Matt had seemed so decadent at first. A new Mustang convertible. Our own home, gifted by his parents as our wedding present. A credit card with my name on the front and a three-thousand-dollar limit, the balance paid off each month, no questions asked.

I had needed security and attention, and he had given both to me. But as we’d moved up in the world, I’d slowly realized everything I didn’t have. Frankly put, the dream my husband had delivered wasn’t good enough. My needs had increased, and I was starting to become desperate for the life I didn’t have.

“Right there?” Matt panted, and I moaned appropriately, wrapping my legs around his waist and thinking of the heat of William Winthorpe’s stare.





CHAPTER 3

CAT

Eight days after the party, our new neighbors closed on the Baker house. I stood on our front balcony with a glass of chardonnay and watched as a single cleaning van traveled down their long drive, bumping over the cracks. In any other neighborhood, there would be knee-high grass covering the large yard, weeds clawing over the abandoned flower beds, vines inching up the brick. But we hadn’t paid fourteen million dollars to live next to an eyesore. I’d spent the last six years paying for weekly lawn maintenance on the abandoned home. I’d had Ted replace the front gate lamps when they had burned out. I’d wandered the property at the end of my morning walks and kept an eye out for rodent holes and standing water where mosquitoes would breed.

I’d also, unbeknownst to my husband, spent a great deal of time inside the home. It used to be interesting. Four years ago, before the IRS’s liquidation team swooped in and took everything, it had been a house full of memories and secrets. A life suddenly abandoned. Dresser drawers still open, a negligee set hanging half-out. The safe door open, the combination stuck to a Post-it on the inside wall, its shelves almost empty, a photo album cockeyed in the back corner. The Bakers had fled in the middle of the night, their Mercedes still sitting in the garage, their cell phones left on the kitchen counter. Tax evasion was the rumor in the neighborhood, though I found the more likely culprit behind neatly folded pillowcases in Claudia Baker’s linen closet.

Cocaine. Five wrapped bundles that weighed in at two pounds each, according to their bathroom scale. I found another ten in an upper cabinet in their kitchen, behind boxes of Frosted Flakes and Honey Nut Cheerios. I found another bundle ripped open in their office, two lines tapped out on the cover of a Rolling Stone magazine.

For months after the Bakers disappeared, I would duck between the line of bushes that separated our lots and roam their house. I pocketed a ring of keys that I found in their junk drawer and skipped over the window I had initially used, coming and going as I wished. I spent afternoons in the big leather chair behind John Baker’s desk, flipping through their files. I combed bank and credit card statements, fascinated by the personal glimpse into their life. I stood in Claudia’s bathroom, before her big, wide mirror, and carefully applied her lipstick and shadows.

She’d been an interesting housewife. In the drawers of their master closet, I’d found ball gags and blindfolds, furry handcuffs and phallic-shaped toys. I spent an afternoon sifting through her lingerie and naughty costumes. I claimed a mink stole and Vuitton clutch, along with several pieces of abandoned jewelry. I spent one morning stretched out on their bed, dressed in her clothes, listening to their playlist crackling through the overhead speakers. And one day, just a few weeks before the IRS came and took everything—I found the second safe.

This one didn’t have a lock. It was a fireproof box in a hidden floor compartment, underneath the faux Persian rug in their master bedroom. I’d been on my stomach, reaching underneath their bed, when my knee dug against a bump in the rug. I’d shimmied back from the bed and peeled back the rug, thrilled to discover the trapdoor. Excitement had hummed through me, my fingers slipping on the inset pull, and it had taken three tugs to get the door open. Inside, the iron cavity held a variety of empty money wrappers and a collection of crude porn. I had examined the construction of the secret compartment and considered installing a similar feature in our house. It might be a good place to put the thirty pounds of cocaine that I now had tucked in our attic, the parcels high and dry behind three rows of Christmas decorations, in a box labeled Dollhouse. There were, after all, things you never knew you might need. My mother had taught me that. Granted, she’d been referring to a heating pad that had been marked down at a yard sale two blocks from our home, but I had taken the advice to heart in more ways than one, and it had come in handy in a number of moments.

Now, I sipped a chilled glass of juice and wondered how one cleaning van could possibly tackle the layers of dust and grime inside that house. It would take them weeks. Not that I minded a delay before Matt and Neena Ryder moved in. I hadn’t quite warmed to the idea of a new woman moving into both Winthorpe Tech and our street. Especially this woman.