You Deserve to Know

Chapter 15

15

NOW

Scott comes down the stairs with his bright-green gym bag slung over his shoulder.

“Wait, hold on a minute,” Aimee says, getting up from her perch at the kitchen island. “I think we need to talk.”

“Now? The boys are still at soccer for another hour, and I promised I’d take them to Norwood Park later. If I don’t get to the gym now…” He shrugs. “And I haven’t been to the gym in three days. I need some exercise.” Scott sighs. “Tell you what, I’ll make dinner and do the big shopping tonight if you make a list.”

“This isn’t about the shopping,” Aimee says.

“What is it about?”

She’s on the spot. She can’t blurt out, I read part of your text, can I read the rest? Or can she? It’s hard for her to figure out her role as adult, wife, and mother sometimes. She was na?ve when they married and had kids, thinking that they would naturally divide up the work evenly, and she was surprised when it didn’t work out like that. Scott was willing, more so than many of the husbands she saw, to contribute to the daily work of making a household run—but he needed to be told. As if he were her employee. She never wanted to be the CEO of the family. She already ran her own business and managed Tim and the crew.

That’s when she began to miss her mother anew. The ache that she thought had subsided years after her death began to throb more urgently when Aimee had her own kids. She longed to turn to her when faced with the challenges of being a wife and mother, and her mother’s absence felt like a fresh pain.

Scott should be allowed to go to the gym if he wants. Even using the word allowed seems ridiculous. He’s a grown man.

But today is different. Anton is dead, murdered, and the police were just here questioning Scott. And now he’s running off again. He says it’s to the gym but the timing with that text has her on alert. “I feel weird. I want to talk about what the detective was saying. Do you think Anton followed you to Villain & Saint? Can you think of any reason why he would?”

Scott looks at his watch, then at her, as if deciding that he can spare a few minutes. “No. I can’t think of any reason he would follow me. I’ve told you about that night. Several times. I feel terrible about what happened to him. I’m just as freaked out as you are that he was killed outside the same bar that I went to. But I’ve racked my brain trying to remember anything that could explain what he was doing in the alley. I keep coming up with nothing.” He shifts his bag. “I wish I could go back, Aimee. I wish I could go back to Friday night and take the time to listen to him babble. But I was in such a hurry. I feel like an asshole.”

“You’re not.”

“It’s just, he was drunk and annoying, and I should have stayed with him but I just wanted to get out of there. I keep going over it in my mind. Why would he follow me?”

He searches her face with his eyes.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was going there for some other reason.”

“I hope so. I really do. I don’t want to be part of his death in any way, not even tangentially.”

“Go to the gym,” Aimee says. “We can talk more tonight.”

Before the door has clicked shut, however, a plan has formed in her head.

Aimee pulls on her shoes while calling Lisa.

“I have a huge favor,” Aimee blurts out. “I have to run out. Noa is here alone, can you—”

“Come over? Of course I can! I’ll be there in five minutes. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. But I have to go. Like now.” She knew the answer would be yes and feels a little guilty about it. Lisa is always around. Always there. Always willing. As if by making herself needed, people will like her more. But Aimee likes Lisa despite how the scent of neediness clings to her like a cloying perfume. Lisa is insecure, and Aimee feels bad for her. She remembers how vulnerable she was in the years after her mother’s death, searching for friendship and kindness. She tries to show that kindness to Lisa even when she comes on too strong.

She is about to hang up when Lisa clears her throat.

“Did I just see the police at your house?”

“Yes. Can we talk later? I’m sorry, I have to get this thing to a client, I’m halfway out the door.” She hates lying, but what is she going to say, that she needs to chase after her husband? That she wants to spy on him because she read half of a text message? Aimee hangs up and grabs her coat. From the front door she can see Scott, his gym bag over his shoulder, walking toward the cut-through to downtown Bethesda. She’ll have to run to catch up to him.

“Where are you going?”

“Huh?” She turns to see Noa at the top of the stairs. “Oh, sweetie, I have to run out for a minute. Lisa is on her way. You can just keep doing whatever you were doing, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I don’t want her to come over. What do you have to take to your client? You don’t have anything in your hands.”

Amy flinches, startled. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“What’s that mean?”

“That’s when you listen in on other people’s conversations.”

“I wasn’t. I wasn’t trying to. You just talk loud. I heard it, but I wasn’t listening.”

“Eavesdropping is wrong.” It feels absurd to be delivering an ethics lesson as she’s leaving to tail her husband.

