Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
“Who the fuck is that?” I murmur at Bennett’s side, keeping my voice low enough that it doesn’t carry beyond us.
His gaze moves slowly over the small gathering in our backyard, taking in the women clustered near the bougainvillea hedge—Julia, Tara, Stephanie, Caroline, and a few other wives from the neighborhood, all of them balancing cocktails and grief with the same practiced elegance they bring to everything else.
I know every face here because I invited every face here.
The point of keeping this memorial small had been to make it feel intimate, controlled, contained.
Everyone is accounted for.
Everyone except her.
“Not sure,” Bennett says, his eyes narrowing as they settle on Phillip near the pool. Standing beside him is a young blonde woman in a bright, clingy sundress, her smile polite and uncertain, her whole presence jarring against the mood of the afternoon. “Maybe someone from work?”
“Really?” I turn to him, incredulous. “He’s the one who told me to keep it small. Ten people, that’s what he said. So how does he show up with a woman I’ve never seen in my life to Whitney’s memorial? I know everyone Whitney knew.”
Bennett glances down at me. “Everyone?”
“Everyone,” I say without hesitation.
He gives me a look that suggests he finds that unlikely, but I don’t care. Whitney and I told each other everything. Or at least I believed we did. There were no mystery women floating around the edges of her life. No young blondes in sundresses who somehow warranted a place at her memorial.
“Maybe she’s a cousin,” he says. “Or—”
“Or maybe she’s his mistress.”
Bennett’s brows lift. “I wouldn’t say that too loudly.”
“Why not? You know it’s probably true.” I keep my eyes on Phillip as I say it, watching the way he stands too close to the woman, the way his posture has already shifted around her—less bereaved husband, more man trying to maintain control of a situation that’s beginning to fray.
“That’s why he’s so detached. Whitney thought something was off.
She said he wasn’t the man she married.”
Bennett’s attention flickers back to me, something unreadable moving through his expression. “She said that?”
I nod. “Over brunch. More than once. For at least the last year.”
“Did she write any of that down?”
“No,” I say. “She said it to me.”
He doesn’t respond right away, and that silence needles at me. I can feel my anger rising again as I watch Phillip and the blonde woman standing shoulder to shoulder beside the pool like this is some casual garden party instead of a memorial for his missing wife.
“What else could it be?” I mutter. “He came here with her. He literally slipped through the hedge with his mistress.”
Bennett straightens then, decision hardening across his face. “Well,” he says, already moving toward the pool, “let’s find out.”
I hurry after him, my pulse quickening. “How exactly do you plan to do that?”
By the time we reach Phillip, Bennett’s expression has smoothed into something warm and effortless, the kind of charm that has opened doors for him his entire life. He claps Phillip lightly on the back.
“Phillip. How are you holding up?”
Phillip’s eyes flick between us, wary and flat. “Fine,” he says after a beat. “Considering.”
He places a hand near the blonde woman’s elbow, not quite touching her but claiming her space all the same. “This is Chrissy, my executive assistant. She’s been a lifesaver these last few weeks.”
“I bet,” I say before I can stop myself.
The words slip out sharper than I intended, and the silence that follows them is brief but unmistakable.
This is her. The woman Whitney told me about over brunch that day, the one behind the phone records and all those unanswered questions.
Whitney had been right. Every ugly suspicion she voiced had been true.
Phillip’s gaze turns glacial, colder even than usual, and I have to force myself not to say the thing sitting hot and ready on my tongue—that he killed his wife and brought his replacement to the memorial.
Bennett steps in smoothly before the moment can sour any further. “Nice to meet you, Chrissy,” he says, offering his hand. “Did you know Whitney?”
“No.” She smiles too quickly, her voice sweet in that practiced, agreeable way some women have. “Phillip hired me a few months ago, so we didn’t really get the chance. It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind.”
“I’m sure it has,” I say, and this time I manage to keep my tone polite, if tight.
Phillip seems to sense the direction of my thoughts because he takes a step away from Chrissy and claps a hand on Bennett’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you about something,” he says. “Business.”
Bennett glances at me briefly, then nods. “Of course.”
I watch them walk off together toward the edge of the yard, toward the bay, their heads already bent in conversation. The second they’re out of earshot, I turn back to Chrissy with the warmest smile I can manage.
“Are you enjoying working with Phillip?”
“Oh, sure.” She gives a nervous little laugh and glances around the yard, and I can tell immediately that she knows she doesn’t belong here.
She’s young—too young, probably not even thirty—and whatever dress she’s wearing came straight off a rack somewhere local, the kind of thing you’d pick up on impulse in a beach boutique.
There’s nothing wrong with that, not really, but everything about her feels out of step with this crowd, with this neighborhood, with Whitney’s life.
Whitney was raised in rooms like this. She knew the rules, the signals, the brands people pretended not to notice while always noticing.
Chrissy looks like what she is: new.
And temporary.
“Phillip can be intense,” I say lightly. “He and my husband have worked together a bit, so I know how demanding he can be.”
“Oh, really?” She reaches for a flute of champagne from a passing tray and takes a sip, swallowing too fast, like she’s trying to steady herself. “He’s been really kind, actually.”
Kind.
The word is so absurd in relation to Phillip that I almost laugh.
“How long have you known Whitney?” she asks after a beat, and the question comes out tentative, like she realizes too late how inappropriate it sounds.
“Forever,” I say, more sharply than I mean to. Then I soften it. “Or close enough. We met in college. We were like sisters.”
“Oh.” She nods and looks down into her glass.
“It is a little strange,” I continue, because I can’t help myself, “you being here when you didn’t know her.”
Her eyes widen immediately. “Oh—I was already with Phillip this morning, helping him with some business things, and he said it wouldn’t be a big deal if I came.”
