JANUARY 2004
HARPER FLEW BACK TO LONDON ON THE FIRST FLIGHT she could get.
I wanted to beg her not to. We could fly anywhere.
We could hide, start over, sell off our jewelry and our handbags and live off the funds for the rest of our lives.
I wasn’t sure I could cope without being able to lose myself in a part, but for her I’d try.
For her I would drive and just keep going.
If I had stayed strong during the act, she had lasted the distance.
And now she was the one issuing plans. “They won’t have enough to arrest me,” she assured.
“And I’m too high profile to have anything other than an airtight case.
If they had all they needed, they wouldn’t politely be asking me to come to London; they’d have me arrested right now and extradited over. ”
I brought her hand to my lips, wanted to kiss each and every knuckle like I might never touch those hands again.
“We’ve got by this long because I, along with the rest of the world, believed Joel abandoned me. We might have suspected foul play, but now that’s been confirmed. Someone took him from me—so I’m going to go be devastated about it.”
“At least you’re a talented actress.”
She looped her fingers through mine and kissed me, a long lingering press of her lips that I tried not to think of as, potentially, our last.
She drew away with a smile. “I am what you made me.”
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Harper couldn’t phone me. If they suspected her, and they must, they’d tap her phone. If they knew I’d worked with her, it would be so much easier to piece everything together. Her innocence rested primarily on the fact she couldn’t have done this.
That we could was beside the point.
Which meant I traced her in headlines, rumors, and one of her own trackers slipped in her bag. I didn’t even bother shutting the laptop anymore; it was open at all times to a dozen news sites and gossip columns.
I worried about her without me. We were strongest together.
Proven by the day Amos knocked on my door.
“Are we storyboarding outfits? Or did we have a fitting?” I asked, blinking into the bright afternoon sun. I’d lost track of things like appointments or schedules.
“No,” Amos said, pushing past me and into the house.
“Then what are—”
“I keep thinking about that night,” he said.
My stomach clenched. There was, after all, only one night I thought of whenever anyone said that night.
“What night?”
He crossed his arms as he regarded me. He usually wore simple slacks and a button-down shirt—normally with a few too many buttons undone. But today his shoes were shined, his buckle gleaming, and his shirt collar was pressed flat, not the usual artistic crumple he favored.
He’d dressed up for me.
“The BAFTAs,” he said. “Your dress was a mess, your behavior erratic, you—”
“Really?” I interrupted, pulse pounding. I could cut this off. I could lie through my teeth. “What part of it wasn’t in keeping with my character?”
“Please,” he hissed. “I know well enough when you’re doing something for attention. That night was desperation. That’s rare from you. Even rarer when you’ve just won an award.”
“I don’t know what—”
“How did you get the buttons back up?”
I paused, forcing my hands behind my back before my twitching fingers could give me away. I could act, always. Put me in front of a watching audience or a lens and I’d persuade anyone of anything.
But not in front of the people who knew me. Not for the people I cared for.
“I helped you take that dress off, Nadine. So why put it back on to go out?”
“I didn’t have anything else.”
“And who helped you? Because it wasn’t me.”
“I … Caleb.”
“Helped you take it off, I’m sure. But on? You didn’t do it yourself.”
I wanted to lie, and I would have, if I could. But I had no name at the tip of my tongue. Someone from the hotel—but why wouldn’t I just get him? Some random hookup—who would keep that quiet? I’m Nadine Heywood. I’m the girl you brag about. Harper—let’s not.
So I went for scorn. I laughed. “Are you serious? You’ve come all the way over for that? How should I remember who helped me into a dress nearly a year ago? I was drinking anyway and—”
“Yes, you couldn’t remember what happened to the garment bag.”
“So sue me? What’s this about?”
“The police might find it interesting, don’t you think? These details of a girl who stayed in the same hotel as Joel and Harper around the same time he went missing. A girl who’s now fucking his wife.”
Oh my god, Amos thought I’d killed Joel. For Harper?
We hadn’t told him about the two of us, but I wasn’t surprised he knew—and I wouldn’t have been panicked that he did if he wasn’t here, throwing it all at me.
“I think they’d want to know why you’re wasting their time, actually,” I said coldly.
“Maybe.” He leaned against the edge of my sofa, picking at a straying thread. My heart pounded and through my mind ran flickering reels—movies, television shows, plays. Each one telling me the exact same thing, the way this story went: keep on killing to cover it up.
Until it all comes crumbling down.
I looked at Amos and I pictured it, doing as Harper did, grabbing a knife and plunging it in.
It was like I was back there, that night, and my stomach was tight, my breath short, and I was either going to have a panic attack or vomit, potentially both, and just like then my fingers itched for something to soothe it all.
Something to stop me thinking when these were the thoughts that crowded in.
“I always wanted to start my own fashion house,” he said. “But it’s so much to organize. I’d need people just to get it up and running. And that’s money, fabric is money, time is money.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How much money?”
“Probably around seventy-five thousand. But let’s say a sweet million just to be safe.”
I laughed. “You’re trying to extort me with some buttons?”
“If you didn’t have something to worry about, Nadine, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
I pressed my lips tight. I worried if I didn’t I might start crying. I wanted Harper. I wanted her by my side. If she were she’d be shutting him down with scathing retorts until, tail between his legs, Amos ran off and never spoke of all this again.
Or she’d be plunging the knife in all over again.
Fuck—okay, I could do this. I could take the out that wasn’t more blood. More horror.
“Fine. But I would have done it anyway,” I said, hating the sadness edging through. “If you told me you wanted to start a fashion label I would have given you the money happily. All you had to do was ask.”
I’ll never forget the way he looked at me: all that festering resentment, dug up and brought to the surface.
“We’re not your friends, Nadine. We just work for you.”
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Harper sent the occasional update through Adrian—that she was fine, keeping her head down, had withdrawn from all upcoming projects. And, finally, that she would be flying back on the first of February.
Ruchi arranged a car. I couldn’t be seen with her, but I couldn’t wait either, so I hid behind its blackout windows and went to collect her from the airport.
And then, finally, the doors slid open and the torrent of questions hurled through, lights shifted and flashed against the wall of the airport—and Harper was before me.
“It’s two p.m.,” she said. “They don’t need to keep the bloody flash on.”
I burst into tears.
She climbed into the seat next to me and wrapped her arms around me as I tried to stifle my sobs.
I don’t know why, or what specifically I was upset about, but I think it was the relief, the overwhelming flood of not having to hold it together anymore.
Of having someone who could pick up the slack, just for a moment, and give me some brief respite.
“I’m sorry I did this to you,” she said. “I’m sorry I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Just be here.”
I clutched the silk scarf she had draped around her neck like my trembling fist might be enough to cling to her. Like when they came for her, they would bring me too and maybe that might not be unbearable, if they took the both of us.
“Always,” she promised.
“Always,” she lied.
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“Shallow?” Harper read, sprawled across the bed in her robe, her hair twisted up in a towel.
I leaned over her to read the article and scoffed. “I’d like to see them try to dig a full six feet in the dark.”