Chapter 21
WHEN I GET BACK TO THE HOUSE WITH THE COOKIES, ALEX WALKS out of his office. He waves a clutch of computer paper in his hands, and I tense. My first fifty pages?
“This is terrific, Emma.” He removes his reading glasses and stuffs them in his shirt pocket. “I’m headed back to Boston later. My agent called me this morning. He’s in town, and I’m having him up to the apartment for dinner. Why don’t you join us?”
Before I can answer, Sunny appears from the kitchen. “You think that’s a good idea, Dad? What about Liliana? Do you think she’s up for a dinner party with a slew of people over?”
“It won’t be a slew of people this time. Barry’s in town. You know I always have him over when he’s in Boston.”
Sunny’s gaze turns on me. “You really need Emma there?”
I bristle, determined now to go.
“Of course. I want her to meet Barry. You’ll be there too, right? I’m sure he wants to see you. You two can put your heads together over the book tour schedule.”
This all seems odd to me. My father doesn’t seem put off at all by Simon’s murder. It’s business as usual, yet the thought of meeting his agent and Alex’s approval of my manuscript have me yearning to go along, forget all that’s happened here.
“Emma, you want to drive my car back? I’ll take Liliana’s. We’ll leave”—he glances at his watch—“about four. That okay?”
“Yes, fine. Thank you.”
He hands me my novel pages. “I’ve made a few notes. Just suggestions. But I was really impressed.”
I retreat to my room, afraid to read the red squiggles I see on the papers out of the corner of my eye. I sit on the bed, lean against the headboard, and read.
My heart pounds the whole time, but I start to relax as I go through Alex’s notes. They are great suggestions and not the searing criticism I was afraid of.
But I have mixed feelings about the dinner in Boston. There’s an active murder investigation here where all of us are suspected, except Alex and Sunny, of course, who were in Boston at the time. And now with Aubrey missing. It seems somehow wrong to go to a dinner party.
But Alex wants me there. The prospect of moving forward with my novel, having a real shot at getting published, in different circumstances, would have thrilled me, excited me, but the gloom here—Simon’s death, an unknown murderer, my dead aunt—tugs at me like a shadow.
I peer out the window and see Noah in his backyard raking leaves. I throw on my jacket and head down the back staircase.
Leaves crackle under my boots. He looks up as I approach.
“Hey, Emma.” He rests a hand atop the rake. “Fall’s here for real.”
“Yes. I usually love this time of year.”
“Usually?”
“Well, this year has certainly been different.”
He smiles. “It’s always different here at Cheshire Lake.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just being poetic and failing miserably. What have you been up to?”
“Working on my novel.” I glance up at the back of the house. “You heard about Aubrey?”
“Yeah. I think Dale has been by everybody’s place.”
“Where do you think she is?”
“I have no idea, but they’ve had arguments before, and I know Simon’s death has her really amped up. The cops seem to be concentrating on their side of the lake. I guess since Simon was found over there. Hopefully, she just needed to get away for a while.”
“I hope she’s okay.” My gaze shifts to the tall trees in Noah’s yard.
They’re nearly bare now, their spent leaves covering the grass.
“Alex invited me to dinner at his apartment tonight. His agent is in town and Alex wants me there.” I feel like I want someone else’s opinion, almost like permission.
Am I doing the right thing? Moving past Simon’s death somehow, forgetting about the murder.
“That’s great. Alex has the contacts in the business if you need a little help.”
“Seems almost unfair.”
“Nepotism?”
“Yeah. Shouldn’t I go through the regular channels? Make my own way?”
Noah sighs. “Who you know, Emma. The way of the world.”
“I guess.”
“Hey. A good story finds a way with or without Daddy’s help.” He starts raking again. “Don’t worry about it.”
But I do. Worry. Everything seems to be happening too fast here. “Alex seems, I don’t know, like nothing bad has happened. He doesn’t seem concerned that one of us might be a murderer. And I know he cared about Simon and he’s so good to Ruth. I just don’t quite understand him.”
Noah stops raking and his gaze meets mine.
“That’s Alex. He was the golden boy around here growing up.
His mother doted on him, Ruth too. Since she didn’t have any children of her own, she was always all about Alex.
And it’s the way we were raised here. Money.
They say absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Same kind of thing with money and the two often go hand in hand. ”
“Aren’t you the philosopher this morning?”
Noah props the rake against a tree, frowns, and gives the yard a cursory look like he’s lost a battle clearing leaves.
The trees have won. “Sorry. And I don’t mean to say that Alex or any of us here are corrupt.
It’s just that money does provide a certain buffer against life’s problems. It makes you feel immune in a way.
When Alex was in boarding school, he wrecked his car.
Some luxury vehicle, of course. He and his buddies were drinking, and they hit another car.
The woman they hit was paralyzed. Alex’s dad took care of it.
Paid her off and it just went away. Then Mr. Spencer bought Alex a new car, like nothing ever happened.
That’s what I heard anyway, as a nosey little kid listening in to the gossip. ”
“So, no repercussions from the law?”
“Not that I ever heard. You’ve read The Great Gatsby?”
“Of course.”
“That’s kind of what I’m talking about. Money makes some people careless, self-centered.”
“Are you saying that my father is like the characters in that book?”
Noah laughs. “No. Sorry. I’m just saying that Alex goes through life expecting only good things to happen to him. I know he was close to Simon, and he feels bad, but he also figures his life will go along in its usual happy, successful path.”
“And the murderer?”
“I think everyone here is torn between it was one of us or the cops got it wrong. It couldn’t possibly be murder. And most of the time they’re clinging to the latter.”
A cold breeze flutters my hair and I shiver. “How could they think that. The autopsy …”
“Again. These people believe what they want to believe, Emma.”
“What about you?”
“I like to think I’m different. I believe what the cops are saying, but I just can’t fathom who it could be.”
“No theories?”
He looks off into the woods. “No.”
But I don’t believe him.