Reputation(52)

I look angrily at Willa. “I told you not to question them. I told you.”

“Kit,” Willa pleads. “Just listen. Sienna wrote the e-mails.”

Time slows down. Sienna’s head is down, so I can see the grease in her scalp. Aurora is chewing on her lips like a feral animal. “Huh?” I splutter.

“The e-mails to Greg. Sienna is Lolita.”

It feels like they’ve whipped the big wooden lazy Susan that sits in the center of the table straight at my gut. “You? And . . . Greg?” Horrible images flood my mind.

“No!” Sienna looks horrified. “I . . .” She glances desperately at Willa, and Willa makes an encouraging gesture with her hands for her to continue. “I wrote both sides of the conversation,” she mumbles. “Greg’s . . . and mine. From different computers, so the IP addresses are different . . . but it’s all me.”

I sink onto a stool. Sienna’s face contorts with shame. I want to go to her, but all I can think of are the words in those e-mails. Greg said such gross things to that woman. I’m supposed to believe Sienna wrote that?

“Why?” I whisper.

Sienna’s breathing is choppy. “I-I wanted you to see what he turned into. It’s why I put them in the deleted folder. A-And I was hoping that you’d open up his computer one day and find them in there and it would end things for good. It’s not like I knew the hack was going to break. And even then, I didn’t think someone was going to find the e-mails. But then . . . they did.”

There’s a sour taste in my mouth. So Sienna had wanted to talk about the e-mails with me before the benefit. Not to process her anger but to confess what she’d done. But I hadn’t let her talk. I’d shut her out, I’d drawn my own, incorrect, conclusions. I condemned Greg, left him alone to be murdered in our kitchen. Did I bring this on myself?

Something vile occurs to me, and I rush toward her. “What do you mean, you wanted to show me what he’d turned into? Was he hurting you? Or Aurora?” I glance at my other daughter; she has curled into a ball in her chair. Please don’t let it be that.

Sienna shakes her head. “No. No. I just . . . I knew he was having an affair with someone, and I wanted you to know, too. I broke into his e-mail and looked around for incriminating messages that would prove it to you, but I didn’t find anything. And then I decided to make something up. It’s not a lie, really. I just needed to plant the seed, because you deserve someone better.”

“Jesus,” I whisper. I’m in such shock I can’t even swallow. “Sienna, you? Really?”

“I’m sorry!” Sienna covers her face with her hands. “I didn’t know what else to do! I wanted the best for you!”

“But how do you even know he was having an affair? Do you have proof?”

“K-Kind of.” She sniffs. “There was this one incident, last winter. After a snowstorm. Greg was at a late surgery. I was up, watching Netflix. Past midnight, I heard the key in the door. Something crashed. I was freaked out that we had a burglar, so I ran to the landing. I saw Greg stumbling around.”

“Stumbling,” I repeat.

“He could barely walk.” She twists her mouth. “Definitely drunk.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek. Greg went out after surgeries, sometimes. He needed to blow off steam. He sometimes went to business dinners, too—with the head of the hospital, or pharma reps, or sometimes even for media interviews.

“It’s not a crime to be drunk,” I say.

“I know, but . . .” Sienna sighs. “He didn’t see me on the stairs. He was really out of it. He went to the kitchen. And that’s when I noticed.” She pauses. “He smelled weird.”

“Like . . . alcohol?”

“No. Like . . . like perfume, but not something you wear. Anyway, it made me feel . . . icky. And mad for you, Mom. I wanted to know who he’d been with. So I hid until he went to bed, and then I ran downstairs. Looked at his phone. But I couldn’t figure out his password. I was about to go to bed, but then I saw something on his jacket. There was this really long hair.” She pantomimes peeling it off fabric, holding it by the tip.

This all seems so unfounded. “The hair could have been from a waitress who’d brushed up against him while delivering his drinks. It could be from a patient. You don’t know.” Sienna shrugs, considering this, but doesn’t look convinced. “Did you ever notice something like that again?” I ask.

“Just that one time.”

I glance at Aurora, who hasn’t moved. “Did you know about this?”

Aurora looks haunted. “About what?”

“Any of it!”

Aurora licks her lips. Oh God, I think. She did.

I slap my arms to my sides. “Were you girls in on it together?”

“No,” Sienna insists. “Leave Aurora out of it. I told her the day of the funeral. I was dying inside. I had to tell someone. Those e-mails came out in that hack . . . and then Greg was killed. Because of me?”

I run my tongue over my teeth. My head is aching. My thoughts have ground to a halt.

Willa looks at Sienna. “This . . . drunken stumbling you heard. When was it?”

Sienna thinks for a moment. “Last winter. I don’t remember the exact date.”