7 Suzy
Suzy
Suzy’s favorite room at the Villa was the breakfast room.
She had been coming out here to the Hamptons with her friends for the last fifteen years—before she had kids, before Juliet and Josh had gotten married, before anyone had ever had a passing thought of divorce—and every morning the women would gather for coffee and to page through the papers and check the gossip stories on the internet.
It was a small hexagonal nook off the kitchen that was all windows, affording an incredible view of the sunrise over the trees in the backyard.
The round table was cozy and comfortable, with cushioned chairs that could recline to the diner’s preference, and the windows were lined with window seats, piled with pillows, under which built-in bookshelves served as a take-one-leave-one sort of library for guests.
At least, that was how it used to be. When Suzy retreated to the room after lunch, she’d found it completely changed.
There was a new square glass table surrounded by straight-backed Lucite chairs that looked more like torture devices, and the cushions had been removed from the window seats, the pillows nowhere to be found.
The cozy French-batik curtains were no longer, replaced by a sleek system of blinds that Suzy could not figure out how to adjust, and the books had been removed from the shelves.
She found them inside a stack of plastic boxes near the door marked “Junk,” and she had the sudden, rabid urge to stab someone.
So when the alert came in that Rainn Storms had a new post, she was on her hands and knees on the floor, sweating through her blouse, returning the books to their rightful homes. Was she supposed to shelve McClean before MacClean or vice versa? Gemma of the book industry would probably know.
Who was that woman, anyway? She couldn’t believe Lincoln had invited a new couple without telling any of them.
As if this year wasn’t going to be jarring enough with someone new in Lily’s place.
After everyone had excused themselves from lunch, Suzy had snuck a bottle of Shizzy’s and found it every bit as battery-acid-like as she’d expected.
She’d dumped it down the drain and shoved the bottle into the bottom of the recycling bin.
And the twins, while lovely and talented, might honestly end up kidnapping her dog.
They were all over Wintour from the moment they met.
She’d practically had to pry her little girl away from them at the end of the meal.
Shakily, Suzy clicked on the notification. Rainn was back, and now he had a red bar scrolling beneath him reading, Hurricane Sarah on collision course with new york/new Jersey/Connecticut Coastlines.
“I knew it!” Suzy cried. Wintour, who had been sitting peacefully on one of the benches, yipped. “Daddy never listens to me, Win,” she said, reaching over to scratch under the dog’s chin with one finger.
She went to text Sean and saw that Lincoln had read her five texts demanding he meet her in the breakfast room but hadn’t replied to a single one. She felt like she might actually spontaneously combust.
“What the hell are you doing on the floor?” Sean asked, stepping into the sunlit room.
“Sean! You scared the crap out of me!” Suzy’s heart pounded a mile a minute as she pressed her hand to her chest. Wintour barked a few times, admonishing her father.
“Sorry,” Sean said with a shrug.
“Hazel seems to think that books are junk,” Suzy replied, shoving MacClean in before McClean and standing up. She swiped her sweaty hands against her ass and blew a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Also, the hurricane is now coming right at us.”
She pushed her phone across the table so he could see the headline. Sean made no move to pick it up. He took one look and rolled his eyes.
“You can’t believe everything you see online.”
“He’s a certified meteorologist!” Suzy snapped. Wintour gave a yip to punctuate her statement.
“Oh, and are the teenagers outside certified cosmetologists or whatever?” Sean said in a mocking tone. Clearly he had seen her complimenting their work as embarrassing fangirling.
Suzy’s face burned. “Whatever. Let’s go home.
I don’t see the point of being here anymore.
” The very thought of leaving this place and its many minefields filled her with a sense of peace that she wouldn’t have been able to describe to Sean if he asked.
Away from Lincoln. Away from the notes and whoever had written them. Just away.
“We can’t up and leave. It’s Hamptons week,” Sean replied. “Besides, there’s something I need to talk to Lincoln about, and I’m not leaving before I do.”
Join the club, Suzy thought.
“Wait, how did you even know I was in here?” she asked.
It wasn’t as if he paid enough attention to her to know that this was her favorite room in the house.
“Lincoln said you were in here.” Sean sat on one of the chairs at the table. He went to lean back and hit his head against the tall, hard back of the chair, then winced. “He said I should come see what you were freaking out about.”
A shiver of fear raced down Suzy’s back.
Was this some kind of throwing down of the gauntlet from Lincoln?
Trying to force her into explaining their little arrangement to Sean?
She wondered if he could have possibly written the note.
It would make sense, in that as far as she knew, he was the only person on the planet who was aware that she was blackmailing him.
But then why not just confront her? Was he trying to be cute?
“So?” he said.
“So what?” she stalled.
“So what are you freaking out about?”
“The weather, obviously!” Suzy said, grabbing her phone off the table again. She waved her arms around to illustrate the enormity of the situation. Then she opened her messaging app and typed to Lincoln:
Screw you
Sean sighed and pulled his own phone out of his front shirt pocket, she assumed to check a “reputable” weather app. When he did, a small blue notecard fell out and landed with a clack on the table. He tried to grab it back, but it was too late. Suzy had already lunged for it.
“Suzy—”
“What’s this?”
It was, in fact, a note just like hers and Juliet’s and Marley’s. Same card stock, his name written on the envelope in the same handwriting.
But that didn’t make any sense. It hadn’t been on the bed when she’d found her own.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
Sean hung his head and shook it, a man defeated. “It was in the drawer of my bedside table.”
What the hell? Why would it have been there? Lily had always put their notes on their pillows. Which meant someone had purposely been trying to hide this one. With shaking hands, Suzy opened the torn envelope and pulled out the card.
