47 Gemma
Gemma
Two days passed before Gemma felt like she was composed enough to talk to Grant.
His lawyers—a couple of old friends from law school who had gotten into criminal law—had argued that there wasn’t nearly enough evidence to hold him, but he had been told not to leave the state of New York while the authorities swept the Villa.
As if that was going to happen any time soon.
Grant was currently stuck in a bed at Nassau County Medical Center, his right leg broken in five places, his wrist sprained, a few dozen stitches in his face.
Gemma was paying money they didn’t have for a motel room in Merrick, New York, so that she could be close by.
She’d sent the girls back to Atlanta to stay with her parents, who had retired near the beach there. They didn’t need to be here for the fallout to come.
It was a bright, balmy morning when Gemma finally approached her husband.
She was freshly showered, wearing her most comfortable joggers and a loose linen tank when she stepped into his hospital room.
His leg was suspended above the bed in a hammock and full cast, while he lay flat with his eyes on the ceiling.
A flimsy hospital gown was askew across his broad chest, and his beard had been half shaved off to make way for the stitches.
There was a plate of untouched toast in front of him and apple juice on a tray next to his bed.
When she sat down in the chair next to him, he looked wary. She pulled a bottle of water from her bag and took a sip, then offered him the bottle. He shook his head.
“Leyth and Richard are going to be here in an hour,” she told him. The lawyers. Coming to start putting together a timeline and a strategy. “You’re going to tell me what happened, from beginning to end.”
She got up, peeled the foil top from the apple juice, and placed a straw into the cup. Then she used the bed remote to sit him up enough for him to drink. He winced but didn’t complain, and leaned forward to take a few sips. He sighed heavily as he dropped back against the cushions.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Start talking.” She put the apple juice down and sat again.
“Now?”
“You’re going to do it now, or I’m walking out that door, and you’re never going to see me or the girls again.”
She wasn’t bluffing. She had already packed her bags, just in case this went south. In fact, she was thinking about leaving even if this didn’t go south. After everything that had happened, she needed space. Time to be by herself and think. But she needed all the information first.
This time, when Grant took a breath, a tiny wail escaped. It was a desperate, sad sound she would have thought her husband incapable of producing.
“Lincoln didn’t invite us this week. We crashed.”
Gemma blinked, surprised but not shocked.
This possibility had occurred to her in the middle of the night last night when she was turning over every last thing that had happened this weekend, and then the past few weeks, and then the past few months.
Every conversation, every expression, every tone.
What Lily had said at the craft room that night about being shocked Lincoln had invited them had led her to wonder . . . Had he?
“Explain, please,” she said.
Grant shoved his good hand into the mattress at his side and attempted to push himself up straighter. All he succeeded in doing was knocking himself crooked, and Gemma had to get up and nudge him into a more comfortable position.
“You kept talking about how I should call Lincoln,” Grant explained. “How he’d definitely help, but I wasn’t as sure as you were. Lincoln and I never really got along. I know you and Lily thought we did, but he was always kind of a dick to me.”
Gemma’s brow knit. This tracked with what Lily had told her, of course, but there was something about the way Grant said it that made her uncomfortable. As if he was trying to justify what he’d done. He never really laughed at my jokes, so I killed him.
“He was always perfectly nice to you,” she said.
Though she knew that wasn’t entirely true.
In her hours and hours of thinking time, she had come to realize that Lincoln did often ignore Grant when he was trying to be funny.
Or shoot down his ideas for activities or restaurants when they were on vacation, for no obvious reason other than the fact that it was Grant suggesting them.
But Gemma had always thought that was a guy thing—natural jackassery.
Until Lily had indicated otherwise. Certainly, she had never known that Grant was hurt by it.
“See, that’s what you think, but you’re wrong.
He talked down to me all the time.” Grant turned his palms up on the table.
“He was just really good at the backhanded compliment. He clearly thought I was a joke. Whatever, let’s just say I didn’t think cold-calling him in desperation was going to help my cause.
He would have just laughed me off and lost whatever iota of respect he might have had for me.
But you were also right. I knew there was a good shot he’d be able to give me a job. Even if it was a demotion.”
“So you decided to crash Hamptons week,” she said.
“I figured if I showed up and brought you and the girls, he wouldn’t be able to just throw me out,” he said. “And I was right.”
“Oh my God, Grant. How humiliating.”
“I just needed a day or two to talk to him and explain what I could bring to the table,” Grant said, turning his palm up. “I thought doing it in person would make a difference. And I also thought he would respect the risk I took just showing up there.”
“And?” she said. “Did he?”
Grant tipped his head back, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. His eyes unfocused again. “He put us in the guesthouse to keep us away from his real friends, so.”
Gemma shook her head, a wry chuckle escaping her. And here she thought they’d been getting special treatment by scoring the guesthouse.
“He basically avoided me that whole first day, making excuses, saying he had to help with the party. I knew I had to get him alone somehow, so I resigned myself to waiting for the next morning. But then I couldn’t sleep after the party—you know I think those Shizzy’s have caffeine in them?”
He looked at her as if expecting a response. She stared back. Grant sighed.
“So I was drinking a Shizzy’s, and I went outside to check out the storm, and I could see someone moving around over by the pool, and I recognized it was Lincoln.
