Chapter Nine #2
After a few minutes, I no longer recognize where we are, but I make a note of landmarks in case I’m able to run for it.
A Little Free Library. An abandoned rustic firehouse with weeds growing through the cracks in the pavement.
We turn down an unpaved road that’s mostly dirt, until we’re on some sort of private beach.
I don’t check my phone, but nobody has tried to get ahold of me since Elodie’s call. It will be hours before anyone expects to hear from me. It will get dark out. Ellen will call Waylen to ask when we’re picking Collette up. He’ll know, then, that something has happened.
The car stops in the middle of the beach, right where the dirt road turns into sand. The sun has broken through the clouds now, giving light and color to the dreary autumn morning. But a cold wind blows through when Bertram opens the door.
I could shoot him now, as he turns his back to me to exit the vehicle. But then there’s the driver to contend with. I won’t be able to outrun him. And if the driver doesn’t try to kill me, but instead plays it straight and calls the police, that wouldn’t end well for me, either.
After weighing the limited, crappy options, I follow Bertram outside.
We take a few steps toward the water, and then I see the strangest thing up ahead: There’s a blanket laid out in the sand, weighted down on all four corners with rocks, and what looks like a—is that a picnic basket, of all things?
“Sit,” he tells me, and the menacing deadpan voice has changed. He sounds more human now. As curious as I am confused, I do as he asks, and I watch him retrieve two glasses and a bottle of wine. Then a charcuterie board of fruit, cheeses, and crackers, wrapped carefully in layers of plastic.
“What is this?” I ask.
“There are no good beaches where I grew up,” he says. “At least, not like the ones here.” I watch as he undoes the plastic, revealing an array of fruit so colorful and fresh it’s almost cinematic. “Even on a cold day, it’s pretty, don’t you think?”
I take the glass of wine he hands me, warily.
It’s a relatively cheap Bordeaux from the package store.
I would expect something off-label and pretentious from a billionaire.
Either way, I don’t drink, not even after he takes a sip from his own glass.
“There are a lot of people who have found their way to me recently,” he says.
“They use various aliases, under many guises.” He smiles, boyish and charming.
There’s a dimple on his left cheek. “They want to cozy up to me for some favor, or—more often—someone has sent them.”
“And that’s what you think I’m doing,” I say. “Cozying up for a favor.”
“You tell me.”
“I already did.”
“Yes, but you were lying.” He eats a grape, then nudges the plate toward me.
“I did a little digging, and you don’t have any background in technology.
Went to school for fashion, dropped out your first year, got married, moved to a suburb, and now decorate living rooms and wedding venues for a living. ”
Where the hell are you? I will my thoughts to Mr. X, who still hasn’t texted me back.
Every day of my life, I can count on the fact that he’s following me, maintaining a protective perimeter.
I imagine him dead and bleeding from a series of bullet wounds in an alley somewhere.
Tied up and anchored at the bottom of the Long Island Sound.
He has never given me cause to worry about him—it’s always the opposite, him worrying if it takes me more than two minutes to respond to his texts, or the GPS on my phone acts glitchy and he loses me for a few seconds too long.
But I betray nothing and meet Bertram with a cool gaze. I eat a piece of cheese from the charcuterie board. Brie, the expensive kind they sell at liquor stores.
“I’m a storyteller.” I say this like it’s a reluctant confession. “Not a journalist exactly. You’re right. I don’t work for a paper. But I get to the heart of things and then I write them down.”
He raises an eyebrow. “A novelist?”
“This one is nonfiction,” I say. I’m ad-libbing.
But I’m a good liar, which is a source of contention with my husband, who wears his heart on his sleeve, and my daughter, who is better at it than she cares to admit.
“I found out that you were living here and I wanted to learn more about the billionaire life. Elodie—she’s a senior editor—has ties to a publishing house.
She said that if I could write about your life in a compelling way, she’d offer me a six-figure book deal.
That may be small change to you, but it could do a lot for me. ”
He studies me with such a steely gaze that I can’t tell whether he believes me.
His eyes are cool and sparkling green against the gray sky behind him.
I’m thinking that I’ve screwed up this one.
He’s too clever, too guarded. Whether he killed his girlfriend—and where he put her body if he did—is for me to find out, and it won’t be easy.
However he managed to steal his sister’s code and evade any threats of a lawsuit, he covered his tracks well.
He doesn’t make the usual slipups, like thinking a private web browser will erase his search history.
“I see,” he says, after a long pause. He nudges the untouched glass of wine that I’ve set down toward me, and I take it, because I don’t know what will happen if I make him unhappy. I’m out here alone with little in the way of a running start if he decides to lunge for my jugular.
But he doesn’t get angry. He has the same quiet thoughtfulness that I see Waylen get sometimes when he’s hunched over the computer on a long night, poring over a manuscript that’s especially dense.
“I’m going to tell you something I don’t tell many people,” he goes on. Now he isn’t looking at me, but at the water on the horizon, as though it’s an old friend. “I was engaged a while back. It ended badly.”
