Chapter 5
A breeze through the open balcony door lifted Bonnie’s hair off the nape of her neck. She raised her head and sucked in a deep lungful of fresh air. It steadied her enough to stand up and collect her belongings off the balcony. She carried the letter downstairs, wandering toward the study.
Her conversation with Mike rolled around in her head, each comment filtering through everything she knew about him and his relationship with her husband. She tried to remember everything Peter had mentioned about his business partner, focusing on any reference to tensions between the two men.
She drew a blank. Nothing at all came to mind. Figuring a change of scenery might help, Bonnie let herself into Peter’s office again. It looked much the same in daylight as it had the night before—maybe a bit dustier since the rays of the sun caught more of the corners in the bookshelves that had been dark during the storm. She wandered in a slow circle through the room, taking it all in with new eyes.
Before, she’d been looking for a message from Peter. Now, she was searching for some connection to Mike. More importantly, what could have happened between them that would’ve led to the dissolution of a nearly twenty-five-year partnership?
She thought back to eight months ago, trying to remember what had been going on in her life. Maybe she could recall some hint in Peter’s mood at that point—or a sudden business trip, or particularly late nights at the office.
The problem with that plan was that Bonnie’s life had been in such a steady, familiar rhythm for so many years it was hard to sort through the different seasons. Every day was much the same, from the moment she woke up and cooked breakfast for herself and Peter, to the moment they went to bed every evening.
It would be easier to take all the crumbs on the kitchen counter and turn them back into a slice of toast, than to know exactly what was happening in her life eight months ago.
She scanned the bookshelves, looking for Peter’s date book or an old calendar. Maybe looking at his rhythms would help. As monotonous as her life was, Peter’s was clearly full of surprises.
That thought stopped her cold.
Since when did she think of her life as monotonous?
Bonnie sank into the desk chair, all the air whooshing out of her lungs. Sure, there had been a lot more excitement in her life in the past few days than in the past few years. But it wasn’t good excitement. Every single moment of it had been excruciating and scary, with the exception of the first few hours of her hike that morning.
She would trade all of it in a heartbeat for the security of her monotonous, boring life.
The temptation to sink into another sob fest was high, but Bonnie resisted. She didn’t get to have her monotonous, boring life anymore. The morning hike had proven that, because the moment she stopped paying attention, she walked headfirst into danger. Coyotes might be frightening, but so was the prospect of losing the few assets she had left. She didn’t have to be strong for her kids anymore, but she did need to be strong for herself.
She looked at the list of logins Peter left again and tried to stay calm to think about things rationally. She went back to the question she’d been working through before her call to Mike. If the list of logins didn’t lead her to a stash of money, what was it hiding, and why couldn’t Peter use it to help himself out?
All of a sudden, it snapped into place.
Mike’s comment about speaking through attorneys led Bonnie to only one possible conclusion: this was Mike’s fault. He’d done something to sabotage Peter’s livelihood. Whether it was legal but underhanded or totally against the law, she couldn’t say. But it was the only thing that made sense.
Peter had built his business from nothing. He wouldn’t risk all of that achievement for no reason—that wasn’t the kind of man he was. But he also wasn’t the kind of man who would shy away from placing blame where it belonged.
Unless it was for very close friends.
She could understand her husband’s impulse to avoid speaking ill of Mike in front of her. He knew how close their families had become over the years, and how much it would upset Bonnie and the kids to learn about a betrayal like that. Based on how angry she’d just gotten and how desperately she wanted to make Mike pay for what he’d done, she could only imagine how much worse her anger would have been if Peter had sat her down and told her one of their oldest friends had ruined their lives. With all the details, Bonnie was sure her reaction would have been even stronger.
She shook her head, heartbroken all over again. She couldn’t reconcile what kind of friend Mike was if he could do something like this to her family. Her mind whirled with what awful thing it could’ve been—a Ponzi scheme, or maybe it was just a moment of carelessness with an unbelievable price tag that they couldn’t recover from. Either way, it was a terrible realization to have.
It certainly explained some of Charles’ reluctance to talk to her, too. As Peter’s attorney, he would have been aware of whatever nefarious deeds Mike was up to and, as a friend of theirs and frequent guest of dinner parties and get-togethers, he would have seen how close the Wilkins were to Mike’s family. She could better understand the impulse everyone had to protect her and hide information from her, since it wasn’t just a financial disaster but an emotional one, too.