“So is lying. Lying is wrong. You said so.”

Aimee peers out the door. Lisa is coming up the walk, but Scott is out of sight. She has to go now if she hopes to catch him.

Aimee blows Noa a kiss and opens the door. She waves at Lisa as she races to the cut-through. She runs down the alley between two houses. When she emerges on Wisconsin Avenue, her heart sinks. Scott is nowhere to be seen. She’s too late. She turns in the direction of his gym, which is on the opposite side of the wide thoroughfare, away from Villain & Saint and the alley where Anton was found. This was stupid , she thinks, feeling foolish as she passes shoppers and small groups of teens out for an afternoon of fun. She should be at home with Noa. Or tending to Gwen. But Scott’s strange behavior has her playing Nancy Drew.

Aimee stops outside the immense plate glass windows of Tatte, a large café with a twenty-foot ceiling that leans more Parisian atelier than suburban coffee shop. On a whim, she peers inside, and that’s when she sees him. Or rather, his gym bag. Its bright green catches her eye. It’s stuffed beneath a chair in a corner, and Scott’s back is to her. From this far away, she cannot make out who he is with, if anyone at all.

She enters the cavernous restaurant and takes her place in line, her heart beating. A large U-shaped island dominates the center of the room. One side is lined with display cases and two cash registers. The other side has stools for customers to sit on. In the middle, baristas rush around making coffee and tea and fulfilling orders. The clank of cutlery against porcelain echoes loudly off the tiled floor. Aimee keeps her eye on Scott, who is sitting in an adjoining room at one of the small tables pushed against the wall. From her spot in line, she can see his back, but his companion, if he has one, is hidden by an enormous potted fern. When her turn comes, Aimee orders a drip coffee, which they hand to her right away. She wanders around along with several other customers searching for open seats and finds one at the counter by the window overlooking the street. When she angles herself so her back is to the window, she can catch a sliver of Scott from the corner of her eye, but not much else.

What is the plan here? she asks herself. Perhaps she should just walk right up to him, act surprised. Tell him she was… she was what ? In the neighborhood? Craving a four-dollar coffee? There is no good reason for her to be here and not at home.

She waits patiently, sipping her coffee.

After about ten minutes, she sees Scott get up and walk out the door. Quickly, Aimee pops up out of her seat and strides over to the corner where Scott was sitting. A middle-aged man with fading blond hair is still sitting at the table.

She doesn’t ask to sit down before she does.

The man looks up in surprise. This close she can see he is a little older than she is, maybe early- to midfifties, but in good shape. He’s dressed casually but looks put together in dark jeans and a nice shirt, as if he just came from a date. He adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses and nods at the used coffee cup in front of him.

“Oh hey, I’m just leaving.” He begins to gather his things.

“Actually, can you stay? I don’t want the table. It’s you I want to talk to. You’re Jon Block, right?”

He freezes, halfway out of his chair. “Uhh, and who are you?”

Aimee pats the table. “Please, sit.” She knows that she must be coming across as mentally unbalanced, and maybe she is after everything that has happened in the past few days.

But he sits back down.

“I’m Aimee Stern. Scott Crowder’s wife.”

“Scott Crowder. I see.” He cocks his head to one side. “Does your husband know you’re here?”

“No, he doesn’t,” she says. “I happened to be walking by, and I saw you guys sitting here. How do you know my husband? It’s not from the gym, is it?”

He gives her a half smile. “Happened to be walking by, huh? You’re putting me in a tough spot here.”

“Were you with him last night at Villain & Saint?”

Block leans back. “Is that what he told you?”

Aimee flinches. What a strange response , she thinks. Block is cool and collected, almost as if he was expecting her.

“It’s what he told the police ,” she says, hoping the mention of law enforcement might make him open up. “Please, can you just answer the question? How do you know Scott?”

He frowns. “Why don’t you just ask him this?”

The question hangs between them. This isn’t how she thought it would go. His confidence unnerves her. She feels like she’s on the defensive when he’s the one who is sneaking around meeting her husband in secret.

“Well?” he asks.

She doesn’t have an answer for why she didn’t ask Scott directly. And then it hits her. Because I’m terrified , she realizes, that we might not be as solid as I think.

“I’m asking you,” she says.

He stands up and pulls out a card, tossing it on the table. “You really need to talk to your husband.”

He starts to walk away, and she doesn’t try to stop him or go after him. Instead, she takes the card he left and turns it over. Above Jon Block’s name and contact information, written in small black letters, are the words Capital Investigators .