Annie Clarke. Oh shit, he’s going to give me something after all. I don’t let on that I’m anticipating his next words, that I need to hear what he’s going to say. I pretend this is brand-new information. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “A bad breakup?”
So, he’s going for the pitiful angle. I try to work out what his plan is—because men in positions of power always have a plan.
On the surface, he’s talking as though we’re on an impromptu date.
Maybe this is his way of appearing vulnerable, opening up about his past, coaxing me to let my own guard down.
Stalking me and following me like a creeper from a true-crime podcast isn’t the best way to go about it, but I remind myself he is a recluse.
Maybe he’s forgotten how to act normal, if he ever knew.
Today, of all days, Mr. X is unavailable, when I need his advice. Redirect, I think. I’m not playing a romance angle with him. I suspect that will only make things messy. But I don’t act yet. I want to see where this is going, because he’s likely to give me something I can use.
He laughs, but it’s a sad laugh, one that brings a bitter sneer to his upper lip.
“Worse than bad. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, what I’m saying is that I knew you were lying to me when we met, but I let you do it because you reminded me of her, or at least, the girl I thought she was. And I suppose that melted me a bit.”
I don’t know what Annie looks like because her face was covered in every available photo, but this isn’t information I’m supposed to have. So I carry on playing dumb, and I let him do the talking.
“She was tenacious like you. And creative.” There’s a playful gleam in his eye when he looks at me again. “Bit of a liar like you as well.”
Where is Annie, Bertram? I think. Did she run off to a better life, or is she six feet under somewhere?
“I’m not upset that you met me under false pretenses,” he says. “But you should know I’m a very private person. I can’t allow you to write a book about me. An article for a technology blog, sure, but nothing deeper than that.”
I bow my head. “Can’t blame me for trying. You’re just so fascinating, it was worth a shot.”
His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I hope you find a story that’s worth telling, Margaux. And I hope you get your publishing deal. But it won’t be with me. I hope you understand.”
I nod. This is still salvageable, I think. I can confer with Elodie and Mr. X and come up with a new plan. Seduce him, manipulate him, glue prosthetics to my face and try again under a false identity. Something.
But I’m too distracted to think right now.
I’m too worried about Mr. X and his silence and what it means.
Did Bertram already send someone to kill or subdue him?
I don’t dare grab my phone. I don’t want Bertram to realize I still have it on me.
He obviously wanted to meet me somewhere without cameras.
Working in tech, he’d know how to get around digital Big Brother.
Instead, I indulge him in this bizarre little picnic, because I don’t want to end up in the ocean next to Annie…
allegedly. And I think about how all these pieces could possibly add up in a way that makes sense.
Bertram is strange, to be sure, but he doesn’t give off that cool, detached, sociopathic vibe I’ve seen from so many of my marks.
And he doesn’t seem like a liar, either—more like he just keeps his cards close to the vest.
Still, the wrongness of this situation unsettles me.
For the first time, I want to abandon a mission.
I can hear Waylen’s voice in my head, begging me to do just that.
To come home and be the person I pretend to be.
I don’t hate interior decorating or event planning.
I’m good at it, even. In a split second, an alternate life flashes before my eyes.
Watching Collette graduate high school. Retiring on a beach somewhere with my husband, sipping pina coladas and checking my stock portfolios from my phone.
Never looking over my shoulder. Never receiving one more texted rundown of another criminal who needs to be held accountable for what they’ve done.
“I support your writing efforts,” Bertram tells me. “We need more people who create things. Especially now. Part of why I work solo is because I don’t like the way technology is being used. Sometimes I think we’d be better off going back to the nineties again.”
It’s such an unusual thing for someone like him to say. I can’t tell if he’s lying. Around him, my ability to detect bullshit always seems to be faulty.
“I really do support what you want to do,” he goes on. “But I ask that you don’t contact me again.”
By the time he’s returned me to my car, I’m left with more questions than answers. Elodie rings just as I’m climbing behind the steering wheel. “Have you been able to get ahold of Mr. X?” she asks me, stirring up the feeling of dread in my stomach once again.
“I’m going to check in on him,” I say, making the decision as soon as I’ve said it.
“You know where he is?” she asks, incredulous. “You’ve seen him?”
Mr. X hasn’t shared his real name with anyone. And he certainly hasn’t shown his face, though if you’re lucky you may catch a vehicle with tinted windows speeding by and suspect it’s him, following you to ensure you’re safe.
“It’s a long story,” I sigh. “I’ve known him since before he did…
all of this. But I need a favor from you.
” I glance at the clock and then at my rearview mirror.
Bertram’s driver pulls out into the street, dutifully obeying the speed limit as he drives away.
“I need you to pick up Collette. I’ll text you the address.
If she’s feeling well enough, she has dance class right after school.
I’ll swing by and get her from there after I’m done. ”
“Margaux?” Elodie sounds apprehensive. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”
“Uh-huh, of course!” I chirp. “See you later, and thanks.”
I am full of lies today.