What a mess, she thought. It all seemed so sordid and soap opera-like. She didn’t think people betrayed each other like that in real life. Greed was a real impulse, sure, but she never thought she knew anyone who would prioritize their own gain over their connections to other people. She’d certainly never thought that way about anyone Peter did business with. He’d always shown good, discerning judgment and a strong commitment to only associating with people he respected.
It was unfathomable that Peter could have been so wrong about Mike, and that it had cost them all so much. Part of her wondered if she was irrationally jumping to conclusions out of frustration rather than based on any kind of evidence. What she needed now was someone to talk about this with. She needed a reality check from an outside voice to make sure she wasn’t full-speed ahead on a wild ride based on one uncomfortable discussion.
Heaven knows she’d been in a strange headspace recently. All of the stress from Peter’s death and the harrowing day she’d had in Albany could’ve gotten to her. There were so many gaps in what she knew it was possible she’d invented a whole terrifying situation out of thin air.
Normally, this was the sort of stress she’d talk through with Peter. Infinitely practical, he would always help her unravel unreasonable scenarios. But he couldn’t help her now. She had to find someone else to work out her concerns with.
Jackie was her first instinct. Her daughter had inherited her father’s calm, logical demeanor. She had the same impressive ability to think on her feet and hold a lot of information in her head at once. It was part of what made her so good at her sales job. Bonnie was confident she could recount everything Mike said to her, and Jackie would have her concerns ironed out in under an hour. She also already had an inkling of what was going on because of their phone call yesterday.
But Bonnie squashed that impulse. She’d already bothered her daughter once about this issue, and Jackie had been extremely concerned. The last thing she wanted was for Jackie to feel obligated to drop everything and rush home to New York to set her mother straight. Plus, the connection she’d shared with her father was something precious, and Bonnie wasn’t interested in damaging it.
Presenting Jackie with this information could permanently spoil her daughter’s memory of the man who had always been her hero. Bonnie didn’t want to risk Jackie digging into this mess and coming away with an unflattering image of her father. That was a burden she would bear alone.
She thought about James next. Her son wasn’t as logical as his sister, but he was just as smart. James had always been a bit more whimsical than Jackie and, like Bonnie, more prone to jumping to conclusions. He might not have as many astute, sharp observations as Jackie, but he might be able to give her some much-needed perspective.
Bonnie sighed, turning her phone around and around in her hands. The risk of calling James, though, was that as soon as she hung up the phone, he would likely call his sister. Heck, he might even start texting her during the phone call. That had been known to happen before. Bonnie didn’t want to ask her children to keep secrets from each other. It wouldn’t be fair to put either of them in that position. She simply couldn’t risk James bringing Jackie into things.
She also didn’t want James to think poorly of his father. Then there was the matter of Mike’s children. They’d always been friends with James, primarily, due to the boys’ ages, but Jackie had hung out with them plenty as well. Blaming their father for the financial mess the Wilkins were in could fracture those relationships. Bonnie wasn’t interested in causing more pain for anyone in this scenario. All she wanted was to fix it and move on.
A dull pulse started blooming behind her left eye—the first signs of a headache. She turned to face the window, wondering who on Earth she could turn to. Everyone she knew had some connection to Peter, Mike, or both men. Her life had been intertwined with her husband’s for so long that it had been nearly impossible to cultivate a friendship with someone who wasn’t also part of Peter’s world.
What seemed normal at the time now meant she was alone. She didn’t know how to find someone trustworthy to talk to about all she’d been dealt over the last twenty-four hours. A laugh bubbled in her chest at the idea of her walking into town, sitting next to a stranger at the diner, and striking up a conversation so she could get a scrap of advice. The whole thing was totally absurd.
Movement outside caught her eye. She stood up eagerly, wondering if it was her mysterious cat friend. That would be a welcome distraction from her current problems. Focusing on making sure the cat was safe and not someone’s lost pet would be a welcome change from the circular, maddening rumination she’d been trapped in all afternoon.
But it wasn’t the cat out the window. Like a bad penny, turning up again and again, the movement out her window was none other than Jack Barlow. He was walking between their yards toward the composting bin that sat on the edge of his property, a bucket of kitchen scraps in his hand.
She was disappointed he wasn’t the cat, but watching him gave her an idea. For the second time that day, she felt a tiny glimmer of hope in her chest. Maybe there was a way to get the answers she craved after all.