15 Marley
Marley
“I’m going to call Lily.”
There was no way she was going to help move her brother-in-law’s body. Even breaking the news to Lily was preferable. She still thought they should search the house for Josh. And maybe for other . . . lurkers. But this came first.
The entire room seemed to flinch at the evocation of Lily’s name.
There was a suspended moment where Marley felt like she was outside her body, staring at herself along with everyone else.
But of course she had to call Lily. She and Lincoln had been together for almost ten years.
Their divorce hadn’t even been final for eighteen months.
“Oh my God, Lily,” Suzy said under her breath. Juliet covered her mouth with one hand.
It had been a nasty divorce. Horrible things had been whispered and then implied and then outright said on both sides.
Lincoln and Lily had had a prenup, and even though Lincoln had very clearly violated it, he had claimed that Lily had ceased to perform her wifely duties—a.k.a.
submit to his every sexual whim—for the last two years, so she had violated it first. Apparently there was a clause in the paperwork having to do with conjugal responsibilities.
Lily had come into the marriage with her own money and had left with that, plus her Audi, her jewelry, her clothes, and the wedding china, which Lincoln had always hated and which she had smashed piece by piece in the driveway on her last day in the house back in New Jersey that they’d shared throughout their marriage.
But Lily, despite all this, still loved him. And everyone in this room knew it.
“You know, I thought I saw her last night. At the party,” Suzy said absently.
“What? When?” Marshall asked.
“I don’t know. When Coco P. was playing?
” She put the dog down, and Wintour jumped up on the couch, curling into a tiny ball as far away from the windows as she could get.
“It wasn’t her, but it was really weird.
The woman really looked like her. I was on the dance floor, and I tried to follow her for a bit, but it was chaos, and I lost her in the crowd. ”
Marley’s pulse fluttered in her wrists, anxiety pulsing through her. “How do you know it wasn’t her?” she asked.
“She was wearing a hot-pink sequined jacket,” Suzy said.
“Oh, yeah. No way that was her,” Juliet said, like, End of story.
“Why not?” Marshall asked, clearly intrigued by this possibility. The excitement on his face made Marley’s skin crawl. Like he was excited that Lily might have been here because then he’d have another suspect for his murder theory. “It was a party. She could have been wearing anything.”
“Marshall. Have you even met Lily? She wouldn’t be caught dead in hot pink,” Suzy said and then slapped her hand over her mouth.
For a long moment, everyone held their breath.
The rain beat a steady rhythm against the windows and the glass doors.
As crass as her words were in this particular moment, Suzy wasn’t wrong.
Lily’s entire wardrobe was white, cream, beige, cloud gray, and pale-petal pink.
She had once worn a silver lamé gown to a gala, and people had talked about it for months.
There were three black dresses and two black suits in her wardrobe for funerals, and that was about it. Even in winter, the woman wore white.
“We should move him to the billiards room,” Sean said finally, his voice startlingly loud in the quiet room.
“What? Why?” Gemma asked.
“It’s on the first floor, and it has its own climate control.” He looked around at their blank faces. “He stores the cigars in there.”
Marshall nodded slowly. “We can lay him down on the couch. It’s big enough.”
“And crank up the AC,” Suzy said, catching on.
Grant took a deep breath and let it out noisily. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Marley turned away as the others went about figuring out the best way to move the body.
She stared out the glass sliders at the fronds of the plants around the pool whipping sideways in the wind.
This was a nightmare. But there was no way out but through.
She found the number for the wellness facility where Lily was staying and hit the call button.
Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of conversation going on behind her, so she quickly moved into the kitchen to make sure she could hear.
Trevor, who had been putting away glasses in the cabinet, quickly skulked away.
“Oak Mountain Wellness and Recovery! This is Beatrice speaking. How may I help you?”
“Would you please connect me to Lily Foster’s room?
Please?” she repeated. The patients at Lily’s facility were only allowed to use their phones for previously scheduled video calls, so she would have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Marley held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
She pulled out one of the stools at the gigantic kitchen island and sat down heavily, clutching her phone.
What was she going to say to Lily? How to even begin?
Computer keyboard keys clicked and clacked in the background.
“I’m sorry,” Beatrice said cheerily, “but we don’t have a client here by that name.”
“Yes, you do. Can you please check again?” Marley’s voice was strained.
Something crashed outside, and she imagined Beatrice in a sunlit office, completely removed from the disaster all around Marley.
It made her feel momentarily better, as if there was a light somewhere at the end of this godforsaken tunnel.
More typing. “Oh, I see. We did have someone here by that name, but she checked out of the facility last week.”
Marley’s fingers gripped the phone tighter. “What are you talking about? I spoke to her two days ago, and she was there.”
“Fraid not,” Beatrice said in her chipper voice. “Says here she checked herself out last Friday and paid her bill in full. Oops. Probably shouldn’t have said that about the payment. That feels like confidential information.” She giggled. “Can you keep that between us?”
This made no sense. When Marley had told Lily they were all going out to the Hamptons this week, she’d been at Oak Mountain. She’d talked about the runny eggs they’d served that morning and how she was going to group after they hung up. There was no way she’d checked out a week ago.
“Hello?” the woman said into the phone. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Yes. Sorry. Did Lily leave any forwarding information? Did she say where she was going?”
“No, I don’t see anything. Sometimes when our clients leave the facility, they like to take some time to themselves before transitioning back into their regular lives, if that makes sense.”