Lincoln is going to replace you, and you’re going to go to jail.
Her vision grayed over. The nausea ramped up, sending bile up her throat. She went to the soda machine on the counter—at least Hazel hadn’t gotten rid of that yet—and filled a glass with ginger-flavored bubbly. Only when she’d downed half of it did she speak.
“Jail?” she said through her teeth. “What the hell is going on, Sean?”
“Suzy, I need you to take it down a—”
“Don’t tell me to take it down a notch!” she shouted, slamming her glass down so hard the soda sloshed over the rim. Wintour went berserk, barking and running back and forth on the bench. Suzy ignored her. “This is insanity! We need to go talk to Lincoln and hash this out. Right now.”
Sean launched out of the hideous chair. “No! No, we can’t do that. He’s with Hazel and the caterers. There’s some issue with the tents. They’re worried about high winds or something.” She leveled him with a glare, like, See? He ignored it. “He’s going to be stressed and preoccupied.”
“Well, I’m stressed and preoccupied. Doesn’t that matter to you?” she demanded.
“Are you ever not stressed and preoccupied?” he asked. “If it’s not about the drive out here, then it’s dust in Kasie’s cabin or the weather or the new clients and now these stupid notes. This is a vacation, Suzy. You’re supposed to be relaxing!”
The dog continued to yap, her little nails clipping against the wood surface of the bench.
“Well, someone is making it pretty difficult to do that!” Suzy snapped back.
“Wintour, shut up!” Sean shouted, red in the face.
“Don’t you tell her to shut up!” Suzy snatched Wintour up and held her. She instantly stopped barking. Sean hung his head, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and pointer finger.
“I’ll talk to him, okay?” he said in a much calmer voice. “I’ll find out who wrote this and whether there’s any truth to any of it. Just not right now.”
“But don’t you know?” Suzy asked, her whole body trembling in time with Wintour’s.
Was Lincoln trying to destroy them? Was he going to ruin Sean’s life as retribution for the blackmail?
She was such an idiot. She was not cut out for this kind of game, and she’d known that going in.
But the opportunity had been too good to pass up.
And she’d needed the money. If Sean ever found out how much she’d actually sunk into the Nantucket house, he’d divorce her in a blink.
“Have you done anything that could land you in jail, Sean?”
“I can’t believe you’d even ask me that,” he said, looking away, pushing his hands into his pockets. “No. I haven’t. You know I’m not a criminal, Suzy. Whatever this is, it’s not true.”
I’m a criminal, she thought and was almost on the verge of saying it out loud. What would it be like to just say it? To blurt it out and have it not be a secret anymore? I’m blackmailing your best friend.
The tightness in her chest coiled tighter. “But is he going to replace you? With who?”
“Damned if I know,” Sean said. “But if Lincoln thinks he can run that business without me, he’s sorely mistaken. He’d already be in jail if not for me.”
Suzy blinked. What the heck did that mean?
“There you are!” Juliet appeared at the door, her eyes bloodshot. “Suzy. We need to talk.” Wintour barked once.
“Are you breaking up with her?” Sean joked, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
“Now,” Juliet said sharply. And then, perhaps hearing her tone, added, “Please?”
“All righty then.” Sean took the note back from Suzy and tucked it into his pocket. Juliet’s gaze followed the envelope’s path like a hawk following a mouse. “I was just leaving.”
“What is it?” Suzy asked the moment he was gone. “What’s wrong?”
Juliet tossed her note down on the table. Suzy looked at it, and her vision momentarily hazed over.
Lincoln did a paternity test on the sly. Beckham is his baby.
“Whoever wrote these knows,” Juliet said, pale as the clouds outside the window. “How do they know, Suzy?”
The tightness in Suzy’s chest pulsed.
“I didn’t tell anyone. I swear.”
Juliet’s face was like stone. Suzy had never seen her so rigid. So suspicious.
“I swear on the life of my children, Juliet, I haven’t told a soul.”
“Then how? How could someone have written this?” Juliet demanded, her eyes going watery.
“I don’t know.”
Suzy took a breath. All signs pointed back to Lincoln again. He was the only person who knew that he’d had sex with Juliet. And the only person who knew that Suzy knew.
Closing her eyes against another wave of dread, Suzy sat on one of the hard chairs, still hugging Wintour to her chest. That day back in March when she’d called up Lincoln and said she was in the city on business and asked if he could meet for a drink was a day she would never forget.
It had been gray and windy, ice pelting from the sky as she yanked open the door to the posh Madison Avenue bar to meet him.
She’d felt like a drowned rat, but he had—of course—been perfectly unruffled as he sat at the bar, chatting with the square-jawed bartender.
He’d greeted her with a cheek kiss and a warm, unsuspecting hug and asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
And she, unable to hold her nerve for a second longer—worried that if she didn’t get right to it, she’d chicken out—had said, “I know about you and Juliet. And I’m willing to keep it a secret if you help me out of a bind.”
His face had fallen, but he’d also looked intrigued, maybe even a little impressed. At least, that was what she’d thought at the time. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure.
“Is it true? I mean, I know you said the timing sort of lined up, but is Beckham really . . .”
“I have no idea,” Juliet said. “But if Josh finds out—”
Suzy’s breath caught. She grabbed Juliet’s arm and stood again. “Did he get a note?”
“No. I thought none of the guys did.”
“Sean did,” Suzy said. “It was in one of the drawers. If they left one for Josh, it could—”
But she never finished her sentence. Juliet had already turned and run, the dog barking in her wake. Suzy slipped her friend’s note card from the table and shoved it deep into her pocket with her own.