I mean, who else could it be? He’s so tall, and it was after two a.m. Whatever he was doing, I figured I’d go help and then make my pitch. ”
Out in the hallway, a doctor was paged. Someone at the nurse’s desk laughed loudly. Gemma squirmed a bit in her seat, shivering, wishing she had brought a sweater. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this next part, but she had to know.
“What happened then?”
“I went up there, and he was unplugging the speakers and putting them away. He told me he didn’t need any help, but I took one and followed him inside with it, to the storage room.
” Grant reached for the apple juice and was able to work it himself this time.
He placed the cup back down on the tray, empty, before he continued the story.
“When we were in there and out of the rain, I told him I just wanted fifteen minutes. That Lily would want him to hear me out. He said now was not the time, and, in retrospect, he was right. But we were both a little impaired, and I had come up there to help him in a psychotic hurricane, so I thought now was the perfect time. He started to go back outside, so I grabbed his shoulder to stop him, and he took a swing at me.”
“Oh my God,” Gemma said, the words just coming out.
“What was I supposed to do? I swung back. Maybe a little harder than I should have, but I was drunk! And he was so ever-loving smug.”
A little spittle escaped his lips at this declaration. Gemma felt sick to her stomach. She lifted her water bottle to her lips and took a few short sips.
“He hit his head on the doorjamb and then kind of stumbled across the hallway and outside. He was yelling at me that I was a loser and he was going to call the cops and that me and my trash family were going to be thrown out on our asses the second the storm was over, and I just got so pissed, I shoved him.” Grant closed his eyes as his words came faster and faster, as if he was getting caught up in his story.
“He fell into the pool. Knocked himself out on the way in.”
Gemma tried to control her breathing as she gripped the arms of her chair.
Okay. Okay. Maybe this was okay. Everything he’d described so far had been self-defense.
Lincoln had started it. Grant had fought back.
Maybe there was some light at the end of the tunnel here?
Surely Richard and Leyth could work with this.
Spin some magic. And then she and her family would just have to go to therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.
“He was just floating there . . .” Grant continued, his eyes going glassy again.
“You didn’t think to jump in and try to save him?” Gemma asked, her heart sick as it pounded in her chest. She knew this was something the lawyers would ask. That her children would ask.
Grant shook his head absently. “Didn’t even cross my mind. Instead, I picked up the last speaker and tossed it into the pool.”
Gemma gasped. She had to cover her mouth with her hand and swallow repeatedly to keep the bile back.
Her vision went prickly at the edges, and she breathed through her nose as deeply as she could.
This was not the time to pass out. This was an utter nightmare.
She stood up, shoving the chair so hard it hit the wall behind him.
“Oh my God, Grant. You murdered him,” she whispered harshly. “You actually murdered the man.”
“It was an accident!” He tried to throw himself forward but then groaned and flung himself back again. His breath came fast and frantic as he fought against the pain in his body or with his guilt or both.
“Did you even hear what you just said? It wasn’t an accident!” Gemma hovered over him. “You tossed an electrical appliance into a pool with a man floating in it. You did that. That was not an accident!”
“Keep your voice down!” he said, gaze darting to the door in the corner.
“Is that what you care about right now? Who hears me tell the truth?” Gemma demanded. “What about what you’ve done to us? To me? To your family? Did it ever occur to you to think of us?”
“I was thinking about you! About all of us! I was trying to get us back on our feet. And that asshole laughed in my face!”
Gemma felt cold and hot at the same time. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She couldn’t believe he was trying to justify what he had done.
“I don’t understand. If the speaker was in the pool, how did it get back into the storage room?” she asked.
It took Grant a long time to answer. He kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. She watched his chest move up and down.
“After a second, I realized what I’d done. That if anyone found him like that with the speaker, it would look bad. So I fished it back out with the skimming net and put it inside.”
So you murdered him and then covered it up, Gemma thought.
“But someone saw me.”
“What? Who?” But even as she spoke the words, the answer came to her.
“Trevor,” he said.
“No,” Gemma said, her whole body revolting. She stood up and turned away. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t know he was there. He told me the next day. Had me meet him in the ballroom. Tried to blackmail me.”
“No, no! Just stop!” Gemma snapped, tears pouring down her face.
“I had to, Gemma. I had to protect our family.”
She turned around and looked at him, the back of her throat full, her bottom lip trembling. This man that she had loved. This man that she had created a life with. He had murdered two people in cold blood.
“I did what I had to do,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Well, I hope that makes you feel better when you’re rotting in a jail cell somewhere,” Gemma said coldly.
With that, Grant burst into tears. Huge, racking sobs.
Gemma couldn’t even comfort him. She walked over to the window, bracing one hand against it while she tried to get her bearings.
Outside the sun blazed, and light fluffy clouds danced across the blue sky.
A couple walked toward the hospital door with a huge bouquet and teddy bear.
Traffic stopped and started out on the road beyond the parking lot.
It was as if the hurricane had never happened. Life just went on.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” Grant said over and over and over again.
Gemma turned to look at him, at his shaking shoulders as he sobbed.
She thought about the couple of days after Lincoln’s death.
How he had acted like everything was fine.
How he had joined the search party for Trevor as if he didn’t know exactly what they would find.
How he’d tried to pin both murders on Suzy.
Gemma went back to the chair. She grabbed her purse and slung the strap over her shoulder.
Grant was still crying. Still repeating “I’m sorry” over and over and over again.
“I’m sorry too,” Gemma said.
Then she turned her back on him and walked out the door.