“Sure. Yeah. That makes sense,” Marley said.
But what she was thinking was that none of this made sense.
If Lily had been planning on leaving, why hadn’t she told Marley when they’d talked?
Actually, she’d already left when they’d talked.
Why hadn’t she said anything? Why had she lied?
Did she not want to see Marley? Where was she?
Had she gone back to that depressing condo she’d bought after the divorce?
She thought about the woman Suzy had seen in the crowd last night.
Could that have possibly been Lily? Yes, they all agreed, she’d never wear a hot-pink sequined jacket, but maybe that was the point.
Maybe she’d been using it as a sort of disguise.
She would have known that if she wore something flashy, her friends would have never looked twice.
If that woman on the dance floor was Lily, what had she been doing here? Could she have been here earlier in the day and somehow left the notes? Could she have hidden out somewhere until everyone had gone home, then found Lincoln by the pool and—
No. She wasn’t going to go there. Lily was her friend. Her best friend. She couldn’t have done something so unthinkable. She wasn’t at the party; she wasn’t anywhere near the party. She was out there somewhere, on her own and upset. Marley hoped she hadn’t gone on a bender. She hoped she was okay.
“Anything else I can do for you, hon?” Beatrice asked.
“No, thank you.” Marley hung up without saying goodbye. She got up slowly, her knees weak beneath her. Everything felt untethered. Lincoln was dead. Lily was gone. There was a storm raging all around them, and there was nowhere to go. No way to escape.
“Oh, Marley. Hello.” Magdelena had just walked into the room from the far door. She wiped her cheeks with her fingertips. Her eyes were bloodshot, her normally perfect bun sprouting locks of hair on either side. “I was just going to see about breakfast.”
“Let me help,” Marley said, shoving her phone into her pocket.
“No, no. It’s my job.” Magdelena waved her off and opened the refrigerator.
Marley’s heart went out to her. A few years back, she and Magdelena had bonded over a rather disastrous lemon merengue pie incident and had figured out they had a few things in common.
Namely, a passion for watching Premier League soccer and an obsession with YA fantasy novels.
Every now and then they’d text each other book recommendations or match scores, and occasionally they’d touch on more serious topics.
For example, Marley knew that Magdelena hadn’t taken it well when Lily was removed from her life.
And that she absolutely, positively did not like working for Hazel.
She’d loved Lincoln, though. Just like everyone else.
Marley went over to the fridge and was there when Magdelena closed the door, coming out with a carton of eggs in one hand and a bowl of fruit in the other.
“I’m going to hug you now,” Marley said.
Magdelena’s entire face broke. “Okay,” she whispered.
So Marley took the food from Magdelena, put it on the counter, and let the woman cry into her shoulder.
“I just can’t believe it,” Magdelena said. “Just yesterday we were talking about hosting Thanksgiving, and now he’s gone.”
“I know. It makes no sense,” Marley said, pulling back. “I don’t think it’s fully sunk in.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do now.” Magdelena grabbed a clean dish towel from a drawer and dabbed her face. “I’m going to have to look for a new job.”
“Hazel’s not going to fire you,” Marley said automatically.
“That woman can’t stand me. She thinks she knows how to craft a menu better than I do,” Magdelena said bitterly. “Miss Lily always trusted my taste and instincts. That one thinks I’m too old-fashioned. I’m not even forty! Do you see a gray hair?”
Marley shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, obviously, but even if she does let you go, I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding work. You’re a genius.”
Magdelena managed a weak smile. “Thank you. Maybe Miss Lily will hire me.”
“You haven’t heard from her, have you?” Marley asked. “From Lily?”
The cook wiped her hands on her apron and grabbed up the eggs again. “No. Why would I have?”
It was evasive, for sure. The first time since she’d entered the room that Magdelena wasn’t looking Marley in the eye.
“Are you sure? You haven’t . . . seen her?”
Magdelena looked up at that, her dark eyes clear. “I haven’t seen her since the day she walked out of the house almost two years ago. And I miss her every day.”
Marley felt that she had offended Magdelena somehow, and she didn’t know what to say. Her throat was so full she wasn’t sure she could speak at this point anyway.
“I’m sorry; I have to start cooking. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Yes, of course,” Marley muttered.
She turned and walked back into the great room, trying to catch her breath.
The emotional upheaval might actually kill her.
Gemma sat at the far end of the dining table, her elbows on the surface, her head in her hands.
Juliet was perched on the edge of one of the armchairs, staring at her phone in frustration. Everyone else was gone.
“He’s still not picking up,” Juliet said. “Did you talk to Lily?”
“No. She . . . wasn’t there.”
Juliet nodded, distracted. Clearly it didn’t occur to her that it was strange and even alarming that Lily wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Marley took in a long, deep breath and held it, then let it out slowly.
“Maybe we should do some yoga,” Juliet said, having noticed the deep breathing. She cocked her head thoughtfully. “Try to center ourselves?”
Marley bit back a sarcastic retort. Juliet was just Julieting.
“Maybe. But first I’m going to try Lily’s cell.”
She was about to hit the call button when a scream cut through the noise of the storm, desperate and terrified. Wintour jumped up on all fours on the couch and started barking nonstop.
“It’s the girls,” Gemma said, lifting her head. She shoved back from the table and shouted, “Grant! Did you—”
She didn’t finish her sentence, because Grant came tearing through the room, yanked open the sliders, and disappeared into the slicing rain.