Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Nina
June 2025
W hat Daniel said echoed through the little kitchen of the cabin on stilts. Half of that money is mine. Money? Nina had no idea what he was talking about. But if she knew Daniel—and she did, for better or for worse—she knew that the amount of money was important, that it was such a startlingly high amount that he’d taken himself out of the South American mountains, away from his brand-new and beautiful love, gotten on a plane, and traveled all the way to Nantucket to manipulate her into giving him half of it. After all, they were still married. But Nina still didn’t understand. If she wanted him to tell her anything, to give himself away, she had to be crafty. She had to play a part.
Nina let her face fall. Daniel huffed, still with his finger out, looking confident, like he’d won something. Nina reached for a kitchen chair, pulled it out, and sat down. She played the part of the defeated. Daniel watched her every move. Amos was watching her intently, too. Amos probably thought she’d lied to him about what she was after and that he’d been a pawn in a bizarre marriage game. But the truth was, all she wanted to know was whether Jack survived the fire. That was it.
But she wouldn’t be a good anthropologist if she didn’t acknowledge a human truth: so much more was always hiding beneath the surface.
There was always more to the story. And it seemed her dearly beloved husband knew far more than he’d ever let on.
Nina took a staggered breath, one that filled her eyes with tears. Yes, make yourself cry , she thought, grateful that her acting was kicking in. (That, or she really was that terrified of Daniel. Maybe it was a little of both.) Nina gestured at Amos and said, “Please, sit down, Amos. There’s, um, something I need to say.”
Amos hesitated, then reached for another chair, pulled it out, and sat. He looked at her warily. He didn’t know where to put his hands. But when Nina gestured for Daniel to sit, he hung back, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. He needed to remain above her so he could keep her in her place.
Nina clasped her hands and said to Daniel, “I should have known you would figure it out eventually.”
Daniel’s eyes glowed.
“I mean, this is you we’re talking about,” Nina said. “After all we’ve been through together, after the tribes we’ve studied and the papers we’ve written, after you got tenure before me, I can’t believe I thought I could keep something this enormous from you.”
Daniel looked triumphant. “I knew you were here in Nantucket from the minute I heard your voice on the phone,” he shot. “I could hear the water sloshing outside. I could feel that northeast wind. I reasoned that you’d come here when you really didn’t need me anymore. When you’d stopped using me for my money, you realized you finally needed to dip into your own. That sweet Whitmore treasure.”
Nina wanted to protest, to fight back against this horrible idea. She’d never wanted nor needed Daniel’s money and would have been just fine on her own. But she couldn’t throw sand into her beautiful web just yet.
Amos remained quiet as a stone.
“It didn’t take long to figure out where you were staying, either,” Daniel said. “I couldn’t find anything on the credit cards or the bank statements, but it turns out that you used PayPal. Almost genius, Nina! But most of your passwords are the same across all channels, so I got into your account.”
Nina cursed herself for doing that. Over and over again, she’d given him every conceivable entrance back into her life. But when you made up passwords, built up the boundaries of your life, you never imagined it would be your husband to break them down.
“Brilliant,” Nina echoed.
Daniel grinned. Nina had a flashing image of their wedding day, slicing the cake, saying promises they couldn’t keep.
Keep your eye on the ball, Nina , she thought.
“But I just can’t understand when you figured out the money stuff,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t know till recently.” She pressed her palms against the table and gazed into his eyes, hoping she looked half as cute as she had back in 2012, when they’d come here on their honeymoon.
Daniel smirked at her.
“I mean,” Nina said, poking around the subject she feared the most, “did you know about it when we were, um, here? In 2012?”
Daniel put his hands together and clapped. Nina’s blood ran cold.
“I’ve known about the money since before I met you,” Daniel said. “There have always been rumors flying about the Whitmore riches ‘hidden beneath the monstrosity of the burned-down White Oak Lodge.’ Maybe those gossip channels didn’t reach Nowhere, Michigan, but they were all over New Jersey. I wasn’t sure whether to believe them, that is until I found that old letter.”
Nina’s heart spasmed. What letter?
But Daniel had sensed her nerves. He bent down to say it in an evil whisper, “When we first started dating, I wanted to track down as much as I could about you. It’s what I do when I meet someone; it’s sort of romantic, you know? I wanted to know more about you than you knew about yourself.”