“Of course it’s not a big deal,” I say with a smile so polished it almost hurts. “It’s just interesting, given that he only agreed to this memorial if we kept it very small. ‘Closest friends only,’ he said.”
She doesn’t answer, but I can see the discomfort settling over her now, the first real crack in the glossy politeness. Good.
“So do you work through an agency?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I used to work at the coffee shop across from his office. That’s how we met. He came in every morning and ordered the same drip coffee, and one day we just… started talking.”
“Just started talking,” I repeat, letting the phrase linger between us.
“Yeah.” Her voice trails off as her eyes dart across the pool to Phillip. He’s already watching us. When their gazes meet, he lifts one eyebrow, subtle but unmistakable.
I keep my expression soft. “Have you been an executive assistant before?”
She hesitates. “No.”
“That didn’t strike you as odd?” I ask. “A man like Phillip hiring someone with no experience?”
Her fingers tighten slightly around the stem of her champagne glass. “I guess I just thought it was an opportunity. Working in customer service is hard.”
“I’m sure it is. Then again, so is being the executive assistant to a multimillion-dollar businessman.”
She gives me a bright little grin that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I like a challenge.”
“I’m sure you do.” I let my gaze rest on her for just a moment longer. “Have you been spending a lot of time at Whitney’s house?”
“Phillip mostly works from home,” she says. “The office in Tigertail Village is more of a… satellite thing.”
I tilt my head. “Is that what he told you?”
Her confidence falters. “Yes.”
“That’s interesting,” I say. “This is the first I’m hearing about an office in the village. I wonder if Whitney even knew.”
Chrissy says nothing to that. She looks young suddenly, not just in age but in instinct, like someone who wandered into deep water and is only now realizing she can’t touch the bottom.
I’m on the verge of inviting her to brunch, of throwing out a line and seeing whether she’ll take it, when Phillip appears beside her again, his smile thin and clearly forced.
“How are you two girls getting along?”
I hate that he calls us girls, hate that he thinks the word softens anything, but I let it pass.
“Chrissy is lovely,” I say smoothly. “I was just asking if she might want to join me for brunch sometime this weekend.”
Phillip cuts in before she can answer. “I don’t think that’s the best idea. We’ve both been so busy with—”
“I understand,” I say, slicing cleanly through whatever lie he was about to build. “Let me know when your schedule opens up, Chrissy. I’m always here if you need a friend.”
The last part is deliberate, laid on thicker than necessary, but this woman clearly has access to parts of Phillip’s life I don’t. If I’m going to figure out what happened to Whitney, I may need Phillip’s little blonde accessory to trust me first.
Chrissy smiles, relief returning to her face now that the conversation is drifting away from dangerous ground. “Thank you for putting all of this together,” she says. “Phillip has been so distraught, and between the paperwork and everything else…”
I almost laugh at the lie of it.
“It’s no trouble at all,” I say instead, swallowing down the bitterness. “Whitney was… we just miss her so much.”
Chrissy nods, glances once at Phillip for reassurance, then wanders off toward the buffet table piled high with crustless sandwiches and bacon-wrapped bullshit.
Phillip follows her a moment later without so much as a thank-you. He doesn’t even look at me, even though I’m the one hosting this gathering, the one doing what he apparently couldn’t be bothered to do for his own wife.
The second they’re out of earshot, I lean into Bennett and murmur, “I hate him.”
“McCullough—”
“Don’t McCullough me. This is weird and you know it.”
“He’s going through a lot.”
I turn to look at him. “I don’t care. This looks bad. Really bad. Bringing your mistress to your wife’s memorial? Can you even believe that?”
“He’s probably not thinking straight,” Bennett says, and the sympathy in his voice makes me want to scream.
“I don’t think he’s ever thought straight. God knows what Whitney was living with behind closed doors.”
Bennett studies my face, his expression sharpening. “I don’t like that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re about to do something.”
I hold his gaze. “I’m starting to think Whitney had more secrets than she let on.”
He lets out a quiet breath. “Everyone does.”
“Not like this. Not Whitney and me. She knew everything about me, and I thought I knew everything about her.”
Bennett makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, somewhere between doubt and resignation, then pulls me fully into his arms. He cups my face in both hands and makes me look at him.
“You are like a dog with a bone,” he says, not unkindly. “Please don’t do anything we’ll both regret.”
I give him my most innocent smile. “I’ll try.”
He laughs under his breath, shaking his head. “You keep me on my toes.”
“That’s the goal. Otherwise you might trade me in for a twenty-year-old executive assistant.”
That gets a real laugh out of him.
“I don’t know much,” he says, “but I do know there’s no way in hell that woman is just his assistant.”
“Thank you.” I feel something in me loosen for the first time all afternoon. “I knew you were on my team.”
“I’m always on your team, babe. You never have to wonder about that.” He glances across the yard, toward Chrissy. “Maybe do the neighborly thing and invite her to that charity brunch you’ve been planning.”
“You think?”
He shrugs. “Maybe. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
I nod slowly, emotion rising so suddenly it catches me off guard.
Bennett is good. Steady. Safe. And standing beside him now, looking across the yard at Phillip and the woman who has taken up space in Whitney’s absence, I’m struck by how easily my best friend may have mistaken a monster for security.
It wouldn’t be the first time a charming man got close enough to do damage.
“Thank you for being exactly who you are,” I murmur, rising onto my toes to kiss him softly. Then I pull back and add, “But just so we’re clear—if you ever suggest buying a boat, the answer is absolutely not.”
Bennett laughs, loud enough to ripple through the backyard. “Got it, babe. Message received.”
And even as I smile, my eyes drift back to Phillip.
He is hiding something.
I know it now with the same certainty I know my own name.
And sooner or later, I’m going to make him prove it.