Nina wanted to point out what it really was: controlling behavior. But she hadn’t fully understood it back then. It had been nice that someone remembered her coffee order. It had been nice that someone was there to say good night to.
It had all been so nice. Until it wasn’t.
I had children with this man , she thought with horror.
“I dug around. I snooped. I asked questions,” Daniel said. “I realized that the rumors about the Whitmore riches had never really gone away. But more proof of them had been discovered—a letter left in the trash of an old Manhattan hotel. I ended up buying the letter off a collector on the West Coast, a collector fascinated by memorabilia from so-called elite families. I planned to give the letter to you, maybe on one of our wedding anniversaries, or, better yet, after we discovered the Whitmore treasure and kept it for ourselves. But when we got here, you revealed yourself to be so weak, so stupid. I realized I couldn’t give you the letter. I had to hold on to it for a rainy day.” Daniel winked. “Here’s that rainy day, darling.”
Nina felt his cruelty like a storm.
Quietly, she asked, “Did you only marry me to get to the Whitmore treasure?” She couldn’t believe what she was saying. As far as she knew, there was no treasure. As far as she knew, there was nothing but char and moldy walls and dilapidated foundations over at the White Oak Lodge. No such treasure existed.
Daniel laughed. “Don’t be silly. I married you for all sorts of reasons. It’s what people do.”
That echoed, too. It was what people did.
As though Nina had been a check mark on his résumé.
“But now, look at us,” Daniel said. “You’ve come back for the treasure, and I’m right beside you. Your darling husband.” He sniffed and looked at Amos. “I’m sorry, man. But you can’t have this. I’ve worked too long and too hard to achieve this dream.”
Nina remembered, now, that Daniel had confessed that his family money was drying up, that, when Deborah died, he wouldn’t get as much of her fortune as he’d once hoped for. Nina had told him that it didn’t matter, that they’d never relied on money for happiness. Daniel had given her one of his stony-eyed smiles.
It had all been a game to him.
“So,” Nina said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s this letter all about?”
Daniel looked hard at Amos. “Why can’t we get rid of him?”
“Darling, be reasonable. I didn’t make you get rid of Angie when I found out about her.”
Daniel’s eyes glinted with intrigue. “When did you find out, my love?”
Nina raised her shoulders. “You think I didn’t know the entire time?”
Daniel barked with laughter. He was pleased that Nina was finally playing his game. By turn, Nina felt as though she were about to pass out.
Amos looked officially awkward; his big hands stretched out on the table. Nina wanted to pull him aside and tell him that she was just acting. Amos didn’t know her, not really. Maybe he thought this was her true personality coming out. She imagined him thinking, this is why I never trust anyone . This is why I never leave my cabin .
“It was clever of you, Nina,” Daniel said, “to get rid of me before you officially pursued this. Well done.”
Nina made a face she hoped meant ha-ha, but I wasn’t clever enough for you!
“Now we can share it together,” Nina said, smiling. “But not today. Today, I want to read that letter. Today, we have to make sure the kids are okay.”
Daniel fixed his face. “Of course. The kids always come first. It’s why I got them out of camp.”
Nina imagined they’d been dragged out of there, kicking and screaming, Will saying, but what about my arts and crafts, my fishing, my friends?
“I better be getting home,” Amos said, his voice deep and strained.
Nina reached over to touch Amos’s shoulder. She didn’t want to show any grace on her face because she knew Daniel would sense her lies. But she did say, “Come on, we won’t kick you out. Don’t you want to know what’s in the letter? Don’t you want to hear more about this treasure?”
Amos looked as though he was struggling to read her face. He looked down and back up again. Daniel disappeared into his backpack to procure the letter, and Nina mouthed, “I’m sorry,” to Amos, hoping he understood. The light in Amos’s eyes shifted just the slightest bit.
That was when Daniel put a yellowed envelope before her that was addressed to Francesca—from Benjamin.
It was a letter from her father to her mother, dated 1997, the year before the White Oak Lodge burned down. Seeing her father’s handwriting again, those big, blocky letters, so masculine and sure, made Nina’s heart ache. It was impossible to imagine that he’d died the very next year. She picked up the letter. “Can I read this in private? Outside?”
Daniel laughed. “Don’t get any ideas, honey. I have plenty of copies where that came from.”
But Nina would never throw anything like this into the ocean. She would never destroy it. It was sacred.
She was terrified of